A friend of mine sent me this article. I have flown over the Lucin strips a few times and the last time was a few years ago. At that time, it looked like someone had done some recent work on them and I was tempted to land, but didn't. Does anyone on here know any firsthand info on this strip? Does he mind visitors? Does he allow the public to land? If so, how can you reach him to get permission? He seems like an interesting guy that would be fun to talk to. I'm going to keep an eye out for his plane since it sounds like he frequents my home airport. Maybe the price of admission could be a food run out to him since you would be coming that way anyway...or anything else he needs.

http://www.standard.net/live/news/181642/

just how many strips does he have??? I have four here on the farm that most cub type pilots could land on, plus four more that take a little more on the skill level.

A friend of mine landed out there last summer and said he was a nice guy and didn't mind at all that he had landed. Your link didn't work for me but doesn't he fly a camoflaged 172 or 182? If so, I saw him it at KOGD yesterday. My buddy said the FAA pays him to maintain the Lucin VOR out there and he keeps the strip up too. Don't know if you noticed but there is two strips out there perpendicular to each other. I am pretty sure the strip is on BLM land and not private but don't quote me on that and the caveat here is that I got this from a friend so if you land and he starts shooting...well, don't blame me.

LUCIN -- "Welcome to the Lucin International Airport! Come in."

A tan, blond man stands at the entrance to a white hangar. Only a few miles from the Nevada border and about 50 miles from Idaho, the two white airport buildings and two abandoned homes are the only ones for miles.

Ivo Zdarsky, 48, is the sole resident of Lucin and owner of the airport, marked with a "No Trespassing" sign and skull and crossbones flag waving in the desert wind. Sagebrush and tumbleweeds surround the place, except for the three dirt runways he has cleared and leveled.

Ivo said he had been looking for an uninhabited place to live for several years when he found the airport for sale online. He flew out to see it, bought the place and moved from Long Beach, Calif., to Lucin more than two years ago.

"I used to like to go in the desert in a helicopter ... and land in places where probably nobody has been for 50 years," he said.

Looking for a place like that to live is how a native of Czechoslovakia ended up in the Utah desert, working on airplanes.

He's been making and selling propellers for small planes in the U.S. for more than 20 years, but perhaps the most important airplane of his life is the one he built when he was 24.

On Aug. 4, 1984, the aeronautical engineering student took off in the middle of the night in his homemade hang glider powered by an engine.

He was escaping from his communist-ruled homeland.

His parents weren't too happy when they found out he'd gone, Ivo said. They didn't know beforehand, he said, because when making an escape you don't tell anyone.

"I know the Communists didn't like it, but then they collapsed (five years later)," he said.

Ivo lived in a world where everything was controlled by the government.

He passed out anti-communist literature written by Vaclav Havel, a jailed dissident who become president of the country after communism fell.

The risk of escaping was worth it, he said, though he was worried about being shot down or caught.

"I still have the nightmares about it."

But his fears didn't stop him from flying over the Iron Curtain and landing at the Vienna airport in the early morning. He stayed briefly in Austria, where he received asylum, before coming to the United States.

Ivo hasn't gone back to Europe since he left 25 years ago. His parents have come to visit him, he said. The escape glider was sold to a West Berlin museum.

The only thing he misses are the castles, but he'd rather go to places like Canyonlands anyway.

After escaping from Czechoslovakia, Ivo went to California. It had everything he was looking for -- mountains, beaches and good weather. He said it seemed like the place to be, at the time.

That's where he got his start in business. He began by selling one propeller at an air show, and that money let him build two more, which let him make four, and IVOPROP was born.

"It's just a small company that makes these propellers, so crazy people can fly," he said, smiling.

Eventually, Ivo decided to leave the prop making and company in California and moved to Lucin where he's building a prototype airplane/helicopter. He's still involved with the company he founded, spending his time in research and development .

"I'm enjoying solitude and trying to make that thing (the helicopter/airplane) work so we can sell it," Ivo said.

His current project sits in the hangar, looking like the product of a grown-up Erector Set.

Ivo said with a few more weeks of work he thinks he'll have the craft making a seamless transition from airplane to helicopter while in flight.

A cup of scorpions sits by the door to the portion of the building he lives in. Ivo said he used to mark them and put them back outside, but they kept making their way in again. Now he keeps them.

There are very few visitors to his place. Few planes land there, mostly visitors from IVOPROP. He gets the occasional sheriff's deputy stopping to check in, FAA officials maintaining their beacon, ranchers asking him to help find lost cattle, the Schwann's delivery truck and UPS drivers.

"My favorite is just simply to sit here in the middle of nowhere on a computer and ordering stuff and UPS delivering it right here, in front of the hangar," he said.

He thinks people are silly for wanting to live in more populated areas, but admits he's glad they do.

When he gets tired of working, he can watch movies on his big screen or wander the desert, off-roading in his Chevy Caprice. One of his favorite finds is a large coral reef on a nearby mountain, which he assumes is a remnant of Lake Bonneville.

He likes checking out interesting things he sees from the air, and goes hiking with a rifle strapped to his back, in case of mountain lions.

If he needs parts or wants to visit civilization, Ivo hops in his camouflage-painted Cessna for a 45-minute trip to Ogden.

For now Ivo is happy with his isolated existence.

"I found out I like Utah better, so now I'm a Utahn."

Don't think this is the one my buddy talked to. Anyone who is familiar with the experimental market will know this name...IVO is the founder of IVO Props

http://www.ivoprop.com/

Not quite as popular as the Warp Drive props but quite a few of them out there. Here is more on his story:

http://www.ivoprop.com/ivostory.htm

I don't know Ivo personally, but I had some interaction with the company when I was hanging a new IvoProp on my Kitfox. Great people, great service, and a very nice prop. They had a bad reputation when they first came out due to a few instances of slinging a blade, but that was corrected a long time ago. If you have an experimental that needs a new prop then I recommending talking a close look at the Ivoprop.

I'll second the recommendation for Ivo. Every time I've had questions, they have answered quickly and completely. Since my plane has only had the Ivo, I can't compare performance, but on customer service they are great.

tom

I've flown in there and talked with the guy. Pretty interesting as his plane is painted in old school camo. When I asked if he minded that I was there, he shrugged his shoulders. I asked if he minded if my buddy and I came back some time. He started laughing. I asked him why he was laughing and he thought it was funny that someone would WANT to be out there. There are several runways in different directions out there. The main one was so wide I took off across it just to give him a thrill.

He said he found out about the airport on the internet. He decided to leave California and move there. Interesting guy.

Joe,

Thanks for posting the airticle. I don't know why the link is no longer working. I've even tried to search on their site for it and nothing. Wonder why they would remove the article and video from their site.

Anyway, thanks for posting it and thanks for the info the rest of you have been offering.

GSP

Grassstrippilot wrote:Joe,

Thanks for posting the airticle..........

Thou art welcome. The story is no longer on that web site you gave the link to, as far as I can determine. I was able to find it in Yahoo's cache storage however, that's the only place left on the webby it exists I think. Interesting guy in any event.