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Dave Martin
LAMA
Board Member
For 17 years, Dave Martin edited KITPLANES, a monthly subscription
and newsstand magazine about Experimental-category homebuilt aircraft.
His background includes a degree in journalism, published articles
in many aviation magazines, 22 years as a U.S. Navy flyer (mostly carrier-based
fighters), and 23 years as a part-time flight instructor in gliders,
airplanes and instruments.
He took flight lessons as a teenager but
was first licensed as a glider pilot in 1966...as the FAA inspector
watched from his government car. Other ratings followed quickly: private
and commercial airplane, instruments, multi-engine airplane and single-engine
seaplane. In 1980 he started flying hang gliders and then ultralights,
eventually experiencing more than 60 ultralight types including floatplanes,
powered and unpowered gliders, a single-seat powered parachute, gyroplanes
and one hot air balloon.
In the early '80s he wrote cover-story flight
evaluations and other features for the largest of the ultralight magazines, "Glider
Rider," which is now named "Ulralight Flying!"
Martin now lives at an airpark in Independence, Oregon. Letting
his Class II FAA medical certificate lapse in September, 2004,
he was among the first people to fly as a sport pilot under
the new FAA regulations.
He
and his wife fly their open-cockpit Spacewalker II taildragger when
the weather is good.