On 8 Jun 2004 16:32:57 -0700, ChuckSlusarczyk
wrote:

In article , pacplyer says...

I got confused cuz I thought you bought the business from somebody
else. Mike P. sent me an email and explained the repurchase of the
co. I was a teen-ager at that show, I think it was 77', impressed
with your new reduction drive set up. It was the year this guy (I
think he had a direct drive) tried to footlaunch, tripped and broke
his back. I didn't see it happen, but I saw the blood on the broken
wooden prop. Was that 77 or earlier? So you were around at the
begining of the "powered hang glider" movement. I should be calling
you "sir."

pac

No need for any sir business I'm not that vain :-) But I appreciate the
courtesy.I'm just one of the do nuthin no nuthin loudmouths here on RAH LOL!!! I
used to foot launch for about a year and by 1977 I had wheels. I was lucky
enough to survive the early days of Hang gliding AND ultralights. I think the
guy your talking about was from florida ,I haven't seen or heard of him since.

Yeah, I think you are right. That year, 1977 I bought a Moody Power
Pac. Tom Verner and I bought it from you Chuck. Check your old
records and you'll see that shipment to Vegas that year. We mounted
it on an Easy Riser we built. Tom Verner and I took it out and foot
launched it many times. With the Easy Riser, you just hung from two
bars that went under your arm pits. If you let go, you fell out of
it. There was no strap to hold you in.

I thermalled that baby to about 5000 feet once after a foot
launch...scared the **** out of myself. The thermal wouldn't let me go
but finally spit me out there a mile above the dry lake bed. It took
me another 15 minutes to get back down and land. I never flew it
again.

That power pack used the Chrysler 801, twelve horsepower enging IIRC.
Amazing that you could fly so well on 12 horsepower. In 1980 Tom and
built two Quicksilvers on floats. That airplane had the Yamaha racing
go-cart engine. It was 15 hp I reacall. I have shot of it on floats
on Jay Honeck's page (I think).

It was the ultimate toy on floats. Until one day I was initiating a
water-tko and a boat ran in front of me making a large wave. I
aborted the tko, hit the wave and went over backward. As I capsized
backward I saw the surface of the water move away from my face as I
was dragged underwater. If you guys recall, the weight shift
Quicksilvers had two straps that held you in, one around each thigh.
They used a plastic disconnect that was rather hard to undo. As I was
5 feet under water and trapped in that seat I reached down for the
release and had a problem with it. I remember thinking to myself,
"You have one shot at this mutha. Just hold your breath, be
methodical, go slow and be deliberate. If you don't…you get to die
today.

I slowly unsnapped the left one, then reached over for the right one.
It was all in the dark at this point, I was 10 feet under water. The
right one wouldn't disconnect. I sighed in my mind's eye, and took a
second shot at it. Bingo, I was free. I swam away from the seat and
up to the surface. That was 24 years ago. Every day has been a free
day since that day. Well, other than the days I've spent after
hitting a wire in the Minimax, or losing that engine in the RV-6 a few
years ago when I had to dump it into the desert. Then there was the
time in the B-1RD I had three engine failures on me in one day. After
the third one, I abandoned that piece of **** in the desert and walked
home…or the time I got behind the power curve on take off in my
gyrocopter and crashed it in the desert. I walked home then too,
kicking myself for trashing a $3000 set of main rotor blades.

Let's see, how many lives is that? If I have nine, I'm only half way
through.

Some of the younger pilots at the helicopter company wonder why I'm so
anal about flying helicopters while they cowboy around like the 25
year olds that they are. It's because even if you do everything
right, "Flying" can still kill you DEAD. I'm to the point now that I
tell the kids: "If I'm in the cockpit with you, fly like you are on a
checkride with an FAA examiner. I don't want any horseplay at all
with me in this piece of ****. If you want to **** around then do it
all by yourself, not with me on board." I'm a cranky old **** and I'd
like to live a while longer.


BWB