SDR Porsche Flying Club???

[mrondeau]

Just skydiving. The plane they take you up in at Perris is not "perfectly good" I'd rather jump out of it than attempt a landing in that thing. It is the greatest adrenalin rush I've ever experienced.

[ttweed]

I grew up under a heavy influence of sport aviation--my father began flying sailplanes after leaving the AF after WWII, and designed and built 3 aluminum sailplanes in our garage while I was growing up. This is a picture of him next to the first one, which he called the "GT-1" (his first name was George, so those were his initials).



I spent many an evening bucking rivets on those, and almost every weekend with him at Torrey Pines or Elsinore Dry Lake (yes, before they filled it!). My first flight was a winch tow at Torrey Pines in a Schweizer TG-2 when I was 5 years old, and he taught me to fly by the time I was 12, beginning in the old 85 HP Piper Cub that the local club (AGCSC) used as a tow-plane. Walt Mooney was a member of that club, and I met him when I was very young. If I remember correctly, he fractured a vertebra in his back crashlanding his glider on the beach at Torrey Pines one day.

By the time he evolved his design into his second glider, the 60' wingspan, high aspect ratio GT-2, the glass sailplanes from Europe had started dominating, especially the Glasfleugel, and his aluminum construction became obsolete. I crewed for him and some of his buddies in national gliding competitions, and at the last one he flew in his GT-2 in Sparks, Nevada, he lettered "Ironfluegel" under the canopy in a touch of sarcasm, as was his nature. Then he went out and bought one of the Glasfluegels to stay competitive.

He eventually earned his "Diamond C" badge, became a national director of the SSA, and even competed in the first Smirnoff cross-country sailplane race. When he retired (the first time), he bought the soaring concession at El Mirage Dry Lake at Adelanto and ran that for several years, until some students scared him to death. The last ship he built, the GT-3, was a 2-place, side-by-side, high-performance trainer. He owned a series of power planes as well--a Cessna, a Citabria, and a twin-engine Navion, as I remember.

My greatest goal when I was young was to solo and earn my gliding license as soon as I was eligible, which was age 14 at the time, but unfortunately, I started surfing at the age of 12 and never looked back. My weekends with him became fewer and fewer as all I wanted to do was go to the beach. I never did get my license. Ironically, it was at the annual AGCSC barbeques at La Jolla Shores beach where I first discovered and was enthralled by surfing, in the early '50s.

TT

[Mike]

Cool story TT.
There is a lot of history in San Diego avaition.

[Kim Crosser]

TT - AGCSC was my intro to flying in 1968 back at UCSD (40 years ago??? That can't be!). Launching off the cliffs at Torrey with that "barrage balloon" winch (equipped with a big Mercury V-8 engine to get that nice sling-shot effect) using patched target tow cable scrounged from Miramar NAS. Fifty cents per flight was even affordable for a college student. Mostly Schweitzer 2-22 flights, but also part-owner of a 1-26 for a while. Ridge soaring at Elsinore was also good, but quite a bit more expensive for a college student. Fun times.

I remember a sailplane called "IronFluegel" that crashed through a stand of trees up at Lake Elsinore around 1971 ('70? '72?). Was that your Dad (or your Dad's plane)? I was part of the crew that went around picking up pieces to take back.

[PShipman]

Great bunch of stories!

In a spin, both feet in won't help much with this group. My dad is a pilot, instrument rated, instructor, etc, but is too smart to post to the forum for now....

Jad Jad Jad ... now Jim is the kind of guy who flies those big twins and corporate jets ... anything goes wrong with one of those and you need Edwards' 15,000 foot strip for a landing!

The rest of us (or at least I) have been stuck with those "chevy bellaire" style contraptions which can land on postage stamps, with or without a working engine

Seriously, though, I remember my first couple of hours of landing instructions and this gut level feeling that "THE BRAKES JUST DON'T WORK!" ... as Jad has pointed out.

[ttweed]

Cool story TT.
There is a lot of history in San Diego avaition.

Ya--I found out about 15 years ago that one of my early surfing heroes, Woody "Spider" Brown, was also a pioneer of gliding here in San Diego. They used to launch off Mt. Soledad, he said, before they used Torrey Pines! This was pre-WWII, maybe 1935? I believe he was involved in the original establishment of the glider port at Torrey Pines. He was also one of the original surf crew in San Diego, one of the first guys to surf WindanSea, and moved to Hawaii before I was even born to become one of the first haoles to surf big waves on the N. shore of Oahu. He was out with Dickie Cross at Sunset Beach in 1943 on a rising swell that quickly became so huge they couldn't get in. They paddled down the coast to Waimea and Woody made it in, but Dickie lost his life.

He went on to build one of the first modern Hawaiian beach catamarans and spent 40 years sailing tourists off the beach at Waikiki, as well as making trans-oceanic voyages in them to prove their seaworthiness.

I finally met him at an old-timers reunion at Windansea in 1993. He was ancient and thin, but he went out and caught a few waves on a replica vintage "kook-box" that Don Okey had built for him. Here's a pic from that day--L to R is me, Woody, Don Okey, and my friend Paul Elder.

More stories from his amazing life can be found at the Legendary Surfers website here: http://www.legendarysurfers.com/surf/legends/woody.shtml, as told to Malcolm Gault-Williams.

TT

[ttweed]

TT - AGCSC was my intro to flying in 1968 back at UCSD (40 years ago??? That can't be!).

Wow, Kim, there are some amazing coincidences here! I started at UCSD in the second class at Revelle College in 1965, and graduated in 1970. Our paths must have crossed at some point! My wife started at Muir College in 1968.

I remember a sailplane called "IronFluegel" that crashed through a stand of trees up at Lake Elsinore around 1971 ('70? '72?). Was that your Dad (or your Dad's plane)? I was part of the crew that went around picking up pieces to take back.

Ya, he did crash it once and walked away, so that may have been him. I wasn't there that weekend, but I heard the stories. Apparently, a safety pin broke or rattled loose (or wasn't fastened properly when the plane was assembled that morning) on an aileron control tube bolt, and he lost roll control. He set it down rather abruptly on the side of a steep ridge wedged in between some big rocks, he said, and only ended up with a strained back (which ended up bothering him off and on for the rest of his life, though.) I didn't hear about the trees, but I never saw the crash site. I'm not even sure now if his crash happened at Elsinore or when he was flying cross-country, east of there. That's pretty amazing if you helped recover it! As I remember, he rebuilt the plane and flew it some more, then sold it, so it's possible there was a second crash, later on.

edit--After thinking back about the timeframe, I believe his crash was much earlier, back in the 60s, when I was still living at home, and may have even been in the GT-1 and not the GT-2, so perhaps it was still the "Ironfluegel", but with a subsequent owner in the crash you saw in the 70's. After 40 years, my memories are certainly hazy about it...You know what they say--"If you remember the '60s, you weren't there."

TT

[Rsylvestri]

Great stories Tom
I've done some flying in Warner Springs with 8-10 hrs in a sailplane and a half that in a Cessna 150/172 years ago. Just started running out of time and money with my other hobbies of fishing/MX / Jetski
Love that ultralight!

[jplavanjr]

I fly an A-36 Bonanza out of MYF.

Mike- I would love to take you up on that offer of a tour. I've been meaning to try to do that for a couple of years now.

JP

[Kim Crosser]

I started at UCSD in the second class at Revelle College in 1965, and graduated in 1970. Our paths must have crossed at some point! My wife started at Muir College in 1968.

I started UCSD in 1968, graduated in 1972 - Revelle College, in Atlantis Hall. I did a little surfing back then, on a borrowed 11'10" board - used to run into Paul Saltman when he surfed down at the Shores before classes.

I didn't see the crash itself, just the aftermath - as I recall the details, the IronFluegel had something go wrong (the pin?) and had to do an emergency landing on the hillside below the ridge (to the SW of the then-dry lake bed). The pilot aimed for a small clearing, but found it full of big rocks and tried to hop some trees into the next clearing. The aircraft went through the trees and then stopped in the next clearing (probably also full of big rocks). There were a lot of comments about how one of the more modern fiberglass ones would have disintegrated in the trees, but the IronFluegel "mostly" punched through them. Still a bunch of loose parts that we hiked around and picked up. It was definitely between Spring 1969 and Fall 1971, but I can't pin the year down exactly.

[Tim Comeau]

"Lose sight, lose the fight."
"Idle and boards."
"Only the spirit of attack born in a brave heart will bring success to any fighter aircraft no matter how highly developed it may be."

I was born to be a Navy Fighter pilot. Don't know how many fishbeds and floggers I've downed in my sleep...... Missed my chance because of 10 lousy points shy on the SAT. Now, I'd settle for learning how to fly, period.

[GT3Girl]

Does being a flight attendant for American Airlines for a couple of years count? To my best recollection, pushing the stick forward would almost be equal to putting both feet in...(in a spin...) I just can't remember the formal name for the stick.

I love reading your guys' flying stories, I've have some to tell, but it wouldn't be too cool......on this forum. ha ha.

[LShipman]

Does being a flight attendant for American Airlines for a couple of years count

Linda has more than a thousand hours sitting in the right seat putting up with my sometimes questionable skills.

I would vote that being an attendant for AA would be much the same ... you'd really know a lot and could handle a lot in the pinch ... but would seldom get the recognition that you deserve!

[gjb3545]

I still have my Mooney, Xcross has taken up my attention except for business trips. The Moonies are referrd as the Porsche of the skies. Both are small, fast and efficent. The actual Porsche powered Mooney was a little ahead of it's time,with it's single power lever.Mooney also installed the engine in a new for them "long" body version. A little more tweaking and it would have been a winner, as the new rage is single lever "Fadec" system. Porsche finally pulled the plug on engine support,after 20yr. or so. They paid to have all of them converted to Continental Engines. They were being converted in Florida and most were destroyed by a hurricane. I believe a few are still around but you cannot do anything but look at them as the paper work was also lost. The planes will have to be parted out and sold for scrap. Tooooo Bad it could have easily worked. Remember don't make the Krauts mad.
Greg

[kurquhart]

For those interested in planes, the 12/9 tour visits the air musuem at March AFB:
http://www.pcasdr.org/img/2007/Calendar ... Museum.pdf