Chicago man killed in Oregon plane crash

Associated Press ^ | April 24, 2012

[Petruchio]

A kit-built, high-performance light plane crashed Monday in central Oregon, killing two men, the Deschutes County sheriff's office said.

[snip]

The victims were identified as Harry Mortimer League, 68, of Chicago and Patrick Franzen, 52, of Bend. Their bodies were recovered and their relatives have been notified, Davis said.

The plane was described as a single-engine Lancair IV-Propjet.

The cause of the crash was under investigation.

[snip to end]

[Petruchio]

Yup.

[fireman15]

All of the Lancairs are beautiful airplanes. I have to admit that I spent many years pining for a Lancair or Glasair. We live on an airpark... 116 homes built around a small airport. My neighbor has a souped-up Mooney Rocket with a turbocharged engine and speed mods. The plane can travel at over 260 mph which is approximately twice as fast as our Piper Cherokee.

In our Cherokee... coming in to our 3,300 ft runway is a piece of cake. When I went for a ride in my neighbor's Mooney, despite deploying both his flaps and “speed brakes” he was still skimming the tree tops as we came back in. Our runway seemed half as long. He is as engineer who works for the FAA. I have never gone back up with him. I don't like to be in a situation where a slight miscalculation can end up in disaster.

I started out hang gliding, graduated to ultralights and then on to general aviation airplanes. I have flown in a lot of different aircraft and been in a lot of challenging situations over the years. I have been in a tail dragger when when it was ground-looped. I have flaired too early in a high performance hang glider and swooped to a stop over fifty feet in the air. I have flown through a bad storm over the mountains in the middle of the night with my wife next to me sobbing uncontrollably. Maybe I am showing my age, but I really couldn't give a rip about super fast, overpowered, hard to fly, complex airplanes anymore.

These days a “fun” airplane to me is one that you can fly all day in comfort with all your stuff packed and still plop the thing back on the ground safely in challenging conditions even when you are tired. Our simple old boxy, economical Cherokee 140 is enough plane for me these days.