[MAY 22, 2006]
You just never know what you might see fly in at
the Logan County Airport. Slick corporate jets often deposit
high-powered executives using Logan County as their central land
departure point while making regional rounds.
This past Wednesday morning David de Hennin of Australia and Anna-Klara
Skarp of Sweden departed Chicago in an ultralight plane in the cool
of the early morning hours. They landed in Logan County at just the
right time. A weekly gathering of pilots spotted them and invited
them up for coffee and doughnuts.
Sitting in the upstairs meeting room that overlooks the runways,
the pilot, David, shared that this was the first stop of a six-week
trip. Pressed for details, he said that he does have a definite
overall plan, but that they are leaving the details "sketchy" to
accommodate weather changes and other options. The couple plan to
head south along the Mississippi to the Gulf, head west, passing
through by way of the Continental Divide, and then trek back
northward up the West Coast, possibly as high as Seattle.
The trip is being made in an Airborne XTC 582 "trike." The trike
was shipped into Chicago from Australia and assembled for the
flight. It is a two-stroke with a 65 horsepower motor that will get
about 150 nautical miles to a tank of fuel.
They are traveling at 50 knots per hour and 2,000 feet above the
ground in the ultralight aircraft.
You can read about David's response to landing in Logan County,
some of their already many adventures and follow their trip on
David's blog site, titled "Getting High in the USA: A blog to share
the dream of flying across the USA in a tiny little aircraft," at
http://www.flyingxtc.blogspot.com/.
