pdw
01-12-2006, 07:31 PM
On Sunday, January 8, I was on my way home from church and I saw a fixed wing UL lined up on an abandonned asphalt road. There were several people standing around and it looked like the UL was preparing to take off. I stopped and talked with one of the men who appeared to be directly involved with the UL. He stated that he had bought the unit from a friend of his for $100. He went on to say that he had replaced most of the parts. He told me that he had taken off and got scared because it was his first time up, so he made an emergency landing in a nearby field. He evidently landed OK, but the field was too muddy to take off again. They then towed the UL behind a pickup down the abandoned stretch of pavement to take off again. He stated that his dad was going try to take off and fly back to there original point of departure. He then hand propped the small two stroke engine and his dad began his takeoff roll down the road. The dad lost directional control of the UL and came dangerously close to rollling on the ground, before he aborted the takeoff. At that point I got in my car and told my wife that we would be reading about those two in the newspaper. On Monday, it was reported that the UL did crash later that day. I do not have any details of the crash yet, but will post any I get.