Hollister
– Hugh Bikle is no stranger to historical airplanes. In fact, he
keeps a hangar full of them in Hugh’s Vintage Aircraft Museum.
Hollister – Hugh Bikle is no stranger to historical airplanes. In fact, he keeps a hangar full of them in Hugh’s Vintage Aircraft Museum.
But Bikle’s Schweizer sailplane isn’t just old; it’s a piece of family history. It was in that plane that Bikle’s father Paul set the world altitude record for gliding in 1961, a record that remained unbeaten for two decades.
More than 40 years later, the glider is back in Bikle’s hands and ready to soar again.
“That will be a fun day,” he said.
Bikle said his childhood was steeped in aviation history. He grew up on Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, where his father headed NASA’s flight research program from 1959 to 1971. While they were living at the base, Bikle said legendary pilots like Chuck Yager and Neil Armstrong were frequent visitors, and planes were a constant topic around the house.
“When you’re involved in aviation, you don’t talk about much else,” Bikle said.
It wasn’t a particularly stable existence. Bikle said that every couple of weeks, the children at school would see an explosion on the horizon, and they knew one of their fathers had just died in a test.
But Bikle’s father wasn’t just satisfied with testing planes as his day job. He was also an ace glider pilot, and on Feb. 25, 1961, he flew his sailplane to 46,267 feet. That record was beaten in the 1980s, Bikle said, but his father’s record for altitude gained – he climbed from 4,000 feet – still stands.
Bikle wasn’t just watching on the sidelines either.
“Every year, my brother and I stripped it down, re-covered and repainted,” Bikle said. “Our payment was that we got to fly it.”
When he was a teenager, Bikle actually set several youth gliding records. However, his father sold the Schweizer shortly after setting the altitude record, and Bikle stopped flying when he went to college. When he started piloting again 10 years later, Bikle said, gliding had gone out of fashion, so he focused on powered aircraft.
In the 1970s, Bikle started collecting the historical planes that now sit on his ranch and in his museum. Although he usually bought powered aircraft, Bikle also kept an eye out for his father’s glider.
Bikle found the glider and purchased it from the Niagara Soaring Club 15 years ago, and he’s been trying to find the time and the right mechanic to restore it ever since. As of May 24, the glider has been certified as flight-worthy once more.
Bikle has asked local glider pilot Drew Pearce to take the glider up for a flight, and Pearce said he hopes to get the Schweizer up in the air in the next week or two. Pearce doesn’t plan to set any records, but he’s still looking forward to the flight.
“There are a lot of people who want to see it in the air again,” he said.
