Aerolite 103 Virginia to Oshkosh 2019

hi folks if you like the aerolite 103 you're gonna enjoy this story I just returned from AirVenture in Oshkosh Wisconsin where I met William and Henry Scott who shared the details of their inspiring journey from Virginia to Oshkosh in a narrow light 103 ultralight aircraft I hope you enjoy their story as much as I did this is Wayne Whitley I'm a retired computer design engineer and now I create adventure videos for fun come along with me and enjoy this Whitney videos adventure [Music] my name is William Scott I'm here at Oshkosh 2019 with my son Henry who flew his airolite 103 from Virginia to Oshkosh in 32 hops it took about it took seven days and about 21 hours of flying 60 gallons of gas two gallons of two cycle oil so my job basically was to my job was all the logistics of the trip you know to figure out what airports he's gonna go to next what check make sure the weather was okay check airspace to make sure he was you know everything was fine there and so forth I chased after him in a Toyota Sequoia and a trailer so typically he was much faster than I was when we made good progress in a day I would basically just show up with fuel fuel him up and leave you know he would you know I would on the way I would call him on the phone because he had a the Bose a20 headsets on which were bluetooth to his phone so even during flight every five minutes I would call him and saying how is the weather what are your engine temperatures you know what's the visibility like and you know can you see the airport and so forth so that we had had many different ways of making sure he was on track that way also the the Garmin in reach I used the Iridium satellite system to to give me a constant update every two minutes of his of his progress and I could kind of see if he was pointing in the right direction towards the airport you know or if he had gotten off and some he also used a Garmin 196 - as his main navigational point in a a soon 5:50 for a radio you know and in the evenings we would we would find some hotel or whatever Airport we had last stop that and next morning we'd get up but at 4 o'clock and and head on out I think when when we actually arrived here he was like wow I can actually like sleep in you know he was excited that he didn't have to wake up and go flying you know so so many times this whole process started when he was I think it was nine years old we came to son as we were son had fun and we went down there and he saw a narrow light and he says you know can III I think I could fly one of those and he was nine years old then he'd been flying with me since he was born and I thought about it and I thought well maybe he's a little too young for an air light so we got him started in powered paragliding when he was 10 and he so load in that when he was 11 and he came to gosh gosh when he was 12 just to fly here at Oshkosh and his powered paraglider but that didn't work out because they didn't know how to handle a twelve-year-old so we asked a person from Florida an expert in pair of powered paragliding came up from Florida and evaluated Henry's capabilities in the powered paraglider and checked him out and he flew last year at Oshkosh yeah so last year we ordered we talked to tennis and we ordered an aero light 103 we put it together this winter and began the training of Henry in I began training Henry and that the majority of his training took place in the you know the first 14 years of his life here because he he's been flying with me he's been my my human auto pilot for you know for his whole life we're not you know I want to take a break he takes over and flies you know flies the magenta line you know you know and he had the ideas I had rudders worked in things I have a Cessna 150 that we did all the basic flight maneuvers and training in with specific emphasis on stall it's been awareness type of stuff because I really wanted to emphasize you know if it getting lost is a problem but spending is the worst problem we got to the point where I'm a CFI so I could I could have sold him but for the fact that he was 14 years old and he you know you can't do that at that point so he was he was essentially flying without my assistance from from start up to shut down & Moring you know through States you know several states you know from from Virginia to Delaware or to Pennsylvania in my Cessna 150 doing everything you know navigating and radio calls and everything like that so when we got the arrow light 103 we I consulted some ultralight instructors how do you instruct somebody in an ultralight because you can't can't be there to do that and they they talk a guy named Tom Richards at the airport we we fly out of that in Virginia Warrenton Virginia he introduced me to this the idea of crow hopping and tax you know high-speed taxis wheelies and that sort of thing and that was the perfect the perfect way to introduce Henry to flying because he really emphasized rudder usage and you know coordinated flight and things like that so it was probably five or six days of crow hopping you know over the course of three two or three months where we were just going back and forth down the runway you know hopping around and and getting a feel of how the airplane and one day we he was ready and just kept a pet instead of pulling the power back and landing he kept the power in and entered the pattern and turned around and landed you know so that was a I was a very proud proud moment for myself you know to see him going around there and for him it was like it was just like business as usual you know he's he's weathered a lot of this stuff as in sort of a pleasant youthful innocence you know where he you know ends up flying something and and finds it no big deal but it's even though everybody else is you know around there with their heart you know skipping a beat and so forth so if you were to say what is that what was the challenge of this trip that was the challenge was the preparation for the trip you know the prior the prior the work that we put into the trip you know just you know the idea wasn't just to say here's you know this is how it works you know point yourself you know two-seven-zero and and I'll see you in Wisconsin we did some navigation we had work really work out how the navigate how to navigate to airports you've never been to before because 30 of the 32 airports he was and he had never been to before I had never even seen he went into two towered airports and through one doubts class delta airspace of course as you know we got would called them a prior and we got their prior permission and and and they were delighted to to accommodate him because he got on the radio and he did his radio calls and you know got you know got in the pattern and landed and taxied up to the FBI and for me it's it was a much more bigger deal for me to see him do those things that it was for him I think what what was the difficult part for him was going over the Appalachian Mountains which in an ultra-light is is like going over the Himalayas because any up dress up draft or found draft is a is quite a quite a large effect on the aircraft itself any headwind you know can multiply or subtract you know at add or subtract from your speed by 30% you know so he's it's a very it has a lot of the weather has a much larger relative effect on these small airplanes so anticipating that a month or go him and I flew out in my commander to Colorado and we took a mountain flying course at Aspen Flying School where he went in 1/72 and learned how to fly the mountain waves with some expert mountain guy who is much much better than I am you know and that's what it been that certainly gave him the idea of how to approach ridges look for escape routes deal with updrafts you know and downdrafts and things like that you know and I guess I guess here but the the point is going over those mountains there was a lot of preparation but even with that preparation it was probably his most difficult but what he would he convey to me is most difficult moment because it's a it's hard stopping to you know when you get thrown up 200 feet or you know down 200 feet and you know he had to circle to gain altitude a couple times avoid wind farms and and other towers and instructions and land at very different intensity altitudes you know that when he took off so once we cleared the mountains it was for the most part you know you might say clear sailing it was easy because it was the mountains weren't an issue anymore but but one charming thing that happened was every airport that he landed at you know everybody came out and was like what's that they all wanted to know what is it you know and they all wanted one and and they they asked him questions and because he was generally fast well he was always faster than I was he would always arrive at the airport 15 to a minutes to an hour ahead of time because I just couldn't get there as fast he had to sort of deal with the personnel there by himself and I felt that that was also interesting one Airport there was this outdoor grill you know a hundred dollar hamburger type place and when he at when he left there they all stood up and they all had their cameras out they all want to watch this you know 14-year old you know young man head off to it on his adventure so they they were we that we meant had several such situations where we came in and at airport yeah we were in Kankakee and it was sort of you might say popcorn thunderstorms everywhere these little tiny thunderstorms and I knew that any one of those thunderstorms would could mess him up you know if he if he got involved in any one of those so that was our most delayed day when we were in can Keke's we got there in the morning but then really had to stay there you know watching the weather you know evolve all day and then we made one more trip that evening to I forget which place then when we were in Wisconsin or upper Indiana and or Illinois in into cotton into Wisconsin I things went pretty pretty smooth one interesting thing towards the end is that get there he wanted to he wanted to get to Oshkosh you know he was one I said I said Henry because this was now Wednesday during the day and as you as we all seen this there's a ton of rain that came in that night and the next day and the next day and so forth so on Wednesday I think he did seven did he do seven flights on Wednesday it was a it was a pretty busy day that day several grass strips were involved that he we just were just making a lot of headway my plan was to stop and fondle Locke and sort of take take the temperature of how things were going and and make a try the next morning but when I saw the weather I saw that the winds were increasing because he he really doesn't like flying in more than ten knots of wind because it gets a little bit bumpy and you know to him crosswinds are the same thing as any he doesn't care whether his cross winds or not is ten knots of wind is his limit but we came in on that Wednesday to fondle Locke and I told him I said Henry later than today it looks like it's getting worse and then it's weather tonight he says well let's go I said well we've got to call the tower and so I called the tower up and but but he was a different man now you know because in the beginning you know when we were going in to Martinsburg the first time he was all nervous getting on the radio but he's like I got this I got it you know so he he took off and I'm chasing after him I'm trying to listen to him on the radio but he's out of radio range you know in no time because I can't hear him from the ground but I heard a couple of first calls it is you know ash Kosh tower it's ultralight because he didn't want gosh gosh tower yeah we called ourselves arrow light 103 when we were in Fonda Locke he he was a different man you know then then he was when he took off out of Virginia he was like what is my tower frequency what is my ground frequency you know and I'm like well that's the these are the frequency and he's plugging them into his radio his the memory of his radios so that he can get a handheld radio with a antenna but he wanted to make sure he had tower right and so we went over the airport diagram and he had an airport tire came in his pocket so he would understand all the taxiways and things like that and there was a there was a wonderful sense of confidence he had just you know going so as I followed him in the car I could hear him call gosh gosh tower and sort of this this moment of like well here is the - guys - you know there's months and months of practices have come - you know are coming to a conclusion now you know but then I lost radio contact I did track him the entire time using a satellite system you know that the in the Garmin in reach so that was my way in case we couldn't communicate from the ground I communicate with that but I came in on three six landed on three six there was nobody here and so he just taxied up here this this was a vacancy at that point and about I don't know 30 minutes later I got here you know to to greet him and and that was it and and we promptly went out to play putt-putt and go bowling you know just to you know knock the edge off so I think in the beginning it sort of changed the way I flew the thing is I had almost two engine house with and then in the air as the RPMs went down into the hundreds as the carburetor was too rich and so I learned how to treat the engine better and then from there I learned how to compensate for wind and the mountains but then by the time I learned that I was already over the mountains and smooth sailing and then I got another country and learned how to go straight and as quick as possible because there's a lot of winds just just steady winds and the headwinds crosswinds seeing like me if I go higher no not higher so lower the bless headwind or higher to get more tailwind or things like that which are key if you're only going 50 knots and you're trying to make it as soon as possible to go the next trip after that and then there is a few airports that had some military aircraft coming in there there's one where I had to go about like 500 feet away from a class Delta airspace which through the Air Force Base or not 500 but like a half a mile you know so I went on the other side of that I just drank hugging just try hugging to go right side of it and yeah I got people ask me what what is it what what does it do how much would it what everything about it and I've learned to talk to people more fluently about it instead of being uh or crunched up and then I am from land and Fonda Locke and you know it's how empty it is when it's a week before the air show and you know because usually there's like 50 airplanes there in one spot and now there's like two airplanes there the didn't repairs and my dad brought me a sandwich we ate and then went to Oshkosh and said I won't prefer three three six and he said okay and going through six and he's a contact ground and contact ground so that undid it and they said all right said help me go the ultralight field and they said go in the grass he own risk and mess it okay good day and went and then asked the people in there and they led me to my spot and then my - gosh I hope you like this video if you did hit the like button subscribe if you haven't and share this video with your friends as always I welcome your comments until next time take care [Music] [Music] you

Channel: WhitleyVideos

Views: 154,478

Rating: 4.9085765 out of 5

Keywords: Aerolite 103, Ultralight Aircraft, Low cost aircraft, Kit planes, Affordable aircraft

Id: tN-OoztLk98

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 31 2019