FIGURE B


Pilot and passenger are comfortably installed in the Lady. Roll over picture for a larger image.

You have to be very careful of what you step on or grab hold off when getting in, as only small portions of the plane are meant to handle the weight of a person. Once in the plane, you slip into the parachute and buckle that on much like a climbing harness. Next you strap into a 5 point harness that is very similar to what we road racers understand and then finally a lap belt goes over that. The lap belt is backup in case the harness opened up -- so you don't bang into the canopy if you're upside down -- and you will be upside down, no worries about that.

He also instructed me on how to parachute from the plane and how to pop the canopy off the plane and get out if something happened to him. Note that when you open the canopy on this little terror, it just goes flying away and the way is clear to climb straight out of the seat and go, in the unlikely event you would need to. Lastly, we popped on the cool fabric helmets with noise-cancelling headsets to communicate. One of the neat things was that, as the passenger, you can hear all the chatter with the tower and such, which I thought was cool.

Now my blood was really going, and honestly, I was getting worried. Sometimes have trouble with nausea when teaching on the track, on medium sized boats in the waves, and on planes. I don't actually barf, but do get to feeling nasty and sweating like a pig. Since this was not planned to be your average flight, I wondered how I would do.

Both Rob and Peter, the latter probably worried about his pretty aircraft and the former probably worried since he would be in this tiny plane with me, told me that folks usually can handle about 15 minutes of aerobatic stuff the first time up and not to try and push myself, but to call it quits when I felt it was time. No problem -- I am not looking to be a puke hero!

So Rob fired it up and taxied us out around the buildings and onto the taxiway. You can't see forward at all in this plane; from either seat as it's a tail dragger with its tail low and nose in the air, so Rob weaved it back and forth constantly so he could see that our path was clear. Once out there, we waited for some other small planes to get clearance and depart -- and then it was our turn.

I'm not sure what Rob called the takeoff, but he told me about it in advance just as he did everything else done on the flight. It is super-nice that he did this since even when you're ready, or think you're ready, some of the aerobatic moves are like WHOOAAA!!

The takeoff involved gaining 90-100 mph at which point the plane can take off, then holding a few feet above the tarmac and gaining more speed and then zooming up into a 45 degree climb. Sounds like nothing? Well, if you haven't experienced a 45 degree climb under full power in a propeller driven plane, trust me this alone is worth going for! It was exhilarating, and the ground below us disappeared at an astounding rate! Hmmm... I didn't see any rocket engines on this thing.