SFDB
@sfdb.bsky.social
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Previously of the South Florida Daily Blog & Stuck on the Palmetto. Politics, cars, the outdoors & life. Pro gun sense. Sharer of interesting news. Lotsa gift links. NY Times famous. Most photos shared here are not mine and are properly sourced.
![worry was running out of gasoline.
He said he had to check his compass, the only instrument on the ultralight, "every two seconds" to keep a straight course.
A single-engine Cessna 172 supplied by South Florida Aviation Inc., a charter company, circled in front of Cruz, marking the course he was to follow.
After taking off from Paradise Island at 9:36 a.m. with 15½ gallons of fuel, Cruz headed toward Bimini. His altitude ranged from a mere five feet to 15 feet. Cruz said he buzzed along at a low altitude to pick up tailwinds.
"There was nothing the plane could have done if Elvis had gone down," said Langworthy. The Cessna chase plane couldn't land in the water.
"He would have been stuck out there until somebody came to help."
Fuel-efficient the flight was. Fast it wasn't.
The two-cycle, 20-horsepower engine consumed so little gasoline that some was left in the tank when Cruz landed, five hours and two minutes after taking off. The tiny engine pushed the ultralight along at an average of only 37 miles per hour.
Extra fuel stored in special tanks enabled Cruz to remain aloft so long. Most ultralights hold only three gallons of gasoline, but Cruz's holds extra fuel in the fiberglass pontoons. A pump, operated with a hand crank, forces fuel up into a tank mounted between the wings. Then the fuel flows into the engine by gravity.
"I had to keep an eye on the tank [between the wings] to make sure it didn't run out," he said.
The ultralight, whose frame of aluminum tubing is reinforced by taut wires, has wings that are made of rainbow-colored Dacron sailcloth. The pilot sits in a cloth sling that dangles beneath the wings and steadies himself by placing his feet against a crossbar.
He controls the plane by pulling and pushing on a steering yoke and by shifting his weight in the sling.
Before leaving on the long-distance flight, Cruz broke another ultralight record, flying 80 miles back and forth between two points — more than twice as far as the previous record for "close](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ebovc3hnxjadg5cuul6geibu/bafkreiez4lsdx6ttygjx3afnjqcfmvlynonqxk4xpe326x5bvxugdceqbm)
