"The
plane flies, but it's my mind that soars," Tennessee aviator
and photographer Ron Lowery likes to say. That's become
a catchy phrase for promoting "Chasing Lewis & Clark Across
America: A 21st-Century Aviation Adventure," his glossy,
168-page coffee table photo book published last October.
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| Ron
Lowery and Mary Walker take a few moments rest in
front of “Cloud Chaser,” the custom-designed photo
plane they flew 14,000 miles gathering photos and
interviews for their book. |
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But
Lowery's soaring mind has produced much more than a catchy
phrase. Working with veteran Tucson pilot and writer Mary
Walker, Lowery has produced a work of substance, publishing
stunning aerial pictures of the entire route of intrepid
explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's 1804-06
journey from St. Louis, Mo., to Astoria, Ore., and back
to St. Louis.
The book's photos capture images of the waters of the
muddy Missouri River, high plains decked out in the bright
yellow of blooming canola, the unspoiled wilderness of
the Rocky Mountains, the giant serpentine Columbia River,
the Pacific Ocean and scores of other scenes, many of
them appearing to be as pristine as when Lewis and Clark
first saw them 200 years ago. Lowery's aerial salute to
the courageous expedition of the Corps of Discovery has
sparked not only a bicentennial book, but also a national
marketing campaign that encompasses slide shows, a media
tour of U.S. towns and cities along the route, ready-to-frame
art prints of the book's pictures, an intriguing website
at www.chasinglewisandclark.com, and, soon, a CD of the
photos set to music.
A photographer for 40 years, in business as a commercial
lensman for 26 years in Chattanooga, and a pilot since
1989, Lowery has woven a visual tale that appeals not
only to Lewis and Clark history buffs and collectors of
bicentennial books, but also to aviators, photographers
and avid technology fans. For instance, he includes several
pages filled with his flying experiences in his kit-built
photo plane, "Cloud Chaser," along with photography notes
and details of his high-performance digital camera. And,
he tells how he used satellite photos, topographic maps,
GPS navigation, a high-speed computer uplink from his
RV, laptop computers and DVD burners to plan and complete
the journey successfully.
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| Pilot
and photographer Ron Lowery’s aerial tracing of
the route of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William
Clark succeeded primarily because of his unusual
AirCam experimental, kit-built camera platform,
dubbed “Cloud Chaser.” |
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Throughout
his three-month adventure in the summer of 2003, he flew
14,000 miles to document Lewis and Clark's 9,000-mile
round trip, scouting ahead to plan each day's photos,
observing weather conditions, lighting and sun angles.
Like Lewis and Clark, Ron Lowery couldn't have made the
trek alone. Walker often flew with him in the tandem-seat
plane, taking notes of her own for the book, occasionally
flying from the back seat while Lowery changed lenses.
On the ground, she interviewed townspeople, Native Americans,
aviators, farmers, park rangers and local historians engaged
in reenactments of Lewis and Clarks' long-ago visits to
their area's forts, tribes and rivers.
Sue Lowery, the photographer's wife and a graphic artist
who designed the Lewis and Clark book, pulled the expedition's
32-foot-long fifth-wheel RV for 12,000 miles on the trip,
providing a mobile base camp for the group, which also
included the Lowerys' son, Ryan, and "Jack," the Lowerys'
much smaller counterpart to the large Newfoundland dog,
"Seaman," that accompanied Meriwether Lewis on his journey.
Credit for the stunning photos that make this book so
fascinating goes to Lowery's artistic eye and his 11-megapixel
Canon 1Ds that captured more than 4,400 pictures on his
journey. Seeing the 180 photos he painstakingly selected
for the book can only make a reader yearn to see the outtakes.
Turning down publishers' offers to print the book for
them, the Lowerys formed their own publishing company,
Windsock Media, to be able to influence the book's content
and assure its superb printing met their high standards.
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| The
Columbia River Gorge, with Oregon’s Mt. Hood on
the horizon, is typical of the panoramic scenes
in “Chasing Lewis & Clark.” |
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But
the credit for the success of the whole expedition goes
to "Cloud Catcher," the bright green homebuilt kit plane
he and his son, Alan, spent 1,800 hours building over
a three-year span, completing it in 2000. Although it
resembles a large ultralight, it's certified as an experimental
aircraft.
"There are only around 100 of these special planes flying,"
Lowery said during a recent promotion tour layover in
Seattle. "We built kit number 16. Originally, the design
for the AirCam was created for National Geographic for
aerial photos over the Congo. It suited our needs perfectly."
Reaching for apt Lewis and Clark expedition metaphors,
Lowery likes to describe the long and slender fuselage
of "Cloud Catcher" as looking much like a green canoe
in the air. It does, of course, being an open-cockpit
design about the same width as a canoe—so long as you
let your eyes ignore the twin Rotax 912 pusher-engines
and the huge, wide wing that enabled Lowery to fly so
low and slow over the explorers' route.
"Although we flew as low as 80 feet and nearly as slow
as our stall speed, which is around 38 miles per hour,
we also took it up to 12,000 feet for some photos. It's
an amazing aircraft, perfect for what we needed," he said.
Burning common auto gas—a fuel preferred by the Rotax
engines, he said—made the trip over often sparsely populated
areas much easier than having to find aviation gas where
there were no airports for hundreds of miles. Top speed
for the 1,054-pound aircraft is around 110 miles per hour
(or Mach .0167, as Lowery prefers to refer to it), with
cruising between 60 and 80. With the engines burning about
4.5 gallons per hour, he easily covers 400 miles before
refueling becomes imperative.
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| “Chasing
Lewis & Clark Across America” is a tribute to the
bicentennial celebration of that event, but also
a tribute to photographer Ron Lowery and author
Mary Walker, who flew 14,000 miles to capture an
aerial tour of the Corps of Discovery’s journey. |
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Lightweight,
and built to climb around 1,800 feet per minute, "Cloud
Chaser" typically takes off or lands on less than 200
feet of runway, whether it's made of cement, grass or
even sand and rock, as his airfields often were on this
journey, where landings were made on rancher's fields
and flat stretches on Indian reservations.
Its most prominent design feature, however, is Lowery's
favorite. With the engines behind the pilot, the open
cockpit carries the pilot forward of any obstructions,
providing a sense of being suspended by a magic carpet
as he soars, drifts, dips and banks aboard "Cloud Chaser,"
named for his lifelong fascination with clouds.
"Because I'm a photographer, it was the perfect platform
in the sky. I'm also an explorer by nature and to suddenly
pop over a ridge and have an incredible vista open before
my eyes is always an awesome experience," Lowery said.
Lowery, whose favorite hero has always been Thomas Jefferson,
researched the Lewis and Clark expedition for two years
before his three-month flight over their route. Before
leaving Tennessee he "flew" the journey on his computer
using topographic maps, satellite photos of the route
from DigitalGlobe and Space Imaging and Keyhole's EarthViewer
software to zoom in for more detail.
"I knew the route so well—even selecting camera angles
along the way using the satellite photos and maps—that
I wondered if the actual trip would be boring. It wasn't.
Seeing the places along the route in person, with changing
lighting and angles, was fresh and fantastic," he said.
"I could really relate to the emotions Lewis and Clark
must have felt when they first saw the barrier of the
western mountain ranges towering above them and the exhilaration
they must have felt, as I did, when they first caught
sight of the Pacific Ocean."
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| Flying
“Cloud Chaser” over the route of the Lewis and Clark
expedition brought pilot and photographer Ron Lowery
into deep canyons in the western states. |
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Each
day, weather permitting, Lowery and Walker grabbed quick
snacks and were airborne before dawn, flying to photo
locations chosen the day before. After flying and shooting
during the early morning hours, they returned to their
camp for breakfast as the midday light was good for scouting
more photos, but not for any photography. During the day
he downloaded his high resolution photos to laptop computers
and backed them up on a stack of DVDs. By evening light
he was flying and shooting pictures again.
Throughout the journey, Lowery primarily flew IFS—his
"I Follow Scenery" flight plan, filed daily with his wife.
With the slow speeds and quiet, three-bladed props of
"Cloud Chaser," Lowery was able to approach herds of buffalo
and bighorn sheep less than 100 feet off the ground without
alerting them, then soar to higher elevations for panoramic
shots. But the trip wasn't simply smooth and awe-inspiring
all of the time.
"Lewis and Clark fought river currents. We frequently
fought air currents, turbulence and thermals that tossed
me around just as I was trying to snap a picture. Sometimes
the wind even brought the trip to an abrupt halt. Winds
would build up like an invisible wall, out of nowhere.
In one area, we had a headwind that lifted our plane airborne
only about 10 feet down the runway," said Lowery.
He readily admits he wasn't used to the wind patterns
generated by the Rocky and Cascade mountains and the turbulent
winds of the Columbia River Gorge that forced him to land
to shoot windsurfers on the river from a ground view.
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| Ron
Lowery’s views of the Missouri Breaks are among
the most dramatic landscapes in “Chasing Lewis &
Clark Across America.” |
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Some
of his best memories of the journey were the times he
landed his unusual-looking aircraft, drawing townspeople
and pilots like a magnet.
"Just as Lewis and Clark drew curious crowds to the
riverbanks with their Corps of Discovery, we found the
sight of the green plane opened doors everywhere we
landed. Sometimes people seeing us land would follow
us to the airport for a closer look," he said, adding
that media crews often came out, too, requesting a private
air show for their television cameras.
At one stop, as he unhooked his flight harness and climbed
out of the plane, "a grizzled, sunburned crop duster
pilot" sauntered over to meet him.
"He said he thought I was a grasshopper and he was just
about to spray me!" laughed Lowery.
He said the pilots he encountered along the way were
fascinated by "Cloud Chaser."
"Whether they were airline pilots, helicopter pilots
or ex-military fliers, they'd beg for rides," he said.
"Everyone I took up said it was one of the best flying
experiences they'd ever had."
"Chasing Lewis & Clark Across America" is available
through his website, Amazon.com and numerous bookstores,
such as the one at The Museum of Flight. Lowery also
recommends another Lewis and Clark bicentennial website,
www.flightofdiscovery.com, to interested aviators. The
Flight of Discovery website chronicles a May 2004 aerial
expedition by a team of general aviation pilots and
scientists who flew the Corps of Discovery route to
explore and record environmental changes over the past
200 years, compared to the journals, notes and land
samples gathered by Lewis and Clark's expedition.
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