After 5: Serenity in the Skies: Powered parachuting

Campbell is among the roughly 2,500 hobbyists nationwide who fly powered parachutes.

“It’s incredibly peaceful,” says the owner of residential construction firm Campbell Homes, who has flown powered parachutes for more than five years.

A powered parachute is basically a two-seat go-cart with a large, inflatable parachute behind it that lifts and lowers the craft.

Powered parachutes can take off and land with less than 100 feet of grassy field and lift because air flows into the 500-square-foot, dual-layered parachutes. They are constant-speed aircraft of about 30 miles per hour; increasing throttle simply increases altitude.

Because powered parachutes fly slow and low, usually between 500 feet and 1,000 feet, participants say they are the safest form of flying.

“You get to see everything and feel everything,” says Jim Parker, a powered parachute pilot of three years. “You’re just up there kind of floating along.”

Parker, inventory manager for Harry Cooper Supply Co., has been a fixed-wing pilot for 25 years, but he says powered-parachute flights often have a social significance. He and his wife participate in weekend flying excursions and often fly with other people at Bird Field, a small airport in Willard.

Ron Hawkins, owner of home-based Ron Hawkins Appraisals, also finds camaraderie in flying powered parachutes. Hawkins, a fixed-wing pilot of nearly 40 years and a powered parachute pilot of four years, is a member of Sho-Me Chute Flyers, a 60-member powered parachute club that operates from Baugh Flight Park in Reeds, a small town near Carthage.

Southwest Missouri has a thriving powered parachute community, according to Roy Beisswenger, former event director for the now-defunct American Powered Parachute Association. Ernie Baugh, owner of Baugh Flight Park, estimates there are about 80 powered parachute flyers in southwest Missouri.

Baugh says he holds organized group flights monthly, and every July he hosts a charity event that attracts about 70 fliers and raises about $10,000 for Camp Quality, a children’s charity.

Hawkins says another benefit of flying powered parachutes is the low cost and ease of access.

New crafts cost about $18,000 and used crafts cost about half that, Hawkins estimates. Powered parachutes, which are about 9-feet long and weigh 450 pounds, burn about four gallons of fuel per flying hour.

“Once you buy it, there’s very little expense,” Campbell adds.

Also, powered parachutes require little training. Flyers must have a sport-pilot license, but that can be obtained for only about $1,000 in books and instructor fees and about 12 hours of flight time, says Hawkins, a certified flight instructor.

Flight Factoids

• ParaPlane Corp. made the first commercially available powered parachutes in the early 1980s.

• Branson resident Zane Morris won the National Powered Parachute Championship on Oct. 20 in St. George, Utah. Morris, owner of photography service Branson Aerial, beat 32 competitors at the event on the basis of agility and flying precision.

For more information

Contact Ernie Baugh, certified flight instructor and owner of Baugh Flight Park in Reeds, (417) 358-6233.[[In-content Ad]]