Robert Goyer, Editor Or Flying Magazine, Talks About Homebuilding by David Gustafson He's the Best Man for the Job. It's

Robert Goyer, Editor or Flying Magazine, Talks About Homebuilding By David Gustafson He’s the best man for the job. It’s doubtful that any man has taken the reins at FLYING with the kind of rich background Robert Goyer brings to the head quill. Robert was born into it. His family was already deeply involved in aviation by the time he arrived. While his dad, Norman Goyer, was working as a news director at a regional ABC affiliate in Western Massachusetts, he spent many weekends with the family at the friendly grass strip at Pilgrim Field in Hatfield, MA. Robert has vivid memories of watching his dad taxi out and takeoff in the Grumman FM-2 that Norm owned with five other guys. (None of them could have afforded the huge $2,800 purchase price on their own…you have to wonder how they could afford the gas?). Robert even has vivid memories of his first rides in an Aeronca Champ with his dad over the Massachusetts countryside. Along the way, Norman bought an SNJ, which Robert got some stick time in, and then his dad went and peeled a Cessna 190 off a ski slope, brought it home and with the help of his family, began rebuilding it. In the process he hung a 300 Jacobs on it and got the FAA to reclassify it as a Cessna 195. That was the family airplane for quite a while and it had been Robert’s hands-on introduction into a restoration project. Norman also introduced Robert to homebuilding, when he bought a set of plans for one of Bud Evans’ Volksplanes. He and Robert spent many hours poring over the plans, laid out on the living room floor, and commenting on Evans’ solutions for bulkheads, wing ribs and tail feathers. “My dad never bought part for the Volksplane,” said Robert. “With his work at the TV station, flying on the weekends and keeping the six of us in line, he didn’t have the time. But the plans gave us many hours of cheap, imaginative entertainment.” In 1973, Norman moved his family out to California, taking over operations at Apple Valley Airport in the Mojave Desert in California. Within a couple of years he owned three other desert FBOs. In his teens, Robert worked twisting wrenches in the shop or fueling aircraft and even in the diner with his mother, Tina, occasionally topping off the coffee cup of airport regular Roy Rogers…. Roy often used Norm’s office to discuss possible additions to his gun collection with brokers who flew in regularly. Apple Valley, under Norm’s tutelage became a very busy airport. In those days, Apple Valley Airport would see as many as 300 aircraft at the pumps between Friday night and Sunday night. A lot of pilots came in for the whole weekend, staying at the Apple Valley Inn, sight of the famous Red Room, which would pick them up and bring them back to the airport. It was a popular destination airport for a lot of Southern California pilots, as well as those from Arizona, Nevada and California. The magnetism of the Goyer Family had a kind of evangelical following. Robert claims a lot of the success it was due to his mom’s famous chili cheeseburgers. Over time, Robert and his three older brothers, worked at becoming private pilots. One of the brothers became a corporate pilot and an IA, another became an A&P, another brother and sister took flying lessons, and all of them in later years worked at the family’s various small FBOs in one capacity or another. Norman was an aviation adventurist in the best sense of the term. He is resourceful, articulate and a fine writer in his own right. “He is also,” Robert says, “a born pilot.” Years later Robert got his start in aviation journalism working for his father, at first doing stories for Scale R/C Modeler, which proved a challenging proving ground. Because precision scale modelers need to painstakingly document the aircraft they are replicating, Robert would often spend hours listening to master craftsmen describe the development of a perfectly scaled and detailed P-51, Sopwith Camel, Fairchild 24, or a Cabin Waco. It provided an immersion in history and in aircraft structural analysis. “It was a great learning ground for me,” said Robert, “because I had a chance to immerse myself in the details of these vintage airplanes, some of which no longer exist in full scale form. The master modelers were extremely knowledgeable and willing to share their expertise.” Robert also did some writing for Air Classics, which gave him an invaluable background in warbirds. He did in-depth interviews with pilots, like the man who had flown the ME-262 German jet and M-163 rocket plane against the Americans. Around the same time Robert, who had been a pilot for a decade by then, saw his byline appear in full- scale aviation magazines, as well. After a few years, he got the break of succeeding his dad as editor of Sport Pilot, Hot Kits and Homebuilts, a small-circulation newsstand magazine dedicated to reporting on homebuilts, ultralights and anything else that was connected with recreational aviation. While at Sport Pilot the young writer found himself flying more than a hundred aircraft in the homebuilt and ultralight categories. This included well known designs like the CGS Hawk ultralights, various Quicksilvers, Flight Stars, Kitfoxes, RANS, Kolbs, Murphy’s, Avid Flyers, Glasairs, Glastars, Lancairs, and Questair Ventures, as well as lesser known models, like the Montana Coyote and KIS.“ At the same time, Robert began doing air-to-air photography, including homebuilts and ultralights. His work graced dozens of covers of Sport Pilot, Air Progress, Affordable Flying (a title he conceived and launched), and Air Classics, among others. He continues his work today as that rare bird, an editor in chief of a major aviation publication who is an accomplished air-to-air photographer. Half of last year’s Flying covers were images that Goyer captured. “Air to air photography is a passion. To be given the chance to try to translate the essence of an airplane in flight into a photograph that (hopefully) speaks to our readers is a true delight, and some of my favorite subjects have been homebuilts.” Robert added: “Starting my career writing about homebuilts was such a great opportunity for me, largely because it gave me the chance to talk to the people who had designed them. It gave me the opportunity to learn how they did they did what they did. These individuals, many of them untrained as aircraft designers, were so incredibly knowledgeable and resourceful, and it eventually occurred to me that what homebuilt kit makers like Randy Schlitter at RANS or Tom Peghiny at FlightStar were doing was the exactly same kind of endeavor that goes on at Boeing, only in miniature. “The ingenuity, perseverance and belief in one’s self that you could do something as complex as designing and producing an airplane and then a kit for that airplane…and then have hundreds of them out there…is mind- boggling. It’s a quintessential story of American achievement…the story of the rise of the homebuilt. “You know Paul Poberezny is obviously the guy who brought a lot of that stuff together. But let’s face it, Paul wouldn’t have achieved the level of success he did without there being a ground swell of enthusiasm for this kind of activity that was going on all over the country and eventually overseas as well. A lot of it had to do with the fact that homebuilt enthusiasts were building airplanes that could be put together very inexpensively and they could then go flying in them. A lot of it was economics. Because they built it, they could have an airplane for pennies on the dollar. A lot of their motivation, also, was tied to the fact that it’s really cool to build your own airplane and fly it yourself. It’s even more amazing for those whodesigned an airplane and then built it and flew it.” After a few years at the helm of Sport Pilot Magazine, Robert was hired to write for FLYING Magazine. That’s a rather extraordinary leap in venue. Sport Pilot was a niche market magazine. FLYING is a world view publication. “My world changed in every way imaginable. Instead of looking at airplanes as a form of recreation, I had to focus on transportation, on the airplane’s usefulness in a different way.” Almost immediately upon arriving at Flying, got his IFR rating and started to learn, he says, how much he did not know about flying. He had a lot to learn about flying from point A to B in IFR and controlled airspace in high performance airplanes. It was extremely challenging, rewarding, exciting and broadening. He quickly moved on to get his commercial rating, multi, seaplane, and then started flying jets. He is type rated in the Cessna CitationJet and plans to add others in the coming years. Turboprops and turbofans, which had seemed so distant, were suddenly a part of his daily existence. It’s a different world to be sure and Robert has found that the smell of kerosene can create a different kind of adventure, a new type of encounter with science and technology which has always captured his attention. But in the end, it’s still an experience of one man, one aircraft and one flight at a time. The relationship between the most sophisticated jets and simplest of ultralights reveals a direct connection.

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