The RV brought me there, but it is about the people and things we fly...

[turbo]

i ended up at spadaro on long island today, 1N2, and hung out with the locals which happens on thursday evenings. a lot of rvs and just plane grass roots flying. well they talked about this ultralite that they had but nothing was happening for a long time till the end of the day. down the end of the runway there it was, coming out of the hangar, i forget what it is called, help me out someone, and jake taxis it to us. now this thing is bare bones. the stick controls the elevator and rudder and that is it except for the throttle. everyone takes there turn until it is just me left. ok, i have seen enough! along with plenty of encouragement and the fun begins. here is my taxi departure.
http://vid1130.photobucket.com/album...e/IMG_0054.mp4
more to come..............

[Mike H]

That's an old Quicksiler MX. I used to have a single seat M-squared Breese with a 60 horse HKS four stroke engine. The M-squared aircraft are basically modified heavy duty Quicksilvers. Lots of fun!

[turbo]

http://vid1130.photobucket.com/album...e/IMG_0060.mp4
jake is taking the first flight. he built it. now lives out west , owns a rv4 and works for scaled composites.

[turbo]

for later, more on jake.........place holder stuff

[fixnflyguy]

I used to work for a Quicksilver dealer in Miami (circa 1981) as demo pilot and flight instructor, and favored the Doublequick. It had no controls, simply weight shift with chords attached to the swing seat that linked to the rudder wich actually gave some pretty impresive control authority. Powered by the Cuyuna 430 (35hp) that sucker would take off in 50 ft and climb at near 45 degrees. With floats on it, there was nothing cooler than flying barefoot down through the keys... The first MX I had actually had a yoke and wheel,with rudder as primary roll control and foot pedals attached to spoilers, which could really get you going downhill fast...those were the days!

[XOverZero]

In the early 80s I was a manufacturing engineer at the Quicksilver factory, which at that time was known as Eipper Aircraft, Inc. The company was searching for an engine that was better and more reliable than the 2 cylinder Cuyuna that was then the standard powerplant. Those had a notorious reputation for melting holes in pistons. They were very intolerant of minor changes in atmospheric conditions, such as when you climb from the surface to 1000? AGL.

There was a field adjacent to the factory in San Marcos, CA where we launched and landed test flights. Then we had to cross a busy freeway to get to an open field area less than a mile away. One day, for some reason, I decided to climb high before I crossed the freeway. Yup, sure enough, right over the fast lane the engine quit. When one of those two stroke, vibrasonic engines stops turning, it doesn?t spit, sputter, stumble, or surge?it ? just ? stops! The engine is located a few inches behind the pilot?s helmet, screaming along at 7000 rpm, and one nanosecond later the only sound to hear is the wind in the wires and the traffic noise below. The effect is rather startling.

Nose down, turn around and head back to the field. It turned out to be a broken kill switch. No big deal.

It was just in that time frame that the Rotax engine showed up and proved to be the solution to the engine issues.

[Mel]

I will say one thing about that video.
I flew ultralights and even instructed in them for several years back in the early to mid '80s.
We NEVER flew one without a helmet!

[turbo]

http://vid1130.photobucket.com/album...e/IMG_0383.mp4
I don't know if these guys know what a helmet is but is sounds like a good idea. I'll check on it next Thursday for round two.