My new Trikebuggy has arrived!!  Thanks Chad Bastian! I'll put her together today and hope to get her airborne soon. 

What do you do when the conditions are great for flying but you are waiting for parts for your paramotor? Go to the track and rent some racing go carts! Kaden and I had a great time mixing it up at the Sugar River Raceway. A little experiment with power to weight ratios.

Someday soon…these trikes will be airborne. This fleet of Blackhawk trikes is owned by Jim, his wife and brother. We hope to have all three make their first solo flights soon, then they will officially be called “Pilot”. Best of luck to all three of you!

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Busy day at the airport today, he says sarcastically. A rare sighting of the airport’s one and only airplane, a beautiful Piper Archer. She needs a lot more of the runway to take off then a paramotor. Cruising speed is about five times faster, 120 vs 20. She also burns Avgas a little bit faster, 12 gallons an hour vs ¾ gallon per hour. Each craft is great at their intended use. 

Here sits my Miniplane disassembled and awaiting pick up in the dark. Friday night was the first time I have ever needed to call my wife to be picked up after flying. Just before sunset and after about an hour of wonderful summertime flying, I let off the throttle to lose altitude and do some low flying over some lovely pastures. However, instead of dropping to a nice idle my motor stopped! I was a couple hundred feet up so I had a chance to give the pull start a couple of rips before committing to landing somewhere other than where I took off. No luck, not even a sputter. OK, this field will have to do. Head into what little bit of breeze there is, check to see if I'll be dealing with cows or a bull on landing, flare, touchdown! Nice field. No crops or cows, just tall grass. Pack up my wing, walk to the road and call for pick up. Just to see what project might lay before me, I gave the starter a pull to see what would happen. She fired right up without any coaxing! Well after sunset now I decide not to attempt to relaunch and instead prepped my paramotor to fit in the back of the wife's RAV4. 

My boys, Kaden (12) and Logan (8) helped my clear trees from the side of the runway at Verona airport today. The boys loved using axes, hatchets and the clipper. The rotor from the trees doesn't bother fixed wing aircraft near as much as our PPG's soft wing.