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Ultralight Flying Adventures! Flight Over The Rockies! The story begins just after I got to know the Hiperlight for about 5 weeks. I did about 2 weeks of ground runs before I took her off, real great little flyer. Ok back to the trip. I went out to the field with gas, a thermos of tea, mucklucks, mitts and I think snow shoes just in case. Oh, all this stuff but the tea were in a baggage compartment behind the tank, which was accessible through a door on the left side build by the previous owner. She was all covered with frost so I started scraping with a credit card. By the time I did one side the other was frosted again. Went for a coffee at the A & W, spent an hour or so till about 10:30 am. Went back to the field ( 10 min. drive) things were ok. Now this little bird has an 11 imp. gal. tank behind the seat & me being the cautious type put a 2 gal. container between my legs ahead of the stick. You ask how it stayed there without sliding into the stick on take off, well I just pinched my knees together like a virgin. I trimed her for a bit of tail high and pushed the throttle, she's off in no time. I keep the speed at 45 to 50 so I don't stall. I flew this trip with charts so I followed the highway to Cranbrook,BC (60 miles) cutting the corners up around Mount Johnson and on to the Fernie ski hill (40 miles), going east. I thought I would cross the mountain there so the chart indicated I needed 9000' plus. Got over that ok and stayed at that altitude to Sparwood,BC (24 miles) Now I have to admit that the plan was to fly to Sparwood airport just north of town. I was at 9200' and when I got to the airport it was waaaaay down there. The day was really nice, no bumps so I sneaked over to the Rockies, very imposing looking. We got to 10500' and went just south of the peak, still no bumps. I could see the flat of the prairies in the distance so I kept on going what the heck. Now by this time I had been drinking some tea as you get thirsty up there. The Hipe had a convenience tube with a narrow mouth funnel, this all went down to the right lower panel area in an up and around curve to exit through the zipper under the seat. Well I had lower jogging pants with no fly,with street pants over top of these. I stretched you know who over the elastic of the jogs but couldn't induced the little guy to start a stream into the funnel. So pressing harder, did get it going but the funnel filled up before I was done, and had to stop. Got some on my pants what the heck. Lifted the funnel to drain the dame thing. Got out my trusty pocket knife which I keep dull so as not to cut myself and started to cut the stitches one at a time so as not to spoil these fine clothes, which my oldest daughter had gifted me as an upper and lower set. Well you can imagine the type of flying I was doing, trying to keep Hipe straight. After a few stitches and looking out once in a while, we were all over the place, I decided to speed things up and took the knife firmly, with one upward cut I now had a nice big hole and no other cuts! All this time I am well aware of all this ominous beauty we were flying over and talking to the Rotax about just keeping on with the job of rotating, giving the panel a nice friendly pat once in a while when I was feeling a little intimidated. The snow up there on the high peaks beside and below me and also in the distance around were just too much for me to comprehend. You gotta try it, if only once. I have been over and through the Rockies 16 times and it never stops giving some sense of fear mixed with stupid bravado. I finally got the cut needed for the job at hand and tilted the funnel one more time with no spills. I learn quickly. By this time we are half way over the rocks and the view of the flat prairie ahead looks good. I did a 360 just to look at what I had come across and for return trip familiarity with the peaks I would have to identify. The snow covered peaks went on and on over the horizon. Just a few minutes more we will be over the Livingston Range which are lower and turning north for Calgary. I keep the 10500' till we cross the range and on turning north I can just make out the towers of Calgary in the haze. I see the towers disappear and reappear, note the compass heading and try to keep it there. Loosing altitude slowly to stay out of Calgary International airport controlled airspace I point her to the east a bit. Down to 750' I follow highway 22x, an east west road which will lead me to Winters Aire Park. By god there it is, fly over the sock and do a downwind to the east, do the base and come in for final. Touch down is good but the rough field puts the landing gear on the Hipe to good use. Time on this leg was 3.2 hours. Well Wayne Winters ( he instructed me the year before) asked how I got there, you see I didn't drive in the car by his shop so he was puzzled. I told him I flew in over the mountains, he showed some surprise but didn't say a thing. Got some gas, had a rest, shot some bull and took off for home. The trip back was a bit unnerving as I couldn't make out the area that I had crossed the rocks. A check on the chart, a bit of watershed study and I figured I had crossed over the south side of the Old Man river which flows east out of the Rockies. The approach to the rocks was on a long leg so I had lots of time to fiqure it all out, I'm a tad slow.
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To cut the story short from Fernie ski hill I went across country, did a south diversion not intended but was confused by the mountains. The terrain I was flying over was familiar, recognized a ranch below in the bush, as I had swamped for a guy that was doing logging road grading, followed the road down to the highway. I was getting low on fuel so went to an old world war 2 mountain emergency field , landed, put the 2 gallon container of fuel in the tank and took off. I got to the home field at dusk, touched down, taxied to the tie down, got out and kissed the ground. What a day, I don't think I can repeat the experience in any other aircraft. The Sorrell Hiperlight was and is a fun/safe aircraft.
