Fly-in at Price Cty Airport

The ultralight fly-in at Phillips was on Sept. 3rd & 4th. We just went on Saturday as we needed to go to Burlington on Sunday and Monday (but that's a whole other story). I went with a particular interest in getting airborne in a powered parachute. I got there about 10:00A.M. and it was getting too rough up above from thermals and stuff, so I would have to wait till late afternoon for a ride. So I spent quite a bit of time talking to Greg from Irma. He flew his single seat Quicksilver MX to Phillips from Irma for the event. Cool lookin' little plane, hey? Here's a shot of the added on fiberglass nose piece. As these planes do not come apart easily, they require storage in the form of a hangar, with a wing span of about 30' and the plane about 18' long, it would be a considerable project. The other option would be to rent space in a hangar at the airport. There were two other Quicksilver planes there. They also flew to Phillips for the event, one from Barron and one from somewhere farther west. One was a single place and the other was a double seater. These people talked a lot about their planes and where they've been with them. I also got the names of a few people in the area that fly and train others, and I found the website of Northcentral Wisconsin's chapter of the EAA.

So it was now time to start thinking about the power chutes. There were five of them in the area, four giving rides for $30 a shot. These beasts have a tubular metal frame, three wheels, seats, a motor and prop, and a 400 square foot parafoil chute. By the way, that's Peggy coming in for a landing above us. So she got to sample it before I did, at least now I knew it might be safe...... just kidding. Just before take-off they lay the chute out on the ground behind the motor unit. Then they start the motor and the prop wash fills the chute, it raises, they give it more gas, start rolling and when the chute is stable above, they nail the throttle and off you go!!!
These things are pretty neat to fly in. You look down in front and the only part of the plane you see are the foot operated steering bars. Nice view of the area from 400' above the ground. So here we are just after lift off. Seems like you're just floating up. There's always a head wind of 26-32 miles/hour, as that's the speed the chute can move through the air. They climb quite fast and supposedly the ceiling for these things is 10,000 ASL. When you look up you see that big, colorful chute above you, holding you up in the sky with some REALLY TINY looking strings. Kinda creepy so I didn't look up much.















Here are a couple of pix of the view at 400 feet up. Take a ride in one these if you get the chance!!!!