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Boca Raton News Article

The Boca Raton News was so impressed that we brought the Today Show to their town that they did a story on Burt Medley and Bob Dotson doing a story on us.

Boca Raton News
Wrong Brothers flying for “Today”
By Vernon Maya
News Staff Writer

After the headaches, hassles and hundreds of man-hours, their creative labors deliver a crisp four minutes of entertainment for America’s television audience.

And if you stumble to the kitchen for an eye - opening glass of orange juice Tuesday Morning and happen to miss it - forget it, kid. There are no reruns of the Today Show.

But that’s not the story of the NBC crewmen who were in Boca Raton for four days recently taping for the “Cross Country” segment of the network’s long standing morning show.

They know the limitations and benefits of today’s TV market. Frankly, they love it.

“It’s a great job,” said network correspondent Bob Dotson, one of the three reporters assigned nationally to the Today Show feature beat. He shares the spotlight with correspondents Jack Perkins and Dric Burns.

Dotson, red - nosed from the blazing sin, came here with a producer, engineer, and cameraman for a local spot on hang glider pilots Wes and Tim Friesen, also known as the Wrong Brothers.

The story is scheduled to be shown Tuesday morning, closing out the show between 8:45 and 9 am.

But even after the last camera shot at the Royal Palm Polo Grounds, hours of work lay ahead for Dotson producer Bert Medley, both headquartered in Atlanta.

Between 10 and 12 videocassettes, running 20 minutes each, are shot for each feature the writer - producer team moving pictures that must be whittled down to a measly four or five minutes of on - air time.

And a five-minute story is the television journalists dream. “It’s ‘Gone With The Wind’ for network TV, “Dotson said.

But as producer Medley explained it, “The way Bob and I approach it, we need and extraordinary amount of material to put the bits and pieces together.” Assembling a comparatively lengthy television story, he said, compares to putting together a feature film.

The Thing about the stories we do is that we usually key on people - So that viewers have someone to relate to. The story has a beginning, middle and an end, “Medley said.

The NBC crew came here to meet the Friesen brothers, who commonly soar over the city sitting under a 350 cubic - centimeter engine. From a distance, the prop engines sound much like chain saws.

Friesens got NBC’s attention with simple phone calls, one to Miami and one to Chicago. Their flying “Pterodactyls,” a trade name, are unusual ultra-light aircraft because so few of the California - made planes exists.

Buzzing off into the distance, their fragile craft look something akin to the early wing - like Wright Brothers planes, Jokingly, the brothers named their hang glider dealership, formed just five months ago, Wrong Brothers Aviation.

Because of the weight and power limitations, neither the planes nor their pilots are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration. And the design also is unusual, said Medley. “This one is more like an airplane, as opposed o a motorized hang glider.”

Propped against the open door of his rented sedan Bob simply in tennis shoes, a golf shirt and sandals, Medley, a mustachioed black, spoke casually as his reporter and camera crew circled overhead in a helicopter.

The job, he said, though envied by much of the network press corps, “is not a piece of cake.”

Your hours are longer, because you’re with a story longer,” usually five or more days, “the problem is that our minds are always somewhere ahead - two or three stories ahead.”

All we really care about is getting some time off when we can. It’s a tough job; the creative pressure is great. You can’t stand back and have a loser.”

The stakes are high, said Dotson, back on the ground and nursing a queasy stomach from the chopper ride. “You’ve got to look at it like paying professional football and how it’s received by the public. Pleasure and travel take a toll on Dotson’s family life.

“I’ve got a 3-year old daughter I like to spend some time with,” he said. “The way I get around that is not to play any golf and make my family my hobby.” Not that either man would trade his position - at least for now.

“We get to meet an extraordinary number of people in a real intimate situation and get to spend a couple of days with them rather than a hit-and-run situation like the news correspondent have.”

Dotson added: “You get a good look at the country without being part of a revolution or a hurricane. This is people journalism.”

The Wrong Brothers story cost NBC $4,000 in addition to a week’s salary for Medley and Dotson. An outlining of the segment was written after a researcher in New York did preliminary checks on the story. The camera shots were taken to fit the skeleton script.

Dotson writes his own final scripts, and takes a strong hand in editing the story. He demands that he be able to do so, a practice which he said few other broadcast journalists are allowed.

The Today Show is nice because you don’t have much bureaucratic structure to break through. “We are allowed to do pretty much what we want,” he said.

And he works hard at it. But when he finally gets a free day, his choice of activity confuses his wife. “I travel all the time. My idea of a vacation is lying on the couch and looking at the ceiling.”

Skytrike!

London Daily Mail, Tuesday, October 30, 1979

Full middle page spread

From PAUL DACRE in New York who was in Boca Raton, Florida writing about Tim, myself, and our airplanes with an English slant.

EVERY HOME COULD HAVE ON - A PLANE THAT FITS IN THE GARAGE

SKYTRAIN cut the cost of flying for thousands. Now the skytrike could put a plane in the garage next to the family car.

Well, not a plane exactly. From a distance it looks like a giant prehistoric bird as it circles over skyscrapers, hovers over a four - lane motorway, then heads out to sea.

Up close the amazing flying contraption seems like something straight out of a Walt

Disney film. Called a pterodactyl, the machine, put simply, is nothing more than a three-wheeler bike with a motorbike engine and a giant nylon wing.

In fact the pterodactyl does 50 miles an hour, 40 miles to the gallon, is said to be safer than a jumbo jut, cost less than a Mini and could be the answer to the traffic jam.

LOOPS

According to the brothers, Tim and Wesley Friesen, who are marketing the plane, the machine could become the flying rage of tomorrow. ‘When helicopters were invented people said it wouldn’t be long before one was in every garage.’ Said Wesley.

But helicopters cost a fortune and are always needing repair. Anybody can afford a pterodactyl and there’s virtually nothing that can go wrong with them,’

To prove their point the Friesen’s, who call their firm the Wrong Brothers, plan to take a pterodactyl to Paris to repeat Lououis Bleriot’s historic 1909 crossing of the English Channel, which won him lasting fame and a prize of L1,000 from the Daily Mail.

Unlike Bleriot, however, Wesley Friesen will unpack his plane from a 17 ft. case. Assemble it in 30 minutes, take off in a 50 - yard run and perform 360 - degree loops over the water.

“The machine is a dream to operate,” he says, ‘and anyone can learn to fly it within a week.’

SAFETY

The secret of the pterodactyl, which was created by Californian Jack McCornack, is its ultra-light aluminum tube and nylon design that combines the advantages of glider and propeller plane.

The giant 32 ft. wings loom over the pilot, who is cradled in a web of tubing and wire, The steering controls, which are child’s play, are situated on either side of the pilot’s hammock - style seat and operate wing rudders.

Ascent and decent are controlled by the natural aerodynamic lift of the wings, combined with adjustments of the pilots own weight either forwards or backwards.

And Wesley Friesen insists that the pterodactyl is on of the safest planes flying today. Even if the engine were to fail the pilot could bring the plane with a controlled gliding descent. Try that if the same thing happened in a DC10.

Powered by a 21 h.p. motor the pterodactyl can soar up to 8,000 ft., and has a 200 - mile range. The cost of L1,000 includes the flying lessons.

Friesen maintains that the pterodactyl is much more maneuverable than many larger planes. ‘You can do loops, inverted flying and banks,’ he said. And certainly, he could do all those things the day I watched him take it through its paces,

Friesen explained: Flying the pterodactyl is an ecstatic experience because the pilot is actually part of the machine using his own weight and movement to control its flight.

‘ Once in the air the plane almost flies by its self. It’s as if you’re soaring through the clouds under your own power.”

AND THE ORDERS ARE FLOODING IN

Although the brothers have operated for only a few months, they have already been swamped with more orders that they can handle.

For the future, they see pterodactyl clubs springing up across America and Europe.

“There is no limit to the number of uses to which the plane can be put,” said Wesley Friesen.

Although the pterodactyl in its present form is not ideal for use in large cities, because of lack of landing space, it is ideal for everyday traveling in country areas or for hopping between on town and another.

ADVANTAGE

And the plane has yet one more advantage.

Because it needs so little power to operate, the Friesens claim that under American aviation regulations anyone flying a pterodactyl does not need a conventional pilot’s license.

Honolulu Advertiser Story

Wind blew in and then Wrong Brothers
Record flight over water of an ultra-light aircraft
Written by Advertiser Columnist
Bob Krauss

Hawi – the consensus among the friendly natives of Hawi is that the Wrong Brothers may be as crazy as the Wright Brothers.

“They’ll never make it with the winds like this,” said Joseph Kaos as he presided over a table of prime – beer – drinkers with two cowboys here in the dining room at Luke’s hotel.

It’s blowing 15 knots and gusting up to 30. And this is the best day we’ve had in two weeks.”

The winds flogging the kohala palm fronds brought anxious expressions to the faces of the Wrong Brothers as they arrived here yesterday to prepare for an attempt – maybe tomorrow – to break the over water flight record in ultralight aircraft.

Limbs from the banyan tree across the street from Luke’s were heaving like ocean waves. Branches from ironwood tress were slapping in the wind like the tattered robes of old kahunas.

“It doesn’t look too good,” said Wesley Friesen as he watched the wind blasting through the grass outside.

He immediately sat at the prime table to consult the aviation experts of Kohala. Kaoo took a drag on his cigarette and asked “ What’s the limit on the wind you can fly?”

“About 30 knots,” said Friesen, sucking on his prime.

“When I’m crossing the channel to Maui on a boat, I leave sometimes between 1 and 5 o’clock in the morning,” Said Kaoo. “When are you going to start?”

“At dawn,” said Timothy Friesen, younger of the Wrong Brothers.

“We’ll be across the channel in an hour,” said Wesley.

“Well maybe you can make it,” said Kaoo, reluctantly. The wind usually comes up around 9 0’clock.”

The Wrong Brothers are not the only members of this expedition to encounter unforeseen difficulties in lovely, lazy, tropical Kohala.

“Are you going to be using the telephone?” Asked Mrs. Luke, the innkeeper, when I checked in.

“Yes I will be calling in my story. But I would like to eat first. How long do you serve dinner?”

“At the latest a quarter to seven,” said Ethel. Remember the restaurant isn’t open Saturday and Sunday. You can get something at the grocery store.

“Ah, well, okay. How about the telephone?”

“ It’s in the kitchen, but you can’t use it after we lock the kitchen.

“Oh, what do I do?”

“ There’s a pay phone in the corner.”

I looked and looked in every corner of the dining room. There was no sign of a telephone. I asked a teen-ager, “ Where’s the pay telephone?”

He pointed to the street corner, but before I could call in my story, I had to wait while he called his girlfriend.

Meanwhile I learnt there’s a drive in restaurant two miles down the highway where we can get hamburgers and saimin to tide us over the weekend.

But it doesn’t open until 10 am.

To make up for the lack of modern conveniences, the residents of Kohala unexcelled hospitality. If they had their way, I would be typing this with a primo in each hand.

After advising the Wrong Brothers about the weather, Kaoo invited them to a baby Luau.

On the Hawaiian Air Flight from Honolulu, the Wrong Brothers and I established a method of communication, which we will use in the air.

You see, I am the official observer who will testify whether Wesley and Timothy did or did not succeed in breaking on over-water flight record for ultra-light aircraft.

I will ride in the chase plane, which will circle the Wrong Brothers’ Wright Brothers-type aircraft during the historic flight.

Since their airplanes don’t even have armrests, much less radios, we decided to work out a set of signals. Here’s what the signals by the brothers will mean.

Everything’s okay – thumb and index finger make a circle with other fingers raised.

Getting low on gas – point to gas tank behind hammock seat.

Doing fine on gas – make okay sign, then point to gas tank.

I’m hungry – rub stomach.

I have to go to the bathroom – cross legs.

Engine has conked out – slide finger across throat.

I’m going sown – point down and forward.

The brothers and I landed at Hilo where they loaded their crated airplanes into a fire-engine red ford van for the trip to Kohala. Before leaving the airport, they rented some life jackets and flares.

Today they plan to assemble the airplanes under the banyan tree across the street. The airstrip where they plan to take off is situated on windswept Upolu Point about two miles south of Hawi on the highway and down a narrow road. It’s rarely used these days except by commuter airlines.

Two Wrong Make it all right

By Robert Hollis and Bob Krauss

Honolulu Columnists

Two young airborne adventures with a stowaway gecko aboard made aviation history by flying their ultralight aircraft from the Big Island of Oahu.

The pair calling themselves the Wrong Brothers, flying identical 21-horsepower planes, set a world record for over water flight in ultra lightaircraft when they landed at 9:44 and 9:47 a.m. yesterday on the fairways of Olomana Golf Course in Waimanalo.

Their flight began three hours and 10 minutes earlier at the Upolu Point airfield at the northern tip of the e Big Island. The distance between the two points is 139 miles.

“ It was a piece of cake,” declared a happy Wesley Friesen, 28, minutes after he landed his motorized hang glider on the first fairway of the golf course. “It was a super flight. I saw some whales blowing there things.”

Brother Timothy, 19, put his fragile craft down on the adjoining 16th Fairway.

It was definitely time soak up the Hawaiian atmosphere and party. We were celebrities!!!! We were invited to every major event in the city. Payday had finally arrived. We did countless articles and interviews and were enjoying the moment. If there were ever a time in my life I needed some alcohol, this would have to be in the top ten. I couldn’t be prouder of both Tim and myself for accomplishing a feat that very few people would even think about doing.

Miami Herald

Story by Ron Ishoy Staff Writer

The Wright Brothers, the Wrong Brothers think, would not be happy.

Hundreds of mammoth airliners crowd the sky. The Federal Aviation Administration, licenses, checks, and rechecks aircraft and pilots.

Prices for small airplanes, maintenance, hanger space and Insurance are in a never-ending, and once airborne, the aviator is confronted with more and more restricted air space in which he can’t fly.

SO SOARING like an eagle in one of his flying contraptions hundreds of feet above the beach, Wes Friesen feels he is doing his part to wright the wrongs, so to speak, of human flight. “Basically, this is the way aviation started, “ said Friesen. “It just got out of hand.”

He and his brother Tim own a Deerfield Beach – Boca Raton Company called Wrong Brothers Aviation. I the grandest tradition of magnificent men before them, the brothers make flying machines. The brothers’ latest assemblage looks from afar like a hang glider with an engine, its not.

MADE OF tubular aircraft aluminum, it has a foldable 32-foot-long wing made from dacron for easy transporting. There’s a steer able front wheel and a real airplane suspension for marshmallow like landings.

The machine is powered by a two-cylinder snowmobile engine that delivers 30 horsepower. It is capable of lifting the aircraft and pilot 400 feet an minute. The thing can fly for 200 miles.

Before selling their planes, the brothers take customers up in a conventional airplane to demonstrate the fundamentals of flying. After that, the buyer is on his own.

Wings, engine and wheels weigh only 167 lbs, 60 pounds more than just the engine on Wilbur and Orville’s first chain-driven flyer.

If a pilot is so inclined, Friesen promises, the plane cab fly to 20,000 feet – and just soar without the engine.

But can that unlikely looking collection of parts fly at all?