Enthusiasts pursue cheap flight dreams

Sep 12, 2002
Ritums Rozenbergs

These aviator entrepreneurs are hoping cheap labor costs will help them popularize their passion by making an airplane affordable to the average family, even if it can't quite fit them all in at the same time.

Later this year, Egons Garklavs plans to begin turning out a two-seater ultralight from his factory some 70 kilometers northeast of the Latvian capital, Riga.

With a fiberglass cabin and duraluminium frame, the wings of the U.S.-designed plane are covered with a special lightweight plastic material.

"It will be affordable for the middle class. The simplest models will cost around 4,000 lats (6,500 euros). It will be the people's plane," Garklavs said.

Factory-assembled ultralights with enclosed cabins are difficult to buy for under 10,000 euros in the West and can easily cost twice that.

The biggest cost components of the planes, according to Garklavs, are the electronics and safety systems, which can include a parachute to slow the descent of a plane if the motor fails.

"The cost depends on the desire of the client," he said.

But it is the thrill that many people are after.

With only a fiberglass windshield in front, you have a full range of vision as the ground pulls away beneath you in Maris Markovs' Italian-made Tuscano two-seater.

Farmhouses quickly shrink away to specks on a patchwork quilt of fields and forests as Markovs guns the engine for a rapid climb to nearly 2,000 meters.

After cutting the motor, the only sound is of your heartbeat and wind across the wings as he turns the nose down for a rapid descent to 500 meters.

As the ground approaches, Markovs restarts the motor for a stomach churning pull-out to take his passenger over another hump of his aerial roller coaster.

Markovs instructs aspiring ultralight pilots at the Cesis Air Club in northern Latvia but also has two airstrips on his nearby 80-hectare farm, with a workshop to assemble planes in his wood barn.

Despite his liking for extreme flying, Markovs plans to begin manufacturing his own plane with a "200 percent safety guarantee for the pilot and his family."

The plane will have both a forward- and a rear-facing propeller engine, improving both safety and performance.

Using both engines during take-off allows owners to use shorter airstrips, but only one of the two is needed for flight, he said.

A take-off in interest in ultralights has Latvian authorities concerned as they have scarce resources to ensure safety regulations are met.

The head of Latvia's Civilian Air Administration, Maris Chernonoks, said his agency was happy to work with ultralight enthusiasts, for whom they certify planes free of charge.

Dozens have registered their planes, but "we don't really know how many planes there are in Latvia. Many enthusiasts are building them in their barns," he said.

While there have been no incidents so far of unlicensed pilots flying, Chernonoks is worried that his 30 workers will not be able to perform sufficient monitoring if pilots pick up the bad habit of many Latvian drivers of sitting behind the wheel while drunk.

But so far police have shown little interest in helping out his agency, said Chernonoks.

"They don't go on the streets so how are we going to catch them in the clouds," national police inspector Aigars Berzins told AFP.

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