ZS-DPR CHRISLEA CH-3Srs.2 Super Ace

[aerobatic]

My father, Tom Zeederberg, along with Bob Hay, had a small business, called Aircraft Bureau. They jointly bought and sold many single engine aircraft in the 1970's and early 1980's. Looking at my old South African license and paper work from the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA), I see that amongst the entries, of about 140 different aircraft types, was the Chrislea Ace. (see attached page)
I flew the aircraft on a number of occasions, and it was probably the second worst aircraft that I had ever flown.

The worst being the Lacey M-10, which wanted to do an outside snap roll at the point of rotation on the take off run! I took a morning with about of 8 - 10 tries to get the Lacey airborne, but finally admitted defeat, handed it back to the owner, and I lived to fly another day!
An caption from "Plane and Pilot" explains the problem:
The Lacey is one of the simplest designs for the homebuilder to construct. In the words of its designer, “There are no compound curves and very few simple ones. The wing has no wash-in, no wash-out, no dihedral, and no incidence angle; the wing’s bottom is flat and fits flat on top of the fuselage. It has no taper, no slots, no flaps, no spoilers, no wingtips, no struts, no wires, no braces, and no spars.” The two-place towable Lacey is propelled by a 90-hp Continental.
The Lacey's control stick hung down from the roof of the cockpit, as all the cables to the ailerons etc, were connected to the slab wing, which could be rotated on top of the fuselage, fore and aft, for easy towing and minimal hangarage. (Like a gyrocopter).

Back to the Chrislea, which was a weird aircraft, in many departments, and somewhat gutless at highveld attitudes and not very responsive on the unconventional controls. Between Bob Hay and myself we demonstrated the aircraft to various prospective buyers until a new owner was found, and he gleefully flew the aircraft back to the Orange Free State. I unfortunately don't remember his name.
As one of the resident EAA test pilots, I had the occasion to fly many different types, and one day should write a book on all the experiences and forced landings!

[Bearcat]

Hi Brian.
Pics of a Lacey M20 are scarce. What was the registration and do you perhaps have a pic

[aerobatic]

Hi Bearcat, Unfortunately I do not have any photos of the Lacey and I don't even know the registration, as I never put the entry into my logbook, because I did not get the aircraft airborne. The aircraft was white with green stripes and I think had approx. 100 hp Continental engine, but open to correction.

[Dave_B.]

Dear friends,
I read your chat concerning this aircraft "Chrislea CH-3 Super Ace 2" ZS-DPR, previously registered as G-AKVA.

https://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/G-AKVA.html

You may be interested in the story of how this plane got to Africa. I met the pilot who flew it to the Gold Coast, a British colony today Ghana.

I collected his story of that flight in 2005, but I only published it nine years later, in 2011 in a local monthly named Voce di Blenio.

I send you the link where you can read this adventure:

https://kaosbn.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/cielo-dafrica

I send a warm greeting to all

Davide Buzzi

[Torriestang]

I would like to add to the very interesting discussion about the Chrislea. This aircraft was owned by my late father Alastair Armet.
Alastair was working for Mobil in Accra Ghana 1956 to early 60’s. His work included the installation of refuelling infrastructure at the new Accra Airport.Having a mechanical background and associating with pilots and aircraft owners at the airport it sparked his interests in planes. I can remember as a young child travelling with him to inspect the Chrislea which was stored in an open barn covered in thick dust! Not long afterwards it appeared (in pieces) in our driveway in Accra. Over many months the Chrislea was restored to its former glory. I can remember him also recovering it and painting it red and silver with a red Mobil Pegasus on the side. I can also remember those big foot control paddles with the straps. At that stage I was probably around 5 years old.
It was then towed by road to the airport where he had obtained some space in a hangar.
Bearing in mind he had no pilots licence or training.That wasn’t going to be a barrier! Knowing people at the airport and control tower he started running it up and down the runway to “test” it all out. I can remember going out there with him and sitting in the back seat while we zipped up and down the runway until he received the radio call to clear the runway as an aircraft was soon to be landing. As time went on those “test” runs started to include lift offs! At times we seemed a few hundred feet off the ground.
After Ghana gained independence things started to deteriorate there and he started looking at moving on. We used to have quite a few young pilots that were delivering planes stay overnight at our house. Dad decided to travel on with one of them who was delivering to Viljoenskroon in South Africa to see what it was like.
On his return it was decided we would pack up and relocate to South Africa. The Chislea was packed into a huge wooden box for its voyage by ship and road to Viljoenskroon.
Let’s just say that a Scotsman arriving in the Orange Free State in the early 60’s didn’t quite go down well with the locals! He opened a small mechanical workshop and was soon welcomed an accepted into the community.
The Chrislea arrived and I think it had sustained some minor damage to the nose wheel strut.
Needing some cash and not being able to do anything with it he decided to put it up for sale. We moved on to East London where we lived before migrating to Australia in 1970.
There are some photos stored somewhere which I will look for and post here once I find them.
Regards
Ian Armet
Melbourne Australia