Beach May 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-