Home (contents) → Miscellaneous → Powered flight → Defying Newton
Defying Newton
This page documents powered ultralight (and similar) operations at Newton Peveril in Dorset, England.
Power lines
Climbing out with Gary D as nose gunner in 2002
Gary D and I flew from Newton Peveril to Kimmeridge, where we had a cafe breakfast before heading back. By the time we returned to the airfield, thermal turbulence was too strong to get down on the narrow grass strip, so we landed in a plowed field a mile away.
Gathering of eagles at Newton Peveril in 2002
Quasar
Gary D lifts off with ‘ZZ’ navigating in a Pegasus Quasar. The power lines across the threshold have been rerouted underground since I took this photo in 2007.
Endless summer
The high atmospheric pressure over southern England in the summer of 2018 caused a heat wave with turbulence (according to pilot reports) but, in the calmer evenings, it was good for powered ultralights and similarly lightweight aircraft.
Former ladies’ hang gliding champion Pam S about to take off
Simon G, a hang glider pilot from the early days, at Newton Peveril in August 2018
Pam lifts off
Rigging a flex-wing powered ultralight
Simon G taxiing a Kitfox
Simon’s take-off run was so short and his angle of climb so steep, I was unable to follow it with the camera quickly enough to obtain a photo.
Chris S about to touch down in a power trike he built
As Chris’ expression indicates, he did not like the handling of this craft!
Flexwing powered ultralight at sunset
The tall fellow in the helmet, Sam S, flew this aircraft next. The guy shading his eyes is hang glider pilot Gary D, who flew it after Sam. Gary had a surprise waiting for him.
Sam over the field
CFM Shadow on final approach
The CFM Shadow, created by former jet bomber pilot David Cook, is based on the VJ-23, a 3-axis controlled hang glider designed in the 1970s by Volmer Jensen of California.
Gary D’s take-off and initial climb out were uneventful, then the engine stopped. The fields ahead were high in crop, so he brought it around for a ‘dead stick’ landing down-wind on the strip from where he had taken off less than a minute earlier.
Weight shift correction
Touch-down
No step
Painting NO STEP markings on the glass fiber floor of Gary’s trike
Every time I climb in to Gary’s (or anyone else’s) power trike, I hear “Don’t step on the fibreglass floor,” or similar. It is merely a streamlined cocoon and not strong enough to stand on. I obtained inexpensive cardboard stencils via eBay and, with the addition of sellotape and acrylic paint, I painted NO STEP markings on the floor in August 2018.
Partly painted NO STEP floor markings
NO STEP floor markings before going around the edges with black paint
Finished NO STEP floor markings
And in August 2020 on his yellow trike…
Related
This topic continues in Defying Newton 2, more powered ultralight operations at Newton Peveril in Dorset, England.
Magnificent flying machines, review of the 20th Century Fox 1965 movie Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines
Three-sixty degree appraisal (hang gliding 1976) including a photo of Chris S flying an early hang glider
External links
Early powered ultralights part 1 in Hang Gliding History
Sticks and rudders in Hang gliding before 1973 on Hang Gliding History for images of the VJ-23
Brave Guys and Beautiful Dolls 