Photographer-pilot shoots Lewis and Clark trail for Web site, book

Loping along in the open-air cockpit of a homemade airplane at 45 mph hundreds of feet above the ground shooting photographs might just be the purest form of aviation adventure.

With nothing but a small windshield mounted in front of him to ward off a bit of the elements, that's how Ron Lowery is documenting the travels taken by the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery nearly 200 years ago.


"You're out in the middle of nowhere and nothing gets in your way. It's like your own personal IMAX theater," he said, while standing next to the canoe-shaped plane that took three years and 1,800 hours to build.

All that effort to build "Cloud Chaser," which resembles a dragonfly or a giant grasshopper, has paid dividends for Lowery and his team which consists of his wife, Sue, son Ryan and Mary Walker.

"It's just super for photography," said Lowery a professional photographer with 600 hours of flight experience. "I wish it didn't even have a windshield but I have to put up with that. You can use a wide-angle lens and nothing gets in your way. It's as good or better than a helicopter."

"There's this whole second world up there. It's like a parallel universe," adds Walker. "There's a totally different lifestyle and culture that driving through you would never dream of."

With Sue providing graphics and updating the venture's Web page, Ryan handling the press kits and the expedition's 3-year-old dog, Jack, and Mary - who formerly owned a magazine in Chattanooga, Tenn., before relocating to Tucson, Ariz. - doing the writing, the group plans to publish a book about their adventures along the trail from St. Louis to Astoria, Ore., and back to Missouri.

Ron flies the plane with a passenger and the others follow in motor homes to allow camping at towns and cities along the trail, where shots are first scouted, then shot at perfect light in the early morning hours.

The group left St. Louis on June 12 and were on the return trip when they stopped at Northstar Aviation in Missoula on Friday.

The double-shaded green airplane, which is powered by a pair of 100 horsepower Rotax 912 engines mounted behind the wing, is extremely maneuverable.

Weighing just over 1,000 pounds, it can take off in about 150 feet, carry 680 pounds, fly at speeds of up to 75 mph and climb at a rate of 1,800 feet per minute.

And because the aircraft is so unobtrusive, it's also great for wildlife photography.

"It's not very loud. It's relatively quiet compared to like a Cessna," said Lowery. "You can fly over a herd of deer a couple of hundred feet up and they don't spook."

"It's a lot of fun," added Walker. "You can wave to the tugboat captain along the way. It's so much more in touch with the landscape, the air, the sounds, the sights, the smell. You can smell the mud in the river ... This way you're in it. You're in touch with it."

Pointing to the small amount of throttle used when shooting pictures at low speed, Lowery said the plane can move quickly to capture a picture.

"Even though it's got two engines you're using very little power," he said. "It's got an enormous amount of reserve power. It's quite a thrill."

Nightly the photos are downloaded into a computer, edited and stored, with some going directly to the group's Web site.

Walker and her husband, Skip, made the aerial trip about two years ago and in talking with the Lowerys, who live in Chattanooga, decided on a return trip and a book.

While she's flown over a lot of rivers, Walker has a favorite along the Lewis and Clark Trail.

"The Clearwater River, I think, is the most beautiful river that I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of them," she said, recalling the contrasting colors of the water, the sunken vegetation and the shoreline. "It's just my idea of paradise."

They don't yet have a publisher for their book - titled "Chasing Lewis and Clark Across America" - but said it will be out next spring.

"We tried to put together a team that would really offer something special, something different," she said. "We're not historians and that's not the purpose of this book. The main feature will be the art-quality photos that we're doing. The narrative of it will be our adventure as we go along the trail and relating it to things Lewis and Clark did."

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