© Carl-Friedrich Schmidt 2021

Charly Sunshine The Aviator

• 1988 PPL-A at the motor flying school • 1990 Ultralight-license for aerodynamically controlled UL • 1991 Teaching license PPL-A, since then freelancer at the motor flying school of BWLV • 1994 PPL-B • 1997 IFR-authorization • 1998 CPL and type rating Cessna 303-421 • 1998 Instruction authorization Cessna 303-421 • 1998 Flight instructor and pilot at flight school Südwest / Joy-Air Stuttgart • 1999 Type rating De Havilland 104 “Dove” • 2002 Flight instructor at AERO-BETA Stuttgart • 2007 US Validation based on foreign licence

Charly that’s me, the little boy on this photo. He’s holding a rubber engine plane in his hands, which he got as a present at an aviator meeting. Since this very day he can’t get planes out of his head. When he’s playing in his north german parents house garden almost daily there are jet fighters with engines whistling like hell flying over his head. Other children cry, but he is excited when he can recognize the face of the pilot. Charly is a dreamer since childhood days. On the children’s merry-go-around he always sits on the plane. At school he is often unfocused and his banjo and his radio tinkering prevent regular completion of his homework. After somehow completing high school, he becomes a military musician at the german navy band and finally a principal trumpeter in a symphony orchestra. As a young music student on a north america tour, he randomly meets an agricultural pilot, a so called ‘Cropduster’, who takes him with in his piper cub and shows to him at treetop height what he and his little plane are capable of. This flight is a mix of limitless euphoria and short moments of fear of death - after the landing little Charly had become an aviator, even though he hadn’t had his pilot license yet. He knows that one day he will fly himself.

As

soon

as

I

had

a

regular

income

as

an

orchestral

musician

I

signed

up

for

flight

training

and

shortly

after

got my private pilot license.

Coffeeflights

were

never

really

my

style,

I

wanted

to

come

around

and

so

my

first

longer

flights

led

me

through

half

of

Europe

-

during

my

numerous

concert

trips

to

Africa

I

chartered

small

Cessnas

and

flew

over

landscapes,

which

I

had

so

far

only

known

from

descriptions

by

Exupery

or

Tanja

Blixen.

GPS

wasn’t

invented

yet,

the

only

navigational

help

was

a

so

called

“Drehmeier”

(a

mechanical

navigation

computer),

ONC

charts

(american

maps

for

the

military)

with

white

spots

(‘MAXIMUM

ELEVATION

FIGURES

ARE

BELIEVED

NOT

TO

EXCEED

9200

FEET’)

as

well

as

the

ADF

with

which

one

could

navigate

with

radio

navigation

but

usually

was

used

for

listening

to

typical

music

of

the

country.

The

weather reports were often wrong or three days old - great memories…

After

more

than

100

hours

flight

experience

in

the

first

year

I

realised,

that

I

would

never

have

enough

money

to

fly

as

often

as

I

wanted

to.

Soon

I

became

a

flight

instructor,

got

my

commercial

pilot

license

and

flew

valuable

cargo

and

important

people

throughout

central

europe

as

a

free

lancer

with

small

twin-

engine

propeller

planes.

As

a

flight

instructor

I

had

the

honor

to

accompany

many

people

on

their

way

to

the

cockpit

-

the

moment

when

sending

a

student

pilot

on

his

first

solo

flight

and

possibly

even

later

seeing

him as a pilot of an airliner always made me proud and happy.

My

time

as

a

commercial

pilot

was

a

great

enrichment

for

my

flying

skills.

I

learned

to

fly

complex

airplanes on instruments - at any time of day or night and often in very bad weather conditions.

…

During

that

time

I

sometimes

remembered

my

flight

with

the

cropduster,

especially

when

something

went wrong …

After

many

hundred

hours

of

instructing

and

thousands

of

landings

I

however

realised

more

and

more,

that

I would rather decide for myself, where and especially in what weather conditions I want to fly.

The

time

had

come

to

haven

my

own

plane

-

a

machine

off

the

shelf

however

was

not

the

right

toy

for

a

dreamer like me.

After I had gotten my seaplane rating at the ‘Comer See’ I wanted to build a small flying boat, but then I stumbled upon the following image on the internet and I knew on an instant: That’s the plane I want to have!

After

fourteen

years

of

construction

time

during

which

I

barely

flew

but

instead

welded,

manufactured

and

dreamt in my workshop - finally my own little plane popped up in front of me.

It looked like the main attraction of a children’s merry-go-around.

Little Charly finally had fulfilled his dreams.

Here is a video about the construction time as well as a

report

which I

wrote for the OUV (german experimental airplane association).

A video made by the hardware store chain Hornbach got more than 400.000 clicks on Youtube and social media within 4 weeks. The “Frankfurter-Allgemeine” newspaper published a thorough report on 27.7.2021. On 22.08.2021 Carl-Friedrich Schmidt appeared as a guest on the NDR-show ‘Kaum zu glauben’ with Kai Pflaume.