10/25/06

My name is Richard Schultz and I grew up in Wisconsin in a town only twenty miles from the center of general aviation known to all who love flying as Oshkosh.  At the time I was growing up I was not really exposed much to flying. My first ride in a small plane came from a family friend and one of the pioneers of aviation in Wisconsin, Max Sagunsky. Max was once the airport manager for the Appleton airport and ran a small FBO called Maxair. Maxair provides fuel, charters and flight training out of the Outagamie County Airport in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Maxair is still in business today and provides a great service to both large regional airlines as well as the smaller more personal aircraft. I was taken in at the age of about 10 by the experience of a flight that Max gave me one warm June morning. I would later, in a strange twist of fate, be able repay his kindness by using that very same aircraft to fly over him as he was laid to rest while I was taking my flight training at the same FBO he had started many years before. The flying bug stayed with me in the background of my dreams for years.

My mom always blamed her side of the family for my desire to fly. My great uncle was Lieutenant Colonel Austin Straubel. Austin was a squadron commander and flew B-18's during WWII. He was a local hero in his hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The airport in Green Bay is named in his honor. Austin was returning from Malang to Surabaya in the Pacific when he came under attack from Zero fighters. His plane went down in flames near Surabaya. He survived the crash but died hours later in the hospital in Surabaya from the burns he received as his plane went down .

I took a job with Dresser Atlas based in Texas and worked as an electronics technician. The location I worked for serviced the lower Texas offshore Gulf of Mexico area. I was once again taken with the idea of flying by the world of helicopters that were used to ferry us to the different drilling rigs and platforms. Just out of school and too short on money to get into flight training I put on hold the idea of learning to fly once again. My job took on different rolls and in the fall of 1986 I found myself working in Saudi Arabia. I would spend sixteen years working there and making great friends from around the world. Saudi Arabia did not allow general aviation but there is a strong group of flyers there willing to teach ground school and simulators to anyone willing to search them out.

One of these friends came to work with me in the repair lab in Saudi. His name was Mark Gaede and I knew I was in trouble when I met him on his arrival to our compound. He was carrying two keyboards and a backpack with him. Mark, it turns out, became a very good friend and he had a passion for flying driven by a life spent early on strapped in the backseat of his father's plane. His farther worked as a bush doctor in Alaska. Mark had such great tales of beauty, fun and adventure that I finally decided after the birth of my daughter, Elizabeth, to use one of our summer vacations back in the states to learn to fly. Mark's sister, Naomi, put together a book about their father's life in Alaska and for anyone who wants to know what life as a bush pilot is like I would not pass up the chance to read "Prescription for Adventure: Bush Pilot Doctor" By Naomi Gaede-Penner.

Knowing nothing about what I was getting myself into I called ahead and spoke to a flight instructor at Maxair and explained what I was thinking of doing. He was not sure it would be possible to get a pilot's license in only a month's time starting from nothing. He was game to try and the day after my arrival back in the states I was out at the airport for my first lesson and a "crash" course in flight maneuvers, ground school and radio work. My instructor was Brian Lofgren. While the ink on his instructor's ticket was still damp he took me on as a challenge and we worked very hard to meet my schedule. We flew some times twice a day and I studied the flight manual and test guide between lessons and at night. On day number six of my flight training, I took off to take my FAA written test. I passed having missed only one question on VOR's and I still have trouble with those today! With my written test behind me, eleven instruction flights and a final three touch and go landings with my instructor, I was ready to solo. Well that's what my instructor told me as he unbelted himself from the Cessna 152 I had been training in and told me to go do three more touch and go landings just like we had done for the last half hour. Being the ever willing student I called the tower and taxied my way to the end of the airport. Not sure if he planned it that way or not but with the wind conditions I had to taxi to the farthest end of the airport all the while asking myself if I really knew how to fly. With a very detailed run-up and a clearance from the tower to go, I settled the plane dead center on the runway, double checked everything and with a glance to the empty seat now beside me pushed the throttle forward and departed earth for the first time alone. What a feeling it is to feel the plane leave the ground and know you're in total control of what has, is and will happen. A few radio calls later and one very large smile that was almost permanently attached to my face I completed my first solo flight. I think Brian was smiling too but I think more because I brought the plane back in one piece and saved him a whole bunch of paperwork! Flight training lasted a total of thirty-seven days from flight number one till flight number twenty-eight. With a light misty rain I took off to fly my last hour while enroute to meet the FAA flight examiner. With a total of forty-one and a half hours in the logbook, we took off in more light rain to run me through my paces. With the exception of one "firm" landing, I managed to pass the exam and was now a certified pilot. Much learning and experience lay ahead.

After working sixteen years in Saudi Arabia, I decided to put in for a transfer back to Houston. Leaving Saudi was hard after sixteen years and having both children born over there. We settled in the far north side of Houston in an area called The Woodlands. House hunting was complicated by the fact that the family was still back in Saudi finishing out the school year and I was looking for a home with a garage big enough to build a plane in. I managed to find a nice home and thanks to digital photos and the internet managed to have a home ready to move into by the time the family arrived in Houston. Six months after moving to Houston I called the Europa office in Lakeland, Florida and ordered the XS kit.  The rest is what will be found in the pages of this website regarding the trumps, joys and work involved in building an experimental kit aircraft.