September 24, 2019 Turnberry and the Bruce!

The Liberty Gazette

September 24, 2019

Ely Air Lines

By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: “At the round-about take the SECOND exit,” repeats in my head even though we’ve been back from Scotland almost two weeks. The GPS’s message seems permanently planted in my brain. While recently visiting the Scottish Lowlands, I renewed my familiarity with driving from the right seat on the left-hand side of the road while turning right around traffic circles. A lot of traffic circles. The rental car’s navigation system sounded irritated when I did not follow its prompts. At least I didn’t have to shift gears, thanks to the automatic transmission, somewhat of a luxury in Europe.

Linda was on a mission, and I was the designated driver. She is doing research on a notorious ancestor of hers, one Sir Robert Logan, who provided a great deal of material suitable for an epic play. Today’s destination was the ruins of Turnberry Castle, south of Ayr, and the birthplace of Robert the Bruce, a former king of Scotland, also her ancestor. There isn’t much left of the castle, but it provided an opportunity to see part of the country’s west coast.

A lighthouse built in the 19th century now stands where the castle walls were tumbled down early in the 14th century. But some of the old walls are still visible. We took advantage of a break in rain showers and walked half a mile from the parking area through a golf course. That’s when I discovered this was also a Royal Air Force base, not once, but twice. In fact, the paved path on which we strode cut across the middle of a slab of runway.

The links existed before World War I. When the fighting began, the property was requisitioned and turned into a training base for the Royal Air Corps. Cadets spent three weeks learning to fly and shoot guns in aerial combat. When the hostilities were over, it was reverted to long, rough fairways, soft, manicured greens, and a boatload of sand traps.

During World War II, once again it was enlisted. The RAF’s Coastal Command trained pilots in torpedo-bombers to drop a new kind of bomb, the “Highball,” that bounced along the water into the sides of enemy ships. But they never used it in battle. Later, the RAF based their Consolidated B-24 Liberators here. They carried torpedoes, depth charges, and rockets, for knocking out German U-boats in the Atlantic.

From a small hillock, the runway seemed short. The wind whipped, and the rain splattered. A monument to the lost airmen of World War I overlooked the torrential waters of the Firth of Clyde. A bump of granite that formed a dome over a volcano long ago stuck out of the sea. They call the rock Ailsa Craig.

I imagined heavily laden B-24s lumbering down the hastily constructed concrete runways into windswept skies. I listened for the rumble of their radial engines. I’d much rather hear that than the GPS voice enthusiastic about a roundabout.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 17, 2019 More Aerial Adventures of Will Smithson

The Liberty Gazette

September 17, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Will Smithson has landed out in a glider nine times, so far. That means he’s not made it back to the Soaring Club of Houston’s grass runway and someone had to come pick him up. Depending on where he lands, either a tow plane will come, or, if he doesn’t make it to an airport, someone will drive Will’s car and trailer, help him disassemble the glider, and drive back. It’s inconvenient, but glider pilots prepare for it.

The first time he landed out in a glider, he ended up in a field, where the grass was four feet high. Tall growth can make it hard to determine from above how much father the ground is below. Just before landing, the pilot must enter the flare, pulling the nose up slightly for a smooth landing. However, Will flared too high, because he thought the grass was at ground level. “Before I touched down, grass and seeds were flying everywhere, all over the canopy. The ground wasn’t where I expected it to be.”

The rest of that landing was uneventful, and most of his other land-outs haven’t been that thrilling. “The land-out itself isn’t a big deal, as long as you pick an appropriate field. I’ve done it so many times that now it only takes me twenty to thirty minutes to take the plane apart.”

But there was that one time. As the thermals dissipated, he realized he would have to land. “By then, I was pretty confident I could land anywhere. The field below me was about fourteen hundred feet with a fence in the middle. ‘No big deal,’ I thought, ‘I can get over the fence. I’ll put out the spoilers and have six to seven hundred feet to stop.’ But close to the ground, I saw it was going downhill. I was moving forward, still trying to get the glider to touch the ground.” The slope wasn’t discernible from the air.

Finally, Will touched down, but on the ground roll, the fence and trees seemed to be coming at him fast. He applied full right rudder and aileron and stopped 80 feet from the trees, ground-looping the plane. Fortunately, there was no major damage.

In the moment, Will says, “I was so busy flying the plane, that I wasn’t scared. My only thought process was flying and landing the plane. But after that, I figured my risk tolerance was too high. I needed more of a buffer.”

Someday, Will would like a plane with a motor, because then he can be more adventurous. Meanwhile, his brick award is at home. It’s actually a foam block painted red. But it's not the only recognition he received at last year's banquet. He also won first place in sport class local competition, the spirit of soaring award, and the taco award—a special one club members made up just for him because, “Ask anyone who picks me up. My car is a mess.”

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 10, 2019 The Aerial Beginnings of Will Smithson

The Liberty Gazette

September 10, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

The little black thing Will Smithson saw in the air looked like a bird. It wasn’t really soaring in circles, as he was accustomed to seeing them do, but perhaps it was just doing its thing. As he commanded his glider closer, taking advantage of the lift provided by the thermal, he could finally make out what that “bird” was doing. It was a trash bag flitting around, stuck in the updraft.

Will had always been interested in aviation. When he was 22, he tried to find the cheapest way to fly. His internet search introduced him to hang gliding. He knew as they were climbing to altitude on the demo ride that this could be his entry to the flying world.

Will learned how air rises and moves, and that thermals give you lift. But with hang gliders, you’re always “landing out,” meaning when there’s no more lift, you’re coming down, and landing where you are, as opposed to returning to land at an airfield. After four years of this, he wanted something more. Another internet search resulted in his discovering that gliders have a 40:1 glide ratio, which sure beat his hang glider’s 12:1 ratio. By moving up to a sailplane, he’d get forty feet forward for every one foot down. That would sure improve his chances of finding those thermals and staying aloft longer.

In January 2017, Will went to the Soaring Club of Houston and took a demo ride. He was hooked and joined same day, saying, “I thought it was expensive. But then talked myself into it, because you only live once, and this is what I wanted to do.”

Will sold his hang glider and bought a sailplane. Someday, he would like to fly powered aircraft, but for now, he’s learning so much about soaring, he can’t give it up. “You’re engaged for four or five hours, always busy, always thinking what’s ahead, what’s in the next cloud, engaged the whole time.”

In fact, he says soaring has ruined his life completely. “Friends want me to join them on trips, like going back to Honduras, where I grew up. But there aren’t any sites to see there. Why go, when I could spend that money on flying? I want to be flying my glider! One-third of my day I spend thinking about cross-country flying. It’s the first and last thing I think about—when I wake up, and when I go to bed.

Over the past two and a half years, Will has learned a great deal about himself as well as aerodynamics and thermal dynamics, because he’s willing to push the limits. All that time spent hang gliding increased his comfort zone for landing anywhere.

“Landing out,” he says, “I’m pretty well-known for that.” At last year’s awards banquet, he was given the brick award and dubbed the land-out king.

Next week we’ll share some of his wild soaring adventures, including one that made him rethink his tolerance for risk.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

September 3, 2019 My Scottish Airline, Loganair

The Liberty Gazette

September 3, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Once upon a time, before I was born, William Logan owned a construction company in his homeland Scotland. Willie, as they called him, had projects all over the country, and he’d hire an air taxi (charter) to fly him to work sites farther away. The same year I popped into the world and was given the family name Logan as my middle name, that air taxi company faced financial troubles. Since Willie relied on the economy and efficiency of air travel for business, he bought the company and re-named it Loganair. They had one airplane, a Piper Aztec.

Now I’ve flown an Aztec, or as some call it, an “Az-truck.” It’s an okay airplane. Great for training in multi-engine aircraft and, I suppose, for starting an airline in 1962. You gotta begin somewhere. There was a lot of paperwork to do, approvals required from the government and all that red tape. As my parents were celebrating my first birthday in October, Loganair took off on its first scheduled flight, a short hop, Dundee to Edinburgh, where Willie was the main contractor building the Tay Road bridge, one of the longest in Europe.

Business grew when they won the contract to deliver newspapers to Stornoway, an island in the Outer Hebrides, about halfway to Iceland. When they unloaded papers from the Aztec, the sheepherders filled it back up with woven cloth to take to Harris Tweed. Then came contracts for service to other islands and an air ambulance. The fleet expanded to five aircraft based at Glasgow.

Things were going great, until January 22, 1966, when Willie wanted to return home from a construction site late at night. The weather was cloudy, and the dispatcher told him there was no suitable aircraft for flying in low clouds at night. No problem, he’d take a train. Or not. He changed his mind and called another air taxi company, which turned out to be a deadly mistake. That operation was unapproved, and the pilot was unfamiliar with the area and carried no navigation charts. When he descended through the clouds, the airplane hit a hill and that was the end of Willie Logan. The insurance claim was denied, and the construction company dissolved.

But the bank took over Loganair’s assets and eventually found a buyer. The airline is still based at Glasgow, now with a fleet of 25 and even has its own registered tartan, the clan design painted on the tail.

Among the over 40 routes they own throughout Scotland, England, and the Channel Islands, is the world’s shortest commercial flight. Depending on the wind, it takes Loganair’s Britten Norman Islander about 80 seconds to fly 1.7 miles between Westray and Papa Westray in the Orkney Islands. With a population less than 100, building bridges isn’t economical. The only other option is a very slow ferry, making the hop in an eight-passenger Islander the most popular choice. Someday, I’d like to take that flight in an airplane with my name on it.

ElyAirLines.blogspot.com