Aerial Maneuvers: Piloting an Ultralight Aircraft

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Outside Magazine, May 2004

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Aerial Maneuvers (cont.)

The powered parachute is a surprisingly forgiving flying machine: half engine, half airfoil. Even so, it's not idiot-proof.

BUT FIRST YOU NEED to learn to fly. That's why I'd signed up for a four-day course at SkyTrails Ranch, a PPC training center in St. George. Founded in 1999 by Scheffel and fellow pilot Paul Gooch, SkyTrails takes advantage of the high desert's stable weather and consistent flying conditions.

At first glance, the powered parachute appears a hermaphroditic aircraft—half loud, thrusting engine, half soft, pliant airfoil. But the combination creates a surprisingly forgiving flying machine. The cart—which carries the engine, prop, and pilot—hangs like a pendulum below the 36-foot-wide canopy. In the air, the craft always self-corrects. For example, press a steering bar out as far as it will go and you'll begin to spiral downward, the cart swinging outward with considerable centrifugal force. Simply let off on the bar, however, and the cart will stabilize beneath the chute.

The parachute, a series of sewn-together hollow tubes that inflate when airborne, has the unique ability to rebuild itself in less than 50 vertical feet of drop. Translation: If for some reason your wing collapses in a freak wind, the chute will balloon back to shape within seconds. The PPC, in other words, is its own emergency landing device. Top speed for the PPC is 32 miles per hour, and its maximum range (due to the five-gallon fuel limitation) is about 50 miles.

Straightforward as they are to fly, PPCs are still aircraft, and not idiot-proof; learning aeronautical basics is essential. Three other students and I spent the first day at SkyTrails in ground school, working through concepts in the 260-page Powered Parachute Guide and Training Manual: the Bernoulli principle, thrust vs. drag, lift vs. weight, wing loading, propeller/ engine torque compensation, wake turbulence, density altitude—flight theory that seemed complicated on the ground but began to make sense once I was airborne. On day two, after practicing taxiing, turning, and kiting (accelerating until the chute pops up above your cart) on a dirt field southeast of town, we notched our inaugural flight, an instructor-assisted soar in a two-seater PPC.

Later that day, I took my first solo flight. After my near miss with the barbed-wire fence and after my heart rate dropped below 200, I managed to land into the wind, safely and properly. As I rolled to a stop and cut the engine, Scheffel ambled toward me.

"Just practicing my below-radar maneuvers," I said, pulling off my sweat-drenched helmet.

Scheffel grimaced and stared at me through his aviator sunglasses. A stubby, suntanned, sandy-haired 52-year-old, he is normally chipper as a sparrow.

"The powered parachute is the safest ultralight there is, Mark. Only 26 people in the past two decades have figured out how to kill themselves flying one." A smile was sneaking up on him. "I've taught hundreds of people to fly, and no student of mine has ever even broken a fingernail. I don't expect this to change. Now, what'd you do wrong?"

I humbly enumerated my mistakes. Showing off and not checking the windsock. Consequently trying to land across the wind. In a panic, mixing up ground steering (wheel-turning lever) with aeronautical steering (foot bars). Forgetting to throttle up when it was apparent the landing should be aborted.

"You got it," Scheffel said. "Put your helmet back on. I want you to kite your chute and do a pre-flight. You're going right back up."

I refueled the PPC, gave it a thorough inspection, and flicked the engine switch on. As soon as the motor warmed up, I shoved the throttle forward and began rolling fast down the dirt. Within a few seconds, the chute leaped up above me, and I was airborne.

An hour later, when I came safely back to earth, I'd been grinning so hard my teeth were speckled with bugs.

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