From Manhattan to Mac

Published: May 17, 2008

From Manhattan to Mac

By STARLA POINTER

Of the News-Register

Private pilots often fly to another city for lunch, using the repast as an excuse to take their planes up and socialize with other aviation enthusiasts - jokingly referring to the practice as indulging in a "$50 hamburger."

Joseph "Yossi" Friedman flew a little farther than usual this week so he could have dinner in McMinnville.

Friedman left his home across from New York City's Central Park on May 10 and traveled to the Flight Design USA offices in South Woodstock, Conn., where his CT Light Sport Aircraft was being serviced. Then he and a buddy, fellow pilot Derek Case, lifted off on a cross-country flight.

After zig-zagging to avoid terrible storms in the Midwest, they landed in McMinnville on Thursday evening, just in time for the second-annual CT fly-in organized by local pilot Roger Heller.

About a dozen Flight Design CTs and about twice that many people are attending the event based at the McMinnville Airport.

The group will spend part of each day socializing and part of the day flying. They've already been to the Tillamook Air Museum and the runway-side restaurant in Independence, and they plan to visit the Evergreen Aviation Museum and other sites, as well.

"Oregon is a beautiful, beautiful state," said Friedman, who had driven through Oregon when he was a student at Stanford University in California.

Friedman is making his second visit to the fly-in. Last year, he crossed the country on a commercial plane, feeling that he wasn't quite ready to make the trip on his own. He couldn't be happier that he was in the pilot's seat for this trip.

"Instead of being human cargo, I had the immense amount of freedom crossing the Rockies on my own terms," he said.

And the CT is the perfect vehicle for such a trip, Friedman said. A light sport aircraft can fly no higher than 10,000 feet and pilots must have visual clearance - they can't fly at night or in bad weather. In addition, the small plane has huge windows beneath the wings. "So you see everything," he said.

Visibility is not what drew Friedman to the CT in the first place.

The stockbroker suffers from muscular dystrophy, a condition that was diagnosed when he was 17 and undergoing an Army physical in his native Israel. But he doesn't let MD limit him - he scuba dives and otherwise keeps very active.

Three years ago, when he decided to fly, he went looking for a plane suited to his abilities. He fell for the CT.

He bought one of the tiny planes, then spent more than 20 hours with a flight instructor to obtain his solo pilot license.

"For me it's a fantastic experience. It's really changed my life," he said.

The CT was popular in Europe for many years before its U.S. debut in 2006. Now about 250 are flying in the United States; four, including Heller's, are based in Oregon.

The plane is made from composite materials, making it strong and light. Although it cruises as fast as a standard private plane, it uses much less fuel - only four to five gallons an hour at 135 mph, compared to a Cessna 172 that uses eight to 10 gallons at the same speed.

"This is very high performance and feather-light in the controls; very intuitive," Friedman said. "It's like they had me in mind when they designed it."

In the words of Ken Godin, national sales director for Flight Design who also is attending the fly-in, "It's like a Porsche compared to an old Volkswagen Bug."

Friedman frequently flies from Connecticut, where he hangars his plane, to Florida. Or he'll make the trip to Vermont to order a scoop or two at the Ben and Jerry's factory - sort of a "$50 ice cream cone."

He likes landing on tiny grass airfields near lakes or mountains in rural Connecticut or cruising over East Hampton, where he has a bird's-eye view of gated communities. And he gets a big kick out of flying in two of the most challenging air spaces in the country - the ultra-busy New York-New Jersey area and the Washington, D.C., area, where he needs not only a flight plan but also national security clearance.

The trip to Oregon is Friedman's longest thus far. But he has another goal in mind: Flying his CT from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America.

"I would love to see the Americas from my plane," he said.