by Chappy » Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:59 pm
Hi Joe,
I wasn't trying to make you feel bad about buying the Elite. I'm the one that felt bad because sometimes enthusiastic newbie's get in over their head. The Lazair you bought has lots of issues and will take a lot of work to make it right. Yes, I know it is "flyable", but that doesn't mean it should be in anywhere near it's current condition!
Paul is a old flying buddy of mine. He and I both ordered Lazairs at Oshkosh in 1979, the first year Ultraflight was in business. They (meaning Dale Kramer and his sidekick Peter Corley) took a Lazair to Sun N' Fun that spring and made quite an impression; the Lazair for being light years ahead of virtually all the other Ultralights present (some of which couldn't even make it out of ground effect, much less reach pattern altitude of a few hundred feet), and Peter. He was continuously in hot water for doing things like pulling loops while climbing out from the runway. Paul called me around December and said he had his Lazair half built, and heard I had bought one too. I had a fit because I had been waiting patiently for the factory to call me for the rest of the money and a delivery date. You see, I had placed my deposit before Paul. As it turned out, this worked out great for Paul, as he had his Lazair finished and in the air before mine, but I had built an enclosed trailer while I was waiting, so now I got the task on hauling his plane to Pennsylvania to a Spring fly-in so he could show it off. That was fun, but boy did I want to get mine in the air too! I did get it finished in time to haul it to Oshkosh, where Peter Corley flew it so it would be eligible to be judged (as a brand new student pilot, I wasn't comfortable flying it there). My Lazair won the second place award for best Ultralight. Boy was I proud! Paul may have gotten in the air first, but I had a much prettier Lazair than his. Actually, I remember now that someone (NOT ME!) tried to break one wing in half running it into something, and Paul had already placed a big old patch on one of the spars. Paul is known for being the first Lazair builder to reverse his wing tips, so they pointed down, not up. That plane probably had the lowest stall speed of any Lazair ever built, but was not so well behaved when making steep turns. I was known for building the first (only?) set of reduction drives for the Pioneer chainsaw engines that were supplied on the early series ones (and sadly, for having probably the heaviest series one ever built). I had also added an extra set of nacelle mounts to my Lazair, but after Wally Wonderful (HIS TRUE NAME!) flew his Lazair with four engines before I did, I lost interest in doing it.
Paul was nice enough to let me trailer my Lazair the 40 or so miles to his place to fly anytime I wanted, whether he was home or not. He always left the house open so you could use the bathroom, or raid the fridge! I almost lived there on weekends the first couple years. We had some incredible times there just North of Olney, Maryland. NOBODY knew what an Ultralight was back then, and most airports treated us very well. It was only later when boneheads in stuff like Wrong Brothers flying wings and Rotec Rally type planes showed up and started killing themselves that things got bad. And then there was the local CBS TV reporter that lied about his flying experience , took off in a friend's 'Dac WITHOUT PERMISSION, and dived it so fast he folded a wing back and FELL OUT killing himself on camera. Things weren't so happy around here (DC suburbs) for awhile after that fiasco.
Look, it seems like you are a smart, talented guy and will do fine with the hardware. Please, get some formal flight training, get someone with Lazair experience to test fly your plane, then make your first flights in the early mornings when there is NO WIND. These planes are very easy to fly in no wind conditions, but can become a handful to even a very experienced pilot until they get accustomed to the extreme low wing loading. It's just a matter of working your way up to real world daytime conditions. Take your time, take it easy, get some training, and you'll do fine.
Good luck, Chappy in VA
Series one, serial number 25, redrive Pioneer with 44" homemade pine props
Series three enclosed cockpit (EC), serial number unknown, Rotax (project)