Mark Stull and his ultralight plane Lucky Stars were recently featured in PM’s October cover story on DIY flight. He died Wednesday in a crash near his home of Christoval, Texas.
Mark Stull, the 59-year-old airplane designer and builder who featured prominently in the October Popular Mechanics cover story about do-it-yourself aviation, has died in a crash near his home in Texas.
Stull had just taken off on his first test flight of a new design shortly after 3 pm on Wednesday when the accident occurred. According to a witness, he had climbed to about 50 feet when the aircraft stalled, flipped, and fell to the ground. Stull died instantly.
The aircraft Stull was flying reportedly featured a large, boxlike tail, unlike any of his previous designs. Stull was always trying new configurations of airplane wing and fuselage, constantly tweaking and modifying his aircraft, and would regularly take them apart and start new ones from scratch. This meant that he was frequently flying untested designs whose flying characteristics became clear only once he was in the air.
Stull understood the risks he was taking. "I have had many near-death experiences in my life. I am a thrill seeker," he told Popular Mechanics earlier this year. "I used to be a white-water kayaker, paddling steep, flooded creeks in Oregon. We used to say, if we don’t almost die, we aren’t having fun. I have no fear of death, but I fear being seriously injured."
Stull had just taken off on his first test flight of a new design shortly after 3 pm on Wednesday when the accident occurred. According to a witness, he had climbed to about 50 feet when the aircraft stalled, flipped, and fell to the ground. Stull died instantly.
The aircraft Stull was flying reportedly featured a large, boxlike tail, unlike any of his previous designs. Stull was always trying new configurations of airplane wing and fuselage, constantly tweaking and modifying his aircraft, and would regularly take them apart and start new ones from scratch. This meant that he was frequently flying untested designs whose flying characteristics became clear only once he was in the air.
Stull understood the risks he was taking. "I have had many near-death experiences in my life. I am a thrill seeker," he told Popular Mechanics earlier this year. "I used to be a white-water kayaker, paddling steep, flooded creeks in Oregon. We used to say, if we don’t almost die, we aren’t having fun. I have no fear of death, but I fear being seriously injured."
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