Pilot Dies as His Ultra-Light Plane Stalls and Crashes : Accident: Frank Perry Jr., 72, of Camarillo, took off alone from Santa Paula Airport. FAA finds no mechanical cause for the tragedy.

An ultra-light experimental plane that had been flown only once before crashed shortly after takeoff from Santa Paula Airport Monday morning, killing the pilot.

Frank Ernest Perry Jr., 72, of Camarillo, was the only one aboard when his homemade aircraft stalled at between 150 and 200 feet and plunged into the Santa Clara River’s south bank, witnesses said.

Federal Aviation Administration investigators found no apparent cause of the accident. No engine failure occurred, and nothing was structurally wrong with the aircraft, FAA Inspector Tom Mangum said.

An autopsy determined that Perry died of multiple head injuries and ruled out the possibility of a stroke or heart attack before the crash, authorities said.

Perry lifted off from the airport’s runway at 9:07 a.m. without trouble, witnesses said. He flew west and was turning south when the nose dipped, causing the plane to spiral downward, Mangum said.

“He loved to fly,” said his wife, Evelyn, who rushed to the airport after a friend called her. “That airplane was his baby.”

The retired Thousand Oaks High School shop teacher built the plane without using a kit. It was a replica of a 1924 craft called the Dormoy Flying Bathtub. The name came from the fuselage, which resembled a bathtub.

Friends said Perry had flown the tiny plane about a year ago but wanted to make changes to it, including installing a new propeller.

Perry had built and flown at least two other small airplanes before he began constructing the Dormoy replica, friends said.

“He knew what he was doing,” said Lee Landis, a pilot who knew Perry for about 20 years. “He wasn’t an amateur. He’s not a daredevil pilot.”

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Perry’s license was last updated in May, 1988, and was expired at the time of the accident, FAA officials said. But under FAA regulations, a pilot’s license is not needed to fly ultra-light aircraft, spokesman Hank Verbais said.

Nor are the planes regulated by the FAA as long as they stay within certain weight and speed restrictions, Verbais said.

Accident statistics for ultra-light aircraft were not available Monday, officials said. Earl Lawrence, a spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Assn., said the aircraft industry has not begun to compile any significant data to indicate whether ultra-light airplanes are more or less dangerous than other aircraft.

Two years ago, another Camarillo man was killed when his ultra-light plane went down in a strawberry field while he was practicing forced stalls at Camarillo Airport.

The sport of building and flying ultra-light planes began in the 1970s. Such planes have been described as hang gliders with motors attached. Lawrence said interest in ultra-light planes has been growing, and most are put together by people using kits.

To avoid FAA regulation, ultra-lights must be used strictly for recreation. They must weigh less than 254 pounds, have a maximum fuel-tank capacity of five gallons, and cannot fly faster than about 60 m.p.h.

Some investigators were shocked at the tiny size of Perry’s plane when they arrived at the crash site.

“God, he flew in this thing?” said Ventura County Deputy Coroner Dale Zentzis, who added that he has seen several ultra-light crash scenes in his career. “This is probably more frail than most.”

The steel frame was mangled in the crash and the wings badly torn. Two bicycle wheels that were used for landing were bent, and the propeller was smashed. Officials had to wade across the river from the airport to get to the wreckage.

Monday’s accident was the fifth fatal crash in three years at or near Santa Paula Airport, which is a private airfield built by local ranchers in 1930. A total of seven people have died in the crashes.

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Friends say Perry and his wife, who is also a pilot, had not flown much in recent years, but he was a well-known figure at the airport because he faithfully visited his hangar daily to work on the Dormoy replica.

“He was so wrapped up in his airplane,” said Harrison Bemis, owner of an airplane repair shop at the airport. “He built it from scratch.”

Perry worked as a industrial arts teacher at Thousand Oaks High School for many years and retired in 1984, officials said. After his retirement, he spent even more time working on his planes.

“He’s always here at the crack of dawn for coffee,” a waitress at the airport restaurant said.

Friends say Perry had fallen in love with aviation when he was trained during World War II as a flying gunner. His wife said she has been a pilot for about 20 years, and their two sons also enjoy flying.

Jim Johnson, who knew Perry for about 20 years, said he was shocked to hear of the accident because Perry is careful with his workmanship. Two of his sons took shop classes from Perry, he said.

“Just because a plane is experimental doesn’t mean it’s dangerous,” Johnson said. “The Wright brothers had an experimental plane. But I guess it’s a risk you take every time you go up there.”