By Jerry Rosie (USUA #A86096)

Hi folks,

Last month I promised to fill you in on the adventures of Jeff Bean, a member of USUA Club 508 of Shirley, MA as reported in their newsletter, "The Crowhopper Times". Jeff wrote this account "on the run", as he posted daily to his Blog as his trip progressed. Any one of you who has done any amount of 'hangar flying' knows that you get no points for the 'Ho Hum' kind of experience most trips involve. You hardly get any rabid listeners to a story that goes, "did a normal preflight, nothing wrong, took off, flew in crystal clear air with no wind to XYZ airport, where I did an exceptionally fine landing. I had lunch and then flew back and put the airplane away." [Try that at your next meeting and see how many folks stand around to hear what you have to say next.]

With this in mind, I've decided to cover those parts of Jeff's trip in my words, and give him full credit by stealing his words, from his report, for those more interesting parts of his flight. [This account will have more meaning for you if you have a map of Maine and the Canadian Maritime Provinces in front of you so you can track his flight across the ground] Yep, That's what Jeff planned to do - fly his trike from Fitchburg Airport, in the southern part of Maine to Nova Scotia and back.

He started his Odyssey at about 1430 hours on Sunday 21 August when he left Fitchburg Airport for Skyhaven Airport. He didn't make it to Skyhaven, because it had been closed for an air show, so he diverted to Sanford, Maine. Upon arrival, he still had a half tank of gas left, so he decided to continue on to Limington, Maine where he landed after flying through about five minutes of rain hitting him in the face at 60 miles an hour. Landing at Limington, he discovered that the place was closed, but, found another Ultralighter who was willing to drive him to a local filling station for gas. Departing Limington, he headed for Wiscasset, Maine, overflying Brunswick Air Station en route. With fuel remaining when he reached Wiscasset, he decided to head to Knox County/Owls'Head airport, but fog in that direction caused him to divert, once again, this time to Belfast. Arriving over Belfast, he figured he had enough fuel left to make it to Bar Harbor and headed in that direction. "BUT, I noticed that ground fog was settling in so I turned back to Belfast. Not easy to find the airport since the fog rolled in. Had to fly at 800 feet, find a hole and land." Jeff spent the night in Belfast and got up in time to see that the fog was still a major consideration. It started to clear around 0745 when he took off heading for St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada. "On my way there I got an email from a local pilot who told me it was fogged in there also. Luckily, I had programmed Princeton, Maine airport into my GPS, so I headed northwest of St. Stephen where I could see it was clear."

He refueled at Princeton and headed for St. Stephen, arriving just after the fog had cleared off. "No one was there, and I was a little nervous because I needed plenty of gas for the next leg. Finally, someone showed up and asked me if I had filed a flight plan with Trans Canada and called Customs. I told him that since I was an ultralight pilot from the U.S., I was not required to file one. He believed me! I then had to call customs, who asked me the same thing. They told me to stay put, and they would be sending a customs agent right over. Within 15 minutes, a government vehicle pulled up with two men, one with a briefcase. I was quite sure they were going to send me back. Luckily things went well, and I was given permission to enter the country and authorization to fly my ultralight. Great relief. They did say next time to call ahead."

Jeff gassed up and departed St. Stephen for Sussex, New Brunswick at about 1115, where he was met by a local pilot with a camera who submitted a story to the local paper. Our adventurous pilot departed Sussex, crossed the Bay of Fundy and landed at Amherst's grass strip. He says that it was one of the smoothest landings he had ever made but, wouldn't you know it, no one was there to see it. At this point, he had traveled nearly 500 miles. After a soda at a local grocery store, he departed for Turo, Nova Scotia where a local pilot provided transportation for more fuel. The sky was becoming overcast, so he chose to head for New Glasgow, which, on arrival, was closed. He decided to try to make it to Guysborough where he planned to land on the golf course, but rapidly deteriorating weather forced him to return to New Glasgow where he spent the night.

Due to the length of this trip and the interesting experiences yet to come, I think we'll close here and pick it up next month. It is best that I post the entire next section as one offering, rather than split it up in the middle, so you can experience the full flavor of the events as they unfolded. Believe me, there are some really interesting parts yet to come.

In the meantime - you all stay safe now and remember, once you are in the air it is too late to complete your pre-flight inspection.