VERO BEACH — Members of Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 99 of Vero Beach love flying so much that they share their planes and their simulators with the public one Saturday each month at the Vero Beach Municipal Airport.
The EAA hosted Learn to Fly Day on Saturday and a few dozen curious locals and visitors came out to see the light sport planes, fly the simulators and learn more about flight training from representatives from Flight Safety and The Pilot Training College.
Ron Glazer of Remos Aircraft brought a brand-new model, the Remos GX plane to the airport for the event.
“The difference with this aircraft is that you have the ability to train on a new plane and it’s affordable,” he said of the German-made craft. “Before the only choice for this price was to train on an older plane.” At $120,000, the two-seater has all the latest equipment and gadgets that a flight student would need to learn to become a certified pilot.
EAA Chapter 99 President Gerd Pfiefle said the Remos GX is the next generation of experimental aircraft. Most people think of experimental aircraft as kit-planes built or assembled in the hobbyists’ garage.
“The EAA is always trying to keep flying fairly affordable,” Pfiefle said. “They’re pushing to get smaller planes like this, it used to be people would build your own planes but that’s very time consuming, now we have light sport planes like this.”
The club, which has 65 members consisting of pilots, spouses and flying enthusiasts of regular and remote-control planes, meets weekly for educational talks and to use the group’s two simulators, which can be programmed to train for remote-control flying or for regular aviation on different models of planes.
Chapter 99 host Learn to Fly day the fourth Saturday of the month at the Vero Beach Airport. The next event will be from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. September 26. For more information, go to www.eaa99.org or call (772) 567-2506.