Multimedia Reporting (Adler-Utsler)

A lot of people call Lloyd Hetrick every month. Some want help, some want energy, and some want experience. In flight, that is.

Hetrick Air Services is the local FBO, or airport service center, at Lawrence Municipal Airport, which provides many necessities including charter flights, repairs, refueling and flying lessons. Three years ago, Hetrick noticed a difference in the calls he got every month—people wanted to know if he was offering lessons in light sport aircraft.
“When the light sport pilot’s license was first offered, we got a lot of calls from interested people,” Hetrick said. “We recently ordered a Cessna SkyCatcher to try to spark new activity in the Lawrence.”

Hetrick isn’t the only person purchasing a brand new light sport aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration introduced the new category of aircraft three years ago. Since then, more than 50 aircraft have been developed, said the Experimental Aircraft Association.

But it’s not the small companies that are making a big flight into general aviation. Major aircraft companies Cessna and Cirrus Design have just started to produce light sport aircraft. The small planes, which cost much less than the planes the companies typically sell, will not be impressive money-makers for the companies, but that is not the goal. The aviation business is seeing a decrease in its customer base, so the goal is to give more people an easy and cheap way to become involved in aviation.

Cessna announced its intent to produce a light sport aircraft, called the SkyCatcher at the EAA Airventure Oshkosh air show in 2006, and the prototype was revealed on the first day of the air show this July. On the same day, Cirrus released its own prototype at the show, called the Cirrus SRS, or the Cirrus SR Sport. These aircraft, priced around $100,000, were created to draw in new people to the aviation world.

The FAA has measured a steady decrease in student pilots during the last ten years, with numbers falling from 96,101 in 1997 to 84,866 in 2006. To Pia Bergqvist, media relations manager for Cessna, this is a looming problem.

“This decrease is a concern to us because most clients are private pilots, like student pilots,” Bergqvist said. “A lot of people don’t start flying because it’s too expensive.” For Cessna and Cirrus, the light sport aircraft are the answer to this problem.

The FAA introduced light sport aircraft as a new flight category three years ago. The FAA requires planes to be lighter than standard personal planes, have one or two seats, and carry less fuel. Pilots of these aircraft require less training and less hours flying with an instructor than what is necessary for a private pilot’s license. No night flying is needed for certification and pilots do not have to deal with controlled airspace. The aircraft and its license are meant for recreational local flight rather than business or cross-country flight. The aircraft are also cheaper than standard aircraft, which makes them appeal to a wider base of people.

The cheaper, factory-built light sport aircraft are what Ron Barrett-Gonzalez, associated professor of aerospace engineering, thinks is a good middle ground for people interested in aviation.

“FAA regulations have allowed the new category of aircraft to come into being,” Barrett-Gonzalez said. “There was a large split between homebuilt aircraft, which take a lot of time to build, and real certified aircraft from the factory, which are too expensive for most people. Light sport aircraft are fulfilling the dream so many of us have of flying. The idea of having something almost as convenient as a car that only costs slightly more than a car is appealing.”

Standard private airplanes tend to cost over $250,000, according to Dick Knapinski, spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Association. He says many people do not want to spend that much money buying a factory-built airplane when a cheaper light sport aircraft is available.

“People are getting a basic recreational aircraft priced from $50,000 to $110,000. It is a brand new airplane out of the factory in their price range,” Knapinski said.
That is why Cessna is not in it for the money. In 2006, Cessna says it delivered 1,239 aircraft, had $4.2 billion in new airplanes delivered and $8.5 billion future airplanes sold. The SkyCatcher is currently selling for $109,500. A Cessna Citation, a private business jet that is one of the company’s best-selling aircraft, can sell for more than $5.5 million.

“The SkyCatcher really isn’t a moneymaker for us,” Bergqvist said. “It’s a strategic airplane for us to get people into flying and into Cessna. People tend to stay with an aircraft brand.”

Brand loyalty is also important to Cirrus, which is adding the SRS to an already successful line of personal aircraft including the SR-20, the SR-22 and the development of a personal jet. The purpose of the SRS is to increase options for all people interested in aviation.

“Our corporate mission is to grow the industry,” said Kate Dougherty, spokeswoman for Cirrus. “You need many different price points so all different kinds of people with socio-economic backgrounds can get into flying. We asked ourselves, how do we make Cirrus aircraft available to more people? How do we make them available to training centers, mom and pop FBOs and university training centers and also have Cirrus training and service centers?”

The Cirrus SRS was the answer. The aircraft will be priced around $100,000, almost $150,000 cheaper than the SR-20. The lower cost will allow flight schools to buy planes rather than lease them, says the Experimental Aircraft Association. The price also makes the airplane more appealing to more people as a starter aircraft.

“People want the light sport aircraft because it’s an affordable aircraft that they can train in and also have the safety of parachute,” Dougherty said.

The parachute is a feature unique to Cirrus aircraft. All Cirrus aircraft are designed with the feature, which Dougherty says is what makes the SRS attractive as a training aircraft.

Cessna hopes to differentiate its light sport aircraft from others in the industry by creating a different focus. It also produces the 172, which is used as a training airplane across the country and is sold new for more than $200,000. The Skycatcher is meant to be a sort of replacement. Instead of a parachute, Cessna says it is designing the SkyCatcher’s whole body with training in mind.

“We want to make sure it will stand up to rigorous training environment of a training airplane. We are doing a lot more structural testing than is required by the FAA,” Bergqvist said.

Pricing aside, the light sport aircraft enlarges the aviation market for another reason—less stringent training requirements. The light sport aircraft license requires 15 to 20 less hours of flight training than a private pilot license, which requires a minimum of 40 hours, Knapinkski said. Less hours means less money spent on training to new pilots.

“In some parts of the country, it costs $150 to $200 an hour for lessons for a private license,” Knapinski said. Instead of spending more than $6,000 for this license, the light sport aircraft offers a much lower total.

“If people can get in airplane that will be $2,000 to $3,000 for a license, it will bring more people into aviation,” Knapinski said.

Those additional people are definitely appearing. Two and a half weeks after the SkyCatcher was revealed, Cessna had sold 720, generating more than $75 million according to Aug. 9 numbers. Cirrus has gotten more than 1,000 requests for more information about the SRS since its release.

Unfortunately, these people are going to have to wait for their new airplanes. Cirrus is still testing its aircraft and hopes to deliver the first SRS in July 2008 at the EAA Airventure Oshkosh show. Cessna will not start delivering SkyCatchers until late 2009, when 50 aircraft will be produced. Production will later be ramped up to 700 aircraft a year, but that’s still a long wait to buyers today.

Lloyd Hetrick knows he will have to wait for his new SkyCatcher. When the aircraft finally comes, he will start preparing to offer flight lessons in the light sport category. Until then, he’s content to wait.

“I’m getting a quality Cessna product,” Hetrick said. “I wish I didn’t have to wait two years, but I looked at other options available and I didn’t like them. Mine will be a quality-built airplane.”

A cart sits in the hallway. It is filled to the brim with clean towels, coffee, shampoo, trash bags, duster, cleaning solution and a mop. Inside room 506, Maria goes through her cleaning ritual. She folds a washcloth in an accordion pattern and fits it neatly into a newly changed towel. She progresses through the bathroom, washing the tub and sink, cleaning the mirrors and mopping the floor. Then she moves to the bedroom, remaking the king-size bed and fluffing the pillows. No detail is overlooked; she even changes all the blinds to the same angle. After quickly vacuuming the floor, she is finished. She puts all her cleaning supplies back in her cart and wheels it to the next room, leaving 506 locked behind her.

Maria is a housekeeper at Lawrence’s historic Eldridge Hotel, 7th and Massachusetts streets. She is one maid of many who clean the hotel’s 48 rooms every day. Unlike other hotels, the Eldridge has a special policy: the general manager must check the rooms for cleanliness every day.

“The girls will do a better job if they know someone is checking their rooms,” said Nancy Longhurst, the Eldridge Hotel’s general manager.

The Eldridge’s stringent and unique approach to overall cleanliness means that no one has complained about the hotel to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment this year.

This is not the case for some other lodging establishments in town. Guests have reported exceptionally dirty and unkempt rooms in nine hotels in Lawrence since January 2007. For these hotels and others that may not abide by such careful cleaning rules, a harsh reality may soon set in. In the past, hotels have only been inspected if a guest complained to the state. Now that has changed. The state health department began annual inspections of all hotels in Kansas this year.

Previous years have meant hotel inspections only when needed. Before now, these inspections fell to people already employed as restaurant inspectors because the funds were not available to hire specialized inspectors. But in May 2007, the Kansas Legislature passed the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, allocating $246,616 and four inspector positions specifically for hotel inspections. Mary Glassburner, Director of Bureau of Consumer Health for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, supervises the new program.

“We asked for funds so we could inspect our lodging establishments the way we feel they should be inspected: they should be clean, safe and comfortable,” Glassburner said. “We have discovered several problems that have popped up. We have a bed bug problem in the state and we want to establish education about the subject.”

The program will have four inspectors based in Lawrence, Wichita, Salina and Topeka. Each will inspect roughly a fourth of the 780 lodging establishments in Kansas, or 195 hotels a year. The inspectors will follow training and field-testing the state health department provided in their inspections.

Springhill Suites, 1 Riverfront Plaza, is one of the hotels inspectors checked this year. Although the manager said the reason for the visit was the statewide bed bug infestation, inspectors discovered other problems in this Marriott-owned hotel. Hairs on mattress pads, trash on floors of rooms and low water pressure are among the items listed on the state health department’s inspection report. These issues are not as problematic as they may seem, insist general manager Michael Moore. The trash was probably a small piece of paper in a corner that the vacuum missed and the hairs weren’t plentiful, he said.

“It’s not like the mattresses looked like a dog had been dragged across them,” Moore said.

Moore thinks the inspections will make hotels a little more aware of how clean their rooms are, pushing employees to look for smaller items like trash in the corners or a smudge on a light switch that may not be on a normal cleaning list. Hotels can’t spend too much more time on rooms, he said. They have to find a balance between spotless rooms and long hours for maids.

“I don’t think any hotel will ever be 100 percent clean,” Moore said.

The Hallmark Inn, 730 Iowa St., is another hotel inspected in 2007. In January, stains were found on chairs, box springs and mattresses and mold was on the caulking. Since this report, the hotel’s management has changed. Now the hotel is working on renovations, partly because of the inspections.

“We are taking into consideration inspections from different agencies. The purpose of our renovation is to improve overall appearance and quality of our product,” said Art Kato, vice president of the hotel.

Kato said the hotel is reinforcing the structure of the hotel before updating the vanity items like bedding and chairs. Tile, sheetrock and walls are the hotel’s first concern. Once that renovation is complete, the hotel will buy bedding, drapes, chairs and lamps, the items that were listed as stained on the inspector’s report.

Both hotels are taking steps to clean up after less-than-favorable inspections. Now these hotels and every other hotel will be held accountable each year with an unannounced inspection from the state department. Eldridge Hotel manager Nancy Longhurst is not worried.

“I think annual inspections will be a great thing for the hotel industry,” Longhurst said. “For us, it would be great because we already adhere to all the standards they would inspect.”

She was right. Last week, inspectors visited the Eldridge Hotel. They checked eight rooms, and none had violations.

Maria will keep cleaning hotel rooms the way she always has, but now she cleans not only for the guests and a manager but also for the state health inspector. Every time she cleans a room, her work could be inspected and the hotel could be written up. As long as she keeps up her quality work, follows her routine and the manager checks her room, the Eldridge Hotel and Maria should be just fine. The annual inspections mean other hotels will have to start matching her standards.

She walked onto the concrete ring. She was confined to less than 40 square feet for the next few minutes. She placed her size 12 1/2 feet directly under her 6-foot-2-inch frame. As soon as she was properly situated, she lifted the steel ball onto her shoulder. She pivoted one, two, three times until she finally reached the wooden arch. With all her might, she threw her hips, shoulders and then the ball forward and watched it land yards away.

She is Stephanie Horton, and she is the best female shot putter at the University of Kansas. Her freshman year of high school in Tigard, Ore., four teachers approached her and convinced her to try out for track. Unknowingly, they were persuading her to improve her negative body image.

“All the way when I was growing up girls were mean, till I started doing well,” Stephanie said.

In a culture where girls grow up seeing extremely skinny models, body image often turns negative for a woman larger than the norm. The American Psychological Association says that 75 to 80 percent of women indicate displeasure with the size or shape of their bodies. Before track and field, girls made fun of Stephanie’s size until she had little self-esteem. A successful track and field career reversed her negative body image, leading to her confidence as an athlete that pushed her to try out for the Olympics this summer and to pursue other goals.

Growing up, Stephanie was always taller and broader than other girls and often other boys. Now she is 10 inches taller than the average height for women. The girls picked on her, although not physically. They whispered behind her back and alienated her until she decided boys were more trustworthy as friends.

“That’s kind of carried on now,” she said. “I have a lot of guy friends because I don’t necessarily trust all the girls and the gossip.”

As Stephanie matured, her father said she started hanging with the wrong kind of people. She was not confident with her large size because she couldn’t see the advantages of her size. Additionally, her attention deficit disorder made school and social activities difficult.

“If it hadn’t been for track, I don’t know where she would have ended up,” her father Jim Horton said.

Stephanie’s track career began her first year of high school. Her size made her a natural favorite as a thrower, but with no real throws coach and an occasional unwelcoming attitude, it was a rocky start. Her father said she had problem with her original coaches, so her sophomore year he took over and started training with her. He spent three hours a night with her and even regulated her eating habits.

Eventually the training began to show, on and off the field. Her freshman year, she broke her high school’s shot put record. Her sophomore year she continued to improve, and teachers also started to notice a difference in her attitude at school.

“They were amazed at how much she changed. She used to always looked at the floor, and now she was always looking up and confident,” Jim said.

Her involvement in physical activity was part of the reason her body image improved, said Kathy Rose-Mockry, program director for the Emily Taylor Women’s Resource Center. Being involved in sports or excelling physically could help a girl have better body image, she said.

“Girls who have the opportunities to feel good about the bodies they have are more likely to challenge some of the current stereotypes about what it is to be attractive in our culture,” Rose-Mockry said.

Stephanie said she only recently became comfortable with her body. Her last year of high school she broke the Oregon state record with a throw of 49 feet, 8 inches. Her throws gained national attention when the University of Kansas started aggressively recruiting her and she committed to the school. That year she finally decided that being larger than other girls was OK.

“My senior year I just said ‘screw it,’ you can think what you want,” Stephanie said.
A release from negative body image constraints allowed Stephanie to excel at throwing. At the University, she consistently throws around 50 feet at track meets. The closest throw by a KU woman so far was 47 feet last year. She is friends with the other women throwers and also lifts weights next to men. In fact, she can lift more than 200 pounds, which is comparable to the male throwers.

Now that Stephanie feels comfortable with her new self, she has new goals: to qualify for the Olympics this summer and to become a zoologist when college is over. She is working to lose 50 pounds so she is the size of when she threw furthest. This throw, recorded her senior year, was 52 feet, 7 inches. She needs to improve that length by more than 7 feet to qualify for the Olympics, so she is training vigorously with cardio workouts and extra training.

Stephanie has a plan for when track and the Olympic trials are finished: working with animals. She is earning a degree in evolutionary biology and ecology, the closest degree offered to zoology. A love of animals and nature brought her and her boyfriend Rainer Schiel, Landsberg am Lech, Germany, graduate student, together. They met on dating site and eventually met in person. Rainer, who is much smaller than Stephanie, saw Stephanie as a loving person rather than just seeing her size.

“I was not really intimidated by her size,” he said. “While she is tall and muscular, her friendly character didn’t make me intimidated.”

Now they live together with their two rats and two cats and go out on dates often. While Stephanie used to be a tomboy, now she dresses up for the weekends and even makes her own jewelry to go with her outfit. Rainer sees Stephanie as a confident and beautiful woman, something she didn’t believe before her body image improved.

“She seems to be pretty comfortable with who she is and what she looks like,” Schiel said. “If you’ve ever seen her dressed up she looks really good.”

Now, whenever Stephanie starts to doubt herself, she remembers how successful she has been in track and field. Her father says that she has done many great things and he thinks they all started with throws. Sometimes when she walks on campus, she catches people staring. For that, she has one simple reply.

“I’m damn good at what I do.”