-----Original Message-----
From: cozy_builders-bounces@mailman.qth.net
[mailto:cozy_builders-bounces@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Rick Irwin
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 12:25 PM
To: Cozy_builders@mailman.qth.net
Subject: COZY: Crash? four seat pusher? would this be a Cozy?



More From The Mobile Register
Longtime pilot dies in crash
Paul Conner was flying experimental aircraft
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
By RUSS HENDERSON and BRENDAN KIRBY
Staff Reporters

ST. ELMO -- An Army flying veteran with more than 30 years' experience
in a cockpit died Monday when his experimental, rear-propellered
aircraft crashed just west of the small airport here.

The small, white plane piloted by Paul Conner, 57, of Grand Bay circled
back shortly after taking off from the air strip at R.P. Crigler Sr.
Aeroplex, Mobile County sheriff's deputies said.

It then spiraled into a copse of trees between the airport and a
neighboring farm field. Deputies received the call at about 3:50 p.m.,
said Chief Deputy Mark Barlow.

No others were traveling inside the four-seater airplane, he said.

Conner was a well-known aviator at the airport, and built the
fixed-wing, Canard-style airplane himself from a kit, other pilots at
the airport said. He is listed as the aircraft's builder on its Federal
Aviation Administration registration.

A deputy arrived at the airport shortly after the call, then after some
searching through the woods found the aircraft, Barlow said. Conner had
apparently died on impact, he said. County maintenance workers were
called in to cut a trail into the thick foliage, and Conner's body was
removed about two hours after the crash.

The white, fiberglass fuselage of the airplane stood, still steeped in
green leaves and white blooms, at the end of a freshly cut trail roped
off by yellow police tape late Monday afternoon. The aircraft will
remain there until investigators with the National Transportation and
Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are done with it,
Barlow said.

Conner's body was turned over to the state Department of Forensic Sci
ences for an autopsy, Barlow said. The cause of the accident is being
investigated by the FAA and the NTSB, with help from the Mobile County
Sheriff's Office, Barlow said.

Douglas Johnstone, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice who flies an
experimental plane at the St. Elmo airport, said he could not speculate
about the cause of Monday's crash.

Despite their designation, Johnstone said, experimental airplanes have a
good record of safety and performance.

"It doesn't really mean that you don't know whether the thing will fly
again," he said. "I think the experimental airplane community at all
levels ...
(has) a very
good safety record."

Homebuilt aircraft have existed as long as powered flight, according to
the Experimental Aircraft Association, which counts the Wright brothers
as the first makers of homebuilt planes. Today, tens of thousands of
homebuilt aircraft fly throughout the world, according to the group's
Web site.

Johnstone, who left the high court this year after deciding not to seek
re-election, said the experimental airplane industry had its genesis in
lawsuits that drove Cessna, Piper and other manufacturers out of the
business of making inexpensive, single-engine personal planes. He said
the companies could not afford the liability.

Companies then cropped up all over the country selling kits to folks who
built their own planes. Johnstone estimated that about 80 compa nies
sell airplane kits, which vary widely in size and complexity. He said
the FAA lists folks who assemble airplanes from kits as "owner-builders"
as long as they perform at least 51 percent of the labor.

Congress eventually passed a law shielding manufacturers from lawsuits,
allowing them to begin making small, non-jet airplanes again. But the
community of do-it-yourself airplane builders has persisted.

Johnstone said most experimental aircraft owners modify the basic kit to
create unique designs. He said he, for instance, added large wheels to
his "Johnstone-Quicksilver."

The Experimental Aircraft Association's Web site states that a
"significant number of homebuilt aircraft have flown around the globe"
and that one, the Voyager in 1986, remains the only plane ever to circle
the earth nonstop on a single tank of fuel.

(Correspondent Greta Sharp contributed to this story.)

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/news/1116321602162
10.xml&coll=3

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