I survived the crash of a Waspair Tomcat in July 4, 1984. It had been brought to the Philippines by an American friend of mine from Wisconsin. I had not flown any aircraft before that time , neither did I have formal lessons in flying. At 32, I was full of bravado to even try and learn to fly an ultralight without training. Before that fateful day, I had already flown the Tomcat in and around our airport in Cagayan de Oro City. On that day, I had done at least four circuits along the runway and was confident enough. My near fatal mistake happened on take off on my fifth flight. I did not realize that at that time, a crosswind was observed. The windsock was not visible from the runway takeoff point as there was a lot of tall grass and banana plants nearby. As I reached an elevation of around a hundred feet after rotation, I felt the strong crosswind cause the plane to yaw to the left and the main wing lift on the right side. My instinct was to get the plane leveled but the canard wing couldnt counteract the crosswind. I also cut the power significantly such as the plane just stalled and dove to the ground at around 60mph. I was pinned to the ground by the wreck before my friends rescued me. I broke four ribs, my pelvis, clavicle and humerus. Two of my vertebrae were compressed. I live to this day with my right arm socket loose. As I just read tonight the accounts of the Waspair Tomcat being involved in many accidents including fatal ones, I am lucky to have survived . I do have pictures and videos including that of the crash. Regards to all
Elpidio M. Paras,
Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines
PS: Months later, a commercial pilot friend of mine died in a canard Goldwing in Manila. I had told him how my canard Tomcat almost got me killed. He and his pilot friends just laughed as they knew I was not even a pilot trainees...
