|
By Steve Ruffles www.pacificflyer.com.au
Last year legendary Vinnie Lauwers opened up new territory in the microlight world. He soled his microlight, which for most of us is a big feat, but if you are paraplegic it's a huge achievement. Most of us take our abilities for granted, it's not until you have the privelage of meeting these amazing people and helping them to achieve their goals that you realise how lucky you are.
I recently had the opportunity of being involved in the making of one of our new microlighting heroes - Dave Jacka. Why is Dave a hero, becasue he is the world's first quadriplegic pilot!
  
On the 14th Feb 2006, Dave entered our ranks when he soloed his microlight. Since then he has achieved his full microlight licence with an added Cross Country endorsement.
How did he do it? He had a dream to fly and that dream eventually drove him all the way to Bright to achieve this incredible feat.
Dave came up for a rear seat Trial instructional flight with me nearly a year ago after seeing microlights at the air show. Some months later Dave contacted me again with a request to go up in the front seat for a flight. Dave's inability to grasp the control bar because of no finger movement posed as our first challenge to controlling the wing. Initially we overcame this obstacle by taping his hands to the control bar, which allowed him to use his biceps for steering control. Obviously this was not ideal but it at least enabled Dave to fully experience how it felt to be upfront flying the wing.
He loved it and started thinking about how he could ultimately control a microlight. Being a quailfied engineer, Dave set to work on designing a control bar extension that he could lock his hands into.
In late October Dave came back to me with his new control bar, which we fitted to one of our trikes and away we went. I worked with Dave until he was able to successfully control the trike in Pitch and Roll. In 4 hours of training he was as skilled as any able-bodied student in his ability to produce smooth turns plus staight and level flight.
   
But we were then faced with our next challenges and had taken it as far as we could go up till that point. How to control the thottle and foot steering whilst flying the wing?
I told him what Vinnie had done with John Oliver and suggested he contact them for ideas. In Dave's case he had challenges in being able to use a twist grip throttle and brake controls.
If he wanted to continue he had to bit the bullett and buy his own aircraft, modifying it to his own requirments.
The next step was to develop a practical method of ground handling which I had suggested could be done with a simple forward/bakward control lever. Also, some form of throttle lever on the control bar.
With the help of a Melbourne engineering firm, Dave worked through different options, finally coming up with an electrically operated throttle actuator that has two buttons to increase and decrease power. These are built into his modified control bar such that he merely has to push his hands against the buttons for them to work. It's a really effective means of control.
Like Vinnie, Dave installed a modified go-cart seat with a full harness to support him properly. During take off and landing, the castered steering ensures that it will track straight particularly with speed, however at slow speeds the castering of the nosewheel is not so reliable. To overcome this Dave added a self centering steering spring to ensure that the nose wheel is straight during this slow phase on the ground and just prior to landing.
At the start of the take-off roll, Dave has to take his hand out of the ground control leaver and lock them into the control bar posts. So, as long as he starts off straight down the runway the trike will stay straight for take-off. Landings proved to be easier as a lower touch down landing speed is achieved!
Finally in early January, Dave bought his modified trike up to test out his modifications.
  
From and intructors point of view the biggest change was adapting to the different method of ground handling the trike with a push/pull lever - forward to go left, back to go right, this resulted in a couple of exciting moments!
With practice and a few adjustments to the self centering steering spring we got faster and faster, finally hitting full power and taking to the air. Form there Dave now had total control of his aircraft. We both knew that he would be able to eventually solo.
I personally had the attitude that it would be slow, steady process to ensure that Dave would acquire the necesary pilot skills however, when Dave came back for a 2 week training block in February he quickly progressed and within 17 hours of his first trial flight he went solo!
To cope with turbulence Dave had constructed special exercise equipment in the form of a simulator A frame to strenghten his shoulders plus mentally he had been visualising flying and studying his theroy, this together with his positive attitude to life helped him progress quickly.
Dave has an entourage of careres that help him with his trike, setting up, fuelling, minor maintenance plus helping him in and out of the trike which at first was quite difficult until we hit on an idea of removing the front quick pins allowing the wing to tilt up getting the control bar and front mast out of the way.
Dave has a few more ideas and modification, that may allow him one day to have total independance from having a carer assist him in and out of his trike, which is a small challenge in comparison. Dave's attitude is that if he can be independant in getting in and out of his car then why should he need assistance in and out of his aircaft?
  
Dave now has a new freedom that for most able-bodied people is just a dream, to fly like and eagle. I'm very proud he is one of our Eagle fledglings. He is truly an inspiration and shows that it's all about attitude and that nothing is impossible!
|
