By Lee Fischer, EAA Lifetime 1066368
This piece originally ran in the January 2022 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
Like many of us I imagine, as a youngster I often looked to the sky in wonder. My dreams, thoughts, and, ultimately, my future were forged by a fascination of flight. I had no mentor, no guiding light, no kindred spirit. Solo flight was for the privileged, the favored, and the fortunate few.
In July 2011, a friend made an emergency landing en route to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. An engine-out forced the Robertson B1-RD down on a golf course, damaging the leading edge. After fixing the engine and replacing the damaged tube, I flew the airplane on to AirVenture. Directly after arrival, I met a gentleman from the Baltic States who was curious about the aircraft I’d flown in.
“It flies so slow. What is it?” he asked.
After explaining to him the origin and a little history of the machine, he started a story that eventually changed the course of my aerial pursuits. He was involved in a first-time flying program and showed several pictures of the primary glider they were using. It was ground towed by various means, and he was proud of the program’s accomplishments but unhappy with the speed and handling of the glider.
“We need something slower,” he told me. “Something like this.”
It seems his concerns were not only with the inertia developed at higher speeds but the vast amount of real estate disappearing behind the pilot that certainly did nothing to prolong the experience. He hung around for most of the week, and we had several great conversations about his project. In most cases at an event such as this, people meet, talk, and never see each other again. Occasionally contact information is exchanged, but in most cases, both parties leave with only memories.
Over the next few years, I talked to everyone and anyone who would listen. I made it a quest to find someone interested in a first-time flying program to no avail. Friends and associates chided me. They’d ask, “Why don’t you do it?” Although a good and valid question, at the time I didn’t even consider the possibility. After all, I was only concerned with “powered” flight.
Time marched on. Over the years, time tested and proven designs emerged from a little hangar/flying field and neighboring machine shop located on the outskirts of Winchester township in Wisconsin. Here a gaggle of engineers, designers, tinkerers, builders, flyers, and bull-talkers formed a loosely knit, not-for-profit organization, which was dubbed the Skonkwerks.
Strict adherence to FAR 103 was and always has been a guiding principle for the Skonkwerks group. It is a catalyst for thought, research, and development rather than an adversarial foe. Not in spite of but rather because of FAR 103, many rudimentary, stable, intuitive, and innovative flying machine designs sporting unique construction techniques and superior weight to strength to safety ratios have flown from the Skonkwerks field.
Skonkwerks’ Project First Flight is a natural and intuitive step to give back to the community, nurture the culture, and provide opportunities for prospective pilots, including interested youths and special needs adults. It is time for them to live their dreams, enrich their lives, and experience the magic of a timely towed solo flight firsthand.
The First Flight Flyer Prototype No. 1 is the first glider developed at the Skonkwerks. It is also the first FAR 103 compliant glider honored by EAA with an ultralight award. In only four short months the little craft was conceived, designed, developed, constructed, test flown, and shown at AirVenture 2021. It proved to be safe, affordable, robust, intuitive, and legal. But the airplane design game is a world of give and take, and there is a bit more juggling to do.
This Skonkwerks departure from normal powered designs was somewhat unprecedented but worthwhile. The amount of information, secret handshakes, and lessons learned from this design and construction challenge will ultimately show up in future projects. In the spirit of innovation and continual improvement, the Skonkwerks team has already begun construction of prototype No. 2, which should be nearing completion in late fall 2022.
The first goal of Project First Flight is to reduce the financial burdens and blur the paradigm associated with learning to fly by developing an economical ground-only towed flight system (think water skiing). The second goal is to publish plans and experiences and get them into the hands of interested organizations capable of training and operating a first flight program.
The Skonkwerks’ team hopes to achieve these goals through the development of an easy-to-build, legal, economical, safe, super simple, super slow First Flight Flyer. Through its ease of flight, intuitive response, and friendly nature, it will nurture confidence in a first-time pilot’s own abilities. Perhaps even aid in the pilot’s personal growth, and build trust across ages, backgrounds, socioeconomic, or geopolitical conditions. After all, we are all a family of flyers!