Boris Popov, who brought the BRS
into being about then, also was a local
ultralight dealer and was selling an
ultralight a day during the summer
months. In 1982 he opened an airpark
near St. Paul, Minnesota, to train new
pilots in the just-developed
Quicksilver MX Sprint two-seat
trainer. He thought I’d be good at
teaching, so I jumped through the
hoops and became an official, FAA-legal instructor.
LEARNING BY DOING
For the illustration I’ve drawn a two-seater that I used for instruction. (The
technically minded will note that it’s
an early one, with a single-surface
wing and an early BRS. It definitely
brings back memories.) At home I was
soon studying for the private pilot
certificate, surrounded by a sea of ASA
study manuals. I was so enthusiastic
that I studied for the commercial
certificate as well, just because it was
enjoyable to learn new stuff. It was all
part of the forward charge.
The very act of teaching makes you
learn your subject. Flight instruction is
harder than it looks, but you do get to
spend a lot of time in the air, and students are always interesting. Most are
apprehensive about landings; one will
focus on the airspeed indicator to the
exclusion of all else, another will seem
completely confident on the controls,
but will take longer than average to nail
down level turns. It’s always fascinating
and sometimes maddening, rarely boring, and invariably rewarding to see a
student solo and go on in aviation.
An unexpected benefit from
instructing was that one of my students
was a young lady who would eventually
become my wife. Boris was best man at
the wedding, and our paths have intersected often over the years. I pulled the
handle on some on-ground BRS test
deployments and flew the camera guy
for some in-air tests. Having grown up
around pilots and aircrews who always
had parachutes and ejection seats as an
ultimate backup, I’ve had a BRS
installed on every ultralight I’ve flown
since they became available.
