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each flight Reporter Dexter Ford and pilot Henry Boger, owner of Pacific Blue Air. Photos courtesy of Pacific Blue Air 26 Easy Reader / Beach magazine • May 10, 2018
trikeFord Otherwise known as weight-shift-control light sport aircraft because that’s how you steer them — by shifting your weight You’ve seen them buzzing along the beach like monstrous bees, or swooping low like Skittlescolored seagulls off the Manhattan Beach Roundhouse. They look—and sound—like the unholy spawn of a hang glider and an industrial-strength leaf blower. Some people love these carefree, airborne symbols of freedom and fun. Others, not so much. As with many loud, brightly-colored adult toys, from Ducatis to Lamborghinis to jet skis, these tiny, open-air airplanes look incredible fun if you’re the one steering. For the rest of us, those of us staring up at all the noise and merriment, uninvited from the aerial fun-fest—well, your emotions may vary. But where do these things come from? Is there an airborne biker bar hidden somewhere on the industrial side of the 405? Is there a secret Batcave that houses these bat-like airplanes, presumably owned by a reclusive, wealthy thrill seeker, a kind of Beach Cities Bruce Wayne? A few seconds on Google provided some answers. These airplanes are flown by Pacific Blue Air, a flight school that specializes in what are called Weight-Shift- Control Light Sport Aircraft. From its base hangar at the Hawthorne Airport, just south of the 105 Freeway, Pacific Blue conducts introductory flight lessons that just happen to go over some of the most beautiful and interesting sites in Southern California. After the first, fun-oriented intro lesson, Pacific Blue can also take you all the way to earning a full Light Sport Pilot’s License, setting you loose to fly across the country if you want. G-Whizz They may look a little Backyard Buck Rogers at first sight, but these airplanes are FAA certified, exhaustively tested and rigorously engineered. Small single-engine airplanes, like routine Pipers and Cessnas, are typically built to withstand about three times the force of gravity — that is, to support three times their loaded weight. The LSA that Pacific Blue flies, the Evolution Revo, is designed and tested to twice that—6gs. So even though it may look like a combination of a lawn dart, espresso machine and bloated bobsled, it is very much a serious, civilized airplane. Instead of conventional controls, these trikes, as they are called in the business, are steered by the pilot adjusting the angle of the wing relative to the body of the plane hanging underneath. This method of control is older than the first airplane. The gliders that inspired the Wright brothers, flown by German pioneer Otto Lilienthal, were controlled this way, as are the thousands of unpowered hang gliders. Instead of a control yoke or a joystick, the pilot holds the bottom of a big aluminum triangle that is rigidly attached to the wing flying above, while the fuselage, complete with engine, pilot and passenger, actually dangles beneath like a plumb bob. It sounds sketchy, but it works. The Blueberry Sea Dragon Pacific Blue Air’s headquarters hangar is located just a couple hundred feet north of Elon Musk’s SpaceX compound. When I arrived, peeling off the 105 freeway, I saw a bizarre contraption touching down on the runway, a crazy-looking, blueberry-colored gyrocopter that looked like a cross between Barney the Dinosaur and a Leafy Sea Dragon from an aquarium shop. Sure enough, the madman who was flying it was going to be my own personal madman, errr, flight guide. Henry Boger, the company’s owner, is a Certified Flight Instructor, fully examined and licensed by the FAA. He has been flying for over 25 years. He’s fun, smart and warmly proficient, with the rare ability to teach without making learning feel like work. Since I’m already a licensed pilot, Henry cut to the chase, giving me a quick walk around our bright yellow Zonker of an airplane, setting me up with a flight suit and helmet, complete with headphones and microphone, and strapping me into the rear seat of the Revo. You don’t so much sit in a Revo as on it; my manly legs were soon wrapped tightly around Henry. Most Light Sport Aircraft flying is done from smaller, uncontrolled airfields, but Hawthorne is a bona-fide big boy airport, complete with business jets and an FAA control tower. Which meant that when Henry wasn’t chatting to me over the headphones and intercom, he was talking to Hawthorne tower as we taxied out, did our preflight checklist and engine run-up, and then, cleared for takeoff, trundled out onto the runway. The 5,000-foot runway at Hawthorne could be considered excessive for our purposes. Henry gunned the throttle of our 100-horsepower Rotax engine, and had our lightweight craft well into the air after only about 500 feet. “That’s Harrison Ford’s new hangar complex, for his airplane collection,” he said as we climbed over the runway, pointing out a massive 3-hangar construction site on the northeast corner of the airport. Hawthorne Airport is right on the boundary of the LAX restricted airspace. It felt bizarre to be climbing in a vibrating, open-air June bug, humming over the gray expanse of the city, flying parallel to huge Airbus A380s descending into LAX just the other side of the 105 freeway. On Top of the World We climbed to a bit over 1,000 feet and set sail for the coast, the afternoon sun reddening as we flew. True to his instructor nature, Henry had me take the controls to get acclimated to flying this odd beast. If you’re an experienced pilot, everything you know is suddenly wrong. In a normal Cessna — or, for that matter, an F-
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Beach May 2018

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