Proposed route of the powered parachute from Bay City to Goderich, Canada.
Terry Watson taking flight in a paraplane.
BANGOR TOWNSHIP, MI — Bangor Township Supervisor
Terry Watson first saw Paul Rogers while driving home about five years
ago. He spotted a paraplane in the sky, and followed the plane to its
landing site, Rogers' home, located several miles from where Watson
lives. Since their meeting, the two stayed acquaintances and flew
together several times.
"He was a nice, very intelligent man who loved flying," Watson said.
"We flew paraplanes from his house out and around the Saginaw Bay and up
the Kawkawlin River."
Rogers, 63, died when the gyroplane he was piloting crashed Wednesday just after 6 a.m. in a field off of Interstate 75 in Pinconning Township.
Watson, who previously served as Chairman of the Bay City Fireworks
Festival, had been having discussions with Rogers about the pair flying a
powered parachute to Goderich, Canada in order to raise money for the
50th annual Fireworks Festival.
The proposed flight would last between four and five hours. The route
involved the plane leaving from the thumb region and crossing Lake
Huron to Ontario. A time window for the flight had not been determined.
"I talked to Paul two years ago about it, and he thought it was a
neat idea," Watson said. "I just went over to his house two days ago to
reacquaint the idea and set up a schedule to make practice flights out
to Lake Huron from Bay City to get our bearings."
Watson said that he presented the idea of the flight to the Bay City
Fireworks Festival Board of Directors several months ago, after he was
asking to serve as an honorary Board member.
After telling the Board he
would be working on the logistics, he met with representatives from the
office of Congressman Dale Kildee, D-Flint and the office of U.S.
Senator Debbie Stabenow.
"They said that they would consider helping us go through the
Canadian government and immigration to get the OK," Watson said. "I
don't know what is going to happen now."
While another individual is interested in being a pilot on the
proposed flight, Watson said that neither of them have a powered
parachute. Watson, a licensed flight instructor, previously ownded a
Paraplane (type of parachute) — the trip to Canada was going to be made
in a powered parachute owned by Rogers.
"It was such a shock when I heard he was the pilot in the crash,"
Watson said. "I left a note for him about flying the other day, and
never gave it a second thought."
Watson performed numerous stunts in the 1990s to raise money for the
Fireworks Festival: living in a sewer under Veterans Memorial Park for
four days, staying elevated in a 65-foot cherry picker truck for three
days and camping out in a concrete box in the F.P. Horak Printing Co.
Parking lot for four days.
