“UFO over Milton” identified

John Chirtea stands with his Blackfly plane

John Chirtea at 86-and-a-half, became the oldest person in the world to complete certification on the BlackFly, a light aircraft that takes off vertically and flies similar to a drone. Chirtea and his daughter, Heather, co-own the aircraft which has often been reported on social media as a UFO flying over Milton. Heather is the first woman to complete certification on the aircraft.

“It all started when I met Tim in Oshkosh who was one of the first civilians to own a BlackFly and he has been very helpful. We’ve been working on certification for about two months or so, but we started negotiating to purchase the plane around April,” Chirtea said. “We had to go to Palo Alto a few times and then had training here at Chorman Airport in Greenwood. Jeff and his dad, Al are great friends and that took about a week, but it wasn’t really ideal conditions.”

Chirtea finally completed his certification on August 23 with a young woman from the company who also took the aircraft on a long flight over the bay and the Broadkill River. Chirtea has a long history in aviation, although that is not what he did for a career.

“I started building model airplanes, but moved on in college, I worked with a group, and we started a flying club, and we bought a yellow airplane,” Chirtea said.  I now own that airplane, the airplane I took my first lesson in 69 years ago and still fly it. I flew it yesterday, took young lady up yesterday, and we still fly it, and went on from there. Bought and sold and played with 11 different airplanes over the years, and always had my eye an electric airplane. Flying was always just a hobby for me that got started in college, but then family and life intervened and it was about 15 or 20 years before I flew again.”

Chirtea stated that there were many electric car theories but until now, there was never a car that could fly. The gentleman who invented the BlackFly discovered that there was no need for a road or runway to fly and set out to build an aircraft that could lift off from a backyard.

“He found that all you need is air,” Chirtea said. “He got it off the ground with eight motors, a basic configuration, a center section, front wing and back wing.”

The plane lifts off the ground similar to a helicopter but without the rotors on top. To land, the aircraft tilts vertically and lands on the tail before dropping to the ground. Although the plane is not required to have a radio, Chirtea decided to add one since they live so close to an airfield. If he flies the plane, he simply lets local airfields know they are leaving and where they are heading. Currently, there are only five civilian owned aircrafts of this type.

“We decided to purchase this for our own enjoyment initially,” Chirtea said. “We will start taking it to events with the first on September 14 at the JB Brooks Spring Hill Airport near Salisbury. We are trying to figure out how to get it there. We have a trailer that we use but need to take the wings off, put it in the trailer then put it back together, fly the next day for a half hour or so and then take the wings off to bring it back.”

The plane can travel about 25 miles at a time and the ultimate goal is for Chirtea and his daughter to do short drive-hops across country. They would travel the 25 miles, land for a show and then drive it a bit before they fly again. The plane can also float, although Chirtea states they would only land on water in an emergency. The aircraft can hover as well.

“You got a joystick, and you run it like a kid’s toy. And you’ve got couple controls. You got a button to put you up. That button brings you down. The whole joystick. You go forward, this you go back, and then couple of the buttons for starting up and then it yaws in hover, and it flies like an airplane after that, just like a serious airplane, which flies with the joystick,” Chirtea said.

The tail number is also easily recognizable.

“Heather and I, we said, ‘what should we use’ because we were asked by the company, what tail number once we were we committed to buy this, what tail number do you want? So we had talked on the phone about that, and then she sent me an email, and I sent her an email,” Chirtea said “They crossed, and we both said let’s do something with 007. It was incredible. Yeah, one of those little coincidences you don’t want to believe really happened, but right, it’s the true story. It really did happen. And lo and behold, we got it.” The tail number for the plane is HJ007.

When asked if he gets comments from people after they see him flying the plane, he stated that he does not, but the owners of Hudson Fields often do.

“Julie Hudson, who is married to Christian Hudson, gets all the phone calls. When I was over there the other day meeting with her on some matter, Tony Coverdale said “John, we get a number of calls asking, ‘what the hell is that?’ I told them to just refer them to me and I will be glad to talk to anyone.”