Microlight Aircraft of New Zealand - Pete James' Easy Riser

 

Like all of the early ultralight aircraft in the US, the Easy Riser was developed from a hang glider, in this case the Icarus 1 which was designed by the teenage Taras Kiceniuk Jr in the early 1970s.  It differed from other early hang gliders which used flexible Rogallo wings, in that it was a rigid swept biplane wing design and like all the others it was foot launched off a convenient hill.  John Moody of Wisconsin bought an Icarus kit but there weren't many convenient hills there, so in 1975 he bolted a 10 HP go cart engine onto his Easy Riser and he was away!  Here is a good video about the Easy Riser ultralight:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFwU9O1wjgQ&t=25s  

I think the first powered microlight aircraft to fly in New Zealand was Pete James’ Easy Riser which was powered by a two stroke McCulloch 101 engine out of a go cart.  I saw Pete attempting to fly it at Te Kowhai in late 1977 when he started the engine and then ran down the runway and raised his feet before sinking back onto the ground on his knees some distance later.  I did not appreciate the historical significance of these hops at the time and it would be fair to say that I was not that impressed.  Many years later I had the opportunity to talk to Pete and he explained to me that these hops were when he was experimenting with making his own propeller, and he eventually was successful and flew quite successfully at Te Kowhai.

I also remember that day having a great feed of mussels that Max Clear had bought back to Te Kowhai after flying out to the West Coast near Raglan and gathering them from the rocks.  Yum!

Pete told me that he was originally a hang gliding enthusiast and he attended a hang gliding contest at Stanmore Park in Australia in 1976 where he saw a factory built Easy Riser flying with an engine and he took photos of it which guided him in his own engine installation.  Back in New Zealand he bought a damaged Easy Riser and rebuilt it, and then fitted the engine. 

Pete thinks he was the first to fly a powered microlight aircraft in New Zealand and that was in late 1977 although he does know of another guy who was experimenting with powered microlights at Raglan around the same time. 

After successfully flying locally around Te Kowhai Pete flew his powered Easy Riser cross country to Raglan and return in early 1978.  But disaster struck on his return to Te Kowhai when he was unsettled by a thermal and his weight shifted backwards resulting in him entering a multiple turn spin.  Fortunately he was spinning with a low descent rate like a sycamore seed and he came down near the hangars at Te Kowhai.  Onlooker rushed across to help but remarkably Pete extricated himself and walked away!  Pete then rebuilt the Easy Riser, which was not badly damaged, but the same thing happened when he was flying it off the Kaimais and this time the machine was badly damaged and not repaired.

However Pete was not deterred from microlight flying and some years later in the late 1980s he bought a factory built UFM Easy Riser off a Dutch gentleman from Christchurch which had a 7.5 HP Hirth engine.  He registered it as ZK-FWA on 13/2/90  and fitted with a tricycle undercarriage and it photo'd below at Waitohi the early 1990s.  It was cancelled from the register as withdrawn on 30/8/96 then re-registered on 8/4/97, then cancelled again (finally) as withdrawn on 10/11/05.  It is now on display at the South Canterbury Aviation Heritage Centre at Timaru airport.

Pete James was a pioneer in the fledgling microlight movement in New Zealand and he now works as the Queenstown Base Chief Engineer for Salus Aviation (who purchased the helicopter division of Airwork).  He is an IA and LAME and has worked in the aviation industry for 50 years.

Thanks to Pete James for the early Easy Riser photos.  They are photos of photos and quite enlarged, so the quality is not very good.  Does anyone out there know of the original photos so we can get them in better quality?