Congratulations to Eric Anderson on his success in completing his Chinook Plus 2 with the GEO engine. Eric is the founder of the Chinook/Beaver newsgroup and has been building his kit for some time now and is proudly up in the air. Here is a small excerpt from Eric after his first official flight along with a couple of pictures of his new Bird.

Eric writes:

I started building the Chinook and training for my pilot's certificate at the same time---I was hoping to be in the air soon. Then the urge to try a Geo engine took hold, and it was a longer road than expected. This was the first application of the Geo, though Bob Singer got his into the air considerably faster. We both have the Raven Redrive. This Chinook uses a 29mm Aero-Carb from Sonex, which works superbly.

First flight for N3711Q was February 16, 2008. A beautiful winter day:

10 degrees F, 10 mph wind, 10 degrees off the runway. I wish I could say all my landings were 10's, too. This Chinook sounds like a Harley and flies like a bee! Controls are very stable. Even though these were my first landings on asphalt, the Chinook handled them well.

Thanks to especially to Paulette and Kurt, Bob the Geo pioneer, Walter, and all the other Beaver-Chinook group contributors for help and inspiration.

More pictures are at www.chinookultralight.com

-Eric Anderson