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Karl Stice
How time flies! Here's a letter I wrote to my girlfriend (now my wife) in 1983. I reprint it here just to show you hang glider pilots that many of those old (but still solid) wings can be recycled for the joy of motorized flight.
      What a great weekend flying I've just had!  Saturday morning Bill Bennett and some pilots were heading out to El Mirage Dry Lake to do some towing.  I woke up late; so instead, I threw my 185 Comet and lightweight trike on top of my car and drove up to a little flat spot in the hills above Malibu, to do some flying anyway.

     The morning clouds and fog were starting to break up, and climbing up to 1500 meters ASL, I could look out over the sea of white covering the San Fernando Valley. Above, a beautiful sunny sky ; the distant mountains were an inviting goal. I circled around the Valley and passed over the Sylmar launch, then decided to continue on towards the Mojave Desert.


     At the pass leading to the desert and Palmdale the tailwinds accelerated dramatically and shot me out into the heat and turbulence of the desert air. I had thought about stopping by a gas station at a certain crossroads, but when I saw the trees whipping around down below, I thought again.  Perhaps at the Fantasy Haven ULM base there would be a  chance to land. Return to the Valley was no longer possible, anyway.

     Well, the early morning ultralight flyers had all gone home : not a sould there in the midday heat and dust. the dustdevils proded me on towards El Mirage. I glanced at the gas tank : only a few liters left !

   I certainly didn't like the idea of landing alone in this wind, and was thankful Bill and the others were still at the dry lake when I arrived.  Facing the wind, I descended nearly vertically in 40+ km/hr wind and my friends grabbed the front wires on touchdown. We tied the wing securely behind the cars, and spent the rest of the afternoon tethering each other aloft with a big round parachute and 100 meters of rope.
 

  

 "It's the trike I taught some friends how to fly trikes with. As you see from this photo, there are two sets of feet on the forks, and two sets of hands on the control bar. That's me behind the student, who's sitting on my lap." 2008 note from Karl Stice

    One of the friends, Dave Low, had a camping car and invited me to camp there for the night. He had his own trike ready to fly in the morning and would accompany me part way on my continued flight.

We talked well into the night of hang gliding, trike flying, and ...oh, yes, of the accident he had seen earlier in the day. Another trike pilot (unknown to us) had made the big mistake of letting someone  "try out" his trike, without any pervious training. (El Mirage is a testing ground for all sorts of flying machines). Of course, under full power, the guy immediately made a wingover and dove straight into the ground, killing himself instantly. What a waste! After all, without formal tandem instruction, it's a good idea to know how to fly hang gliders, at least, before jumping on a trike.

    Early Sunday morning we flew towards San Bernardino, and at the Cajon Pass, Dave waved goodbye from his machine and peeled off to return to El Mirage. I pulled into the Crestline LZ; and the hang glider pilots there told me I had just missed the departure of a couple of friends in a Quicksilver and Pterodactyl who were heading out to El Mirage. We must have crossed paths somewhere in the desert morning air.
 

          I continued my flight heading westward along the San Gabriel Mountains towards home. Climbing up in the late morning thermals I arrived at 2000 meters in front of the Mount Wilson hang glider launch. In the parking lot on top of the mountain were a couple of bicyclists.

     Weren't they surprised to see me cut the engine and glide on in for a landing!  I stretched out my legs and breathed the clean, pine scented mountain air, as I walked around, calculating the takeoff roll.  Adequate, a bit like launching from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Breathtaking, watching the terrain tumble away below my wheels at the end of the parking lot.

Airborne again, I headed back towards Malibu, passing over the Sylmar takeoff (Kagel) as noontime pilots were setting up their wings. I refueled at my original "secret" launch port, then headed out again, down to the end of the Malibu mountains. Skirting around the clouds that hung along the summits, I dropped down and returned flying along the beach. Out on the end of a ridge, I  circled low around a gang of Harley bikers enjoying their beers in the sun. Maybe their waving their hands wasn't so much to say hello as to say....

     Finally time to head back to the car, land, pack up, and drive home. That was a weekend of flying over 450 km, in varying conditions and altitudes, all on less than 45 liters of gas!"

Karl Stice
1983
  • Be sure to visit Karl Stice's  story about the flight he survived after not hooking in! What might his experience give to hang gliding?  He credits a sharing by Roy Haggard for his coming through the experience unscratched. Too many have not had such a blessing when failing to hook in for their flight.