A rough month for BD5J's

Looks like they've lost another BD5J. Scott Manning crashed a couple
of weeks ago in Canada.
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http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/s...15082837c.html


Charles "Chuck" Lischer had spent more than 30 years in the air,
slicing through the skies in everything from air shows to training
missions for the U.S. military. He was an experienced pilot, his
friends say, which is why what happened on Tuesday is such a mystery.
Lischer, a 61-year-old Cameron Park resident, was killed when his small
plane crashed while landing at an Ocean City, Md., airport.

He had just completed a mission over the Atlantic Ocean in which his
Acrojet Special BD-5J was testing the radar systems of military jets,
the kind of exercise he had conducted about 300 times in the past five
years, said Bob Bishop, the president of the company that contracted
Lischer's plane to the government.

"He was one of our most experienced pilots in that plane," said
Bishop, a longtime friend of Lischer and president of Aerial
Productions International of Marana, Ariz. "To have what was
essentially a landing accident, we don't understand this one."
The cause of the crash is being investigated by the National
Transportation Safety Board, said Jim Peters, a spokesman for the
Federal Aviation Administration.

Thunderstorms moved through the Ocean City area on Tuesday, and Bishop
said Lischer's 20-minute test mission was cut short after other pilots
reported wind bursts in the area.

Lischer was making an approach into Ocean City Municipal Airport around
10:40 a.m. when his plane crashed into a wooded area 1,000 feet short
of the runway, Peters said.

"I turned around, looked back and I saw a plume of smoke and fire,"
Bishop said.

Lischer had contacted the airport's tower during his approach and
"everything was fine," Bishop said.

He said emergency crews recovered the plane's black box, which may help
to piece together what went wrong.

The plane, a one-seat aircraft described by the Federal Aviation
Administration as a "kit plane," weighed 500 pounds and had a wingspan
of 17 feet, Bishop said.

Aerial Productions International has three other Acrojet Specials in
its fleet, which it has contracted to the Air Force since 2000 to
simulate Chinese Seersucker cruise missiles and to test radar systems,
Bishop said.

The aircraft Lischer was flying was built in 1989, according to the
FAA. Small enough to fit into a two-car garage, the plane resembles the
one James Bond landed at a gas station in the 1983 movie "Octopussy."

In another mission for the military, Lischer flew the same plane near
Washington, D.C., landmarks -- including the White House -- on Thursday
to test that city's radar system, Bishop said. While saying Tuesday's
exercise involved military aircraft, Bishop would not elaborate,
describing the mission as "confidential."

That kind of intriguing work seems to fit the career of Lischer, known
to his friends as Chuck. According to his Web site, Lischer logged more
than 9,500 hours in over 70 different models of aircraft, including his
F-260 Warrior, a "light attack and training military aircraft being
flown by about 20 governments around the world."

His blue model features shark teeth painted on both sides of the nose.

Lischer purchased his F-260 in 1984, a few years after a civilian arms
dealer tried to buy it for an African country -- that deal was declared
illegal, according to Lischer's Web site -- and three years after it
appeared at the Paris Air Show.

Lischer, one of the founders of a storied aerobatic team called Team
America, was a regular at air shows around the country, including the
show at Mather Field in March and a show at Beale Air Force Base in
early June.

Last weekend he had taken part in a show in Rhode Island and was
scheduled to fly in 10 more shows this year, according to his Web site.

A licensed commercial pilot and flight instructor, Lischer received his
pilot license while attending San Diego State University. In 1974 he
was cleared by the FAA for "unlimited aerobatic competency for any
altitude and any airplane," his Web site states.

"He was a world-class air show pilot," Bishop said. "We know we are in
a very dangerous business, but this was more than a surprise."