Jerry Butcher recalls standing outside his home on the North Fork of the Newaukum River when he saw a small swarm of odd-looking aircraft buzz overhead.
The pilots were driving powered parachutes — essentially tricycles that hang from conventional parachutes and have three-foot-wide fans strapped to the back.
As they motored out of sight, the former logger said to his wife, “Boy, that looks like fun. I have to do this.”
Butcher caught a flight from Steve Rambo, a Chehalis man who builds, sells, and repairs the odd aircraft through his company, Aerochutes SW.
After one flight, Butcher was hooked.
“There’s nothing to it,” he said. “Steer with your feet, and work the throttle.”
He soon bought his own.
A new powered parachute costs roughly the price of a used Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and it takes Rambo about 50 hours to build. He said he sells a few per year. Most of his business comes from training new pilots and repairing powered parachutes.
More than a dozen people float around Lewis County in their own powered parachutes, and Rambo knows all of them.
“Everyone seems to have their own color signature,” Rambo said of each pilots unique chute. “So I’m driving around, and I know exactly who’s who.”
Although the contraptions look like something Da Vinci drew up, powered parachutes didn’t exist until the 1980s, after a group of adrenaline freaks attached a fan to a paraglider. Rambo said the first generation of powered parachutes were “pretty scary-looking.”
But the vehicles he sells are different — think flying dune buggies.
“These are the simplest things to fly in the world, and the safest,” said Jim Grubner, a powered parachute instructor from Toledo. “You can pretty much hit a brick wall in these things and be OK.”
The aircraft’s motor is 65 horsepower, oil-injected, and water-cooled. But should there be a problem in the air, your parachute is already deployed.
Personal history quells safety concerns. Both Rambo and Grubner have both been in a couple of crashes in their time, but both have been able to walk away from the wrecks unharmed.
“I’ve flown with guys that jumped out of a perfectly good plane,” Rambo said. “I meet them at 4,000 feet, shut my motor off and become a parachuter.”
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Brandon Swanson: (360) 807-8232
