Saturday, October 27, 2012

Lynn, Massachusetts: Swampscott man soars to new heights

LYNN — Swampscott resident Ron Beckett was in his 40s before he learned to fly, and when he hit 70 he decided it was time to add a few aerobatics to the mix. 

"I asked (Executive Flyers pilot Marc Nathanson) if he had anyone as old as I am pass or even take the course," Beckett said. "He said, 'nope!'"

Beckett was in the midst of becoming certified to fly a Robinson R22, a two-bladed, single-engine helicopter, what he called "a beautiful machine," when another student crashed the bird.

"I had to find something else to do," he said.

So he walked across the field to Executive Flyers, where Nathanson, who took him on as a student, had no qualms about Beckett.

"He started flying with us in '07," he said. "We'd meet, tell a few jokes, then get down to the business of aerobatics."

Beckett said he had always wanted to fly, and when his family was grown he finally indulged his fantasy. At the urging of a friend, Gerhard Neumann, General Electric aviation innovator, he started with gliders.

"I flew at Salem Gliders for a couple of years," he said. "Then I moved over to the Beverly Airport and New England Flyers."

Beckett said he flew there for a couple of years and became licensed for several different planes but eventually got tired of having to hop from runway to runway.

About the same time he saw an article about John Wholley, who at the time was 78 and flying seaplanes out Merrimack Valley Seaplane Base in Methuen. Before long Beckett was certified to fly and land seaplanes.

"I flew up there for 10 years," he said. "I have almost 500 water landings. Then he decided he was too old to keep the base open."

After a brief dalliance with "complex airplanes," defined in part by having retractable wheels, Beckett moved on to helicopters, but after the only other student in the program crashed the only helicopter, he took up aerobatics.

"My family knew by then it was hopeless to try and talk me out of it," he said.

Beckett said the program started with ground school, and airtime started with rolls.

"You fly along and get your speed up to 160 miles per hour then pull up to a 45 degree angle and take the stick, if you want to go left, left as far as it can go and roll," he said. "It's so wonderful."

He also learned to do the more complicated slow rolls and loops, Immelmans, an old combat maneuver, and hammerheads, which includes flying vertical at 165 mph. Flying upside down and handling a spin when things went sideways were also in the course work.

The first thing he had to do, however, was build up a tolerance to G-force.

"We'd do a loop and come back down and (Nathanson) would ask 'how do you feel?" he said. "At first you can do two or three and then you start to get sweaty; it's what they call 'your barf tolerance.'"

Beckett said he rigged up his own tolerance builder at home by suspending a creeper, essentially a padded board on wheels used by mechanics to roll under cars, from the ceiling.

"I made a basket of sorts, and I'd strap myself onto it like a backpack and wind it up about 15 times or so and let it go, and spin and spin and spin," he said.

Recently Beckett said he asked Nathanson when he would consider him certified.

"He said, 'You've completed the course work, you're done,'" Beckett said.

"He's pretty good," Nathanson said. "He can do the loops and rolls and many other aerobatic maneuvers. He's a better pilot because he took this training. He'd be able to recover the plane better if something happened."

Beckett said his next venture is to finish the helicopter training.

"I was almost halfway through the training," he said. "I could control it about 70 to 80 percent of the time. I have to finish."

Story and photo:   http://www.itemlive.com

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