By Larry Fleming
This piece originally ran in the September 2024 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
The sun had risen on an early summer morning, as I prepared Nancy Anne, my new Aeros nanolight trike (a powered hang glider) for a distance flight. The roar of aircraft broke the silence of the cool morning air as dozens of RVs, Cessnas, and Beechcraft climbed out and turned, with sunlight reflecting off their wings, to head for a local EAA fly-in and breakfast 45 miles south at the Hanford, California, airport.
I was about to join them with my little ultralight, traveling downwind in the light morning breeze. Although I was confident of my nano trike’s ability to do the job, I was about to experience a chain of events that would lead to an unexpected adventure.
I have always dreamed of flying but could never afford the cost of general aviation. I discovered hang gliding in 1974 and never looked back. It has made flight possible for me and brought 50 years of enjoyment — but I wanted more.
I wanted convenience and reliable distance flights without needing to be chased by a retrieval truck. I wanted more variety. I was getting bored of doing and seeing the same stuff at our local hang gliding mountain sites. Flying my new ultralight 45 miles to land with a whole bunch of regular pilots for breakfast seemed like a great start to my new ultralight life.
Takeoff was nice. I rose into the soft air and watched the world fall away. I climbed to 1,700 feet above the ground and followed the course on my aircraft GPS over farmland, while avoiding the towered airspaces forbidden to my Part 103 aircraft. Because of the tailwind, my groundspeed was faster than normal, so I knew the return trip would be slower.
Oh, what a view! Alfalfa fields, vineyards, and orchards were everywhere. The country roads were filled with ground-bound cars coming and going on little black lines that cut across the land. I flew between small towns and recognized familiar landmarks on the ground, like a gas station on Highway 41 with an old wrecked airplane mounted on the roof, the distant runways of Naval Air Station Lemoore, and the enormous vineyards of Selma.
I heard pilots on my aircraft radio way up ahead as they announced their landings at Hanford. I saw the images of many other aircraft dotted around me on my GPS, all of us flying to breakfast at Hanford. The flight felt shorter than 50 minutes as I announced and took my turn to land.
Breakfast was great. Between bites and conversation, I noticed the wind starting to increase and gust. My gentle morning tailwind was turning into a hot, nasty return headwind. It was time to leave. I was not concerned about fuel, because I had used only 6 liters and had 12 liters for the return, which should be plenty.
After takeoff, I set my throttle for a steady climb, but my machine was soon falling instead. The wet, irrigated farmland all around was creating sink, and I had to use more power to stay in the air. I was burning fuel faster than normal. My GPS had indicated a return trip of 60 minutes at takeoff, which was well within my fuel limits. However, after 10 minutes of slow flight, my GPS told me I had not made much progress toward home. I was still an hour away despite being 30 minutes into the flight.
I wiped the forming sweat from my eyes and locked my vision on the forward progress creeping along on my GPS — slower … faster … OH NO, SLOWER!
The return flight was taking longer than expected. The air was rowdy and falling as I slowly inched forward in a gusty headwind, trying to stay in the air — engine screaming — just above the ground. I realized fuel was now an issue as I saw my normal groundspeed of 42 mph turn into 30, 25, and sometimes even as low as 20 mph.
I tried to conserve fuel by catching thermals over dry, open land to climb, but I only lost ground as the rough wind pushed me farther back with each climbing circle. The clock was ticking and the gas was flowing. I decided to set course for an airport that sold fuel along the way, planning to gas up, just in case.
I felt like a wounded duck as I slowly limped into Chandler airport with its beautiful gas pump waiting for me. There were only 4 liters left in my gas tank when I pulled up to the pump, which was just barely enough to get me home with no reserve. I poured enough two-stroke oil into the tank to mix with 2 new gallons and began refueling. Unfortunately, I was filtering the fuel with a special funnel, which slowed down the speed of the fuel to a trickle. There was no “rush or gush” to help the incoming fuel mix with the fresh two-stroke oil. I tried shaking my 210-pound trike to help mix the oil, but there was little movement.
A crowd of interested people had gathered around to see my odd-looking little aircraft. They had lots of questions and wanted to visit with me as the wind grew increasingly worse, motivating me to get going.
One person asked, “Are you going to start that?”
“Just watch and you’ll see it take off and fly home,” I proudly exclaimed to the crowd. “CLEAR!”
The engine turned over, coughed, started, blew a mean, ugly cloud of black smoke, shook, and then died, never to start again that day. We discovered later that raw, unmixed two-stroke oil had clogged the carburetor.
The crowd of admirers mercifully vanished as I hung my head and looked around for a comfortable place to wait. I called my good friend and asked him to bring my old faithful hang gliding truck for a retrieve. I rolled the ultralight to a grassy area to disassemble it for the trip home to my workshop.
After learning of my problem, my wife brought hamburgers, which helped soften the feeling of defeat. The hot, gusty wind continued to taunt me, spinning my freewheeling propeller like a child’s toy and blowing my stuff all over the airport.
The adventure was ending for the day. My easy distance ultralight flight had ended like previous challenging hang gliding cross-country flights — pack up and return home via a retrieval truck.
Although the day did not go as planned, I rediscovered the great friendships I had — my wife showing up with lunch, my good friend bringing my Toyota, and all my friends at the home airport who called because I had not returned. As we limped away in my loaded pickup, with the evil wind pushing us out of the airport, I thought about the lessons I had learned.
I decided this was an experience to help me in future flights and a story to share, which might entertain and enlighten others. The sounds of engines, propellers, and chirping tires floated through my Toyota’s open windows as we left, but I knew I would share the sky with those airplanes again, on another day.
Larry Fleming has flown hang gliders for 50 years, beginning in 1974. He has over 4,000 hours of airtime in hang gliders and around 400 hours in his Aeros nanolight trike.