Pilots set speed record in homebuilt plane on flight to MS Coast for ‘$100 sandwich’

How much would you spend on a chicken sandwich?

Better yet, how far would you be willing to go for that sandwich?

For two Pensacola-area pilots, Lou Toth and Ben Poffenberger, they flew from Pensacola International Airport to Trent Lott International Airport in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in March for what Toth jokingly referred to as “a $100 chicken sandwich” from the café at the airport, The Sky Café.

The reference comes from a common aviator phrase, Toth said, as private pilots will sometimes fly to different airports and eat at the airport’s café, or another local one in town. With the cost of flying, what could be a $10 hamburger slowly turns into a “$100 hamburger.”

But Toth had another mission in mind when taking to the skies to Pascagoula.

“People will get into their airplane and go, ‘Let’s go over toward Crestview and get a hamburger at the restaurant,’” Toth said. “We can do that, but let’s set a record while we’re doing it.”

After poking around the National Aeronautic Association website, Toth found that there hadn’t been many records set in his plane’s class, the R Class, which consists of microlight planes – including Toth’s homebuilt Sonex aircraft.

Class R cannot set world “Speed Over a Recognized Course” records, but they can be set nationally in the United States. And that’s where the NAA comes in.

“What (the NAA has) done is, regular sport people can set records, which his nice,” Toth said. “The common man can set a record. If he wants to do it from one city to another, as long as he meets (the NAA’s) criteria of a certain distance, time, weight, etc., he can set a record.”

On March 31, Toth and Poffenberger set a national record for “Speed Over a Recognized Course” from Pensacola to Pascagoula, and back. Poffenberger was the primary pilot in the two-man plan from Pensacola to Pascagoula, setting a record with a top speed of 110.58 miles per hour. The flight took 43 minutes, 28 seconds.

Toth, on the flight back as the primary pilot, set his record from Pascagoula to Pensacola with a top speed of 107.13 miles per hour with a flight time of 44 minutes, 52 seconds.

“It was a little bit cloudy day that March. … It was cool, which is good, because the engine is basically a modified Volkswagen engine,” Toth said. “The cooler it is, the more power you get out of it. … We could go just a teeny bit faster thanks to the weather.”

Unless another pilot decides to take the same flight pattern between those two airports, Toth and Poffenberger will have their national records set in stone. The only other R Class record, set back in 1993, was a flight from Centerville, Tennessee, to Little Rock, Arkansas.

“I could easily do it, but I won’t,” Toth said. “So my record will stand, and his record still stands.”

Toth was recognized at the Aviation Records Celebration – which was in Dayton, Ohio – and he got to meet pilots from around the world, being recognized by the international organization. Toth noted he sat with a group of pilots who set a new record for flight time around the world in a Gulf Stream jet.

“I said (to them), ‘You know, during our record, on each leg, we only burned three gallons of gas.’ They taxi and burn three gallons of gas,” Toth said with a laugh. “(The celebration) goes from country to country, so it hasn’t been in the United States in decades. … And it won’t be back here for decades in the future.

“For a little guy like me, it was cool. I got to rub elbows with some really fancy people.”

‘Why ride in a tank when you can fly?’

Toth has been flying planes for awhile. He used to be a Naval Flight Officer in the United States Navy, flying the P-3 Orion.

Prior to his time in the Navy, he was originally in ROTC and commissioned into the Marine Corps, where he was stationed at Twentynine Palms in California with the Third Tank Battalion. In the late 1970s, the F-4 jets were going away and “the Navy really needed Naval Flight Officers.”

“I did an interservice transfer, and ended up in Pensacola,” Toth said. “Why walk when you can ride in a tank? Why ride in a tank when you can fly?”

After retiring from the Navy, Toth eventually became the Chief Flight Instructor at SkyWarrior in Pensacola. And in 2013, Toth had the idea of building his own plane – which wound up being the Sonex that he broke the record in.

It took him around nine years, working as a flight instructor at the same time, while building the plane at a friend’s private grass field near Chumukla. “Most of my tools are still over there,” Toth said with a laugh. The plane is now stored at Peter Prince Airport in Milton.

The plane, called “Creamcicle” – purposely changed to avoid any lawsuits, Toth said with a smile – boasts its orange color after Toth’s grandson noted that his favorite color is orange. Toth’s daughter came up with the color design.

“They call it a kit plane. … Can you imagine that if you got a car and they gave you some metal and said, ‘OK, make a door.’ Some things are shaped, pre-made. Other things are just making your own parts,” Toth said. “I flew it a few days after (finishing), waiting for the weather.”

Moving to racing

Now that Toth has a record – and he “will probably set some more records” in the future – he also wants to get into racing the Sonex plane. Toth said he’s been trying to get more involved in the Sport Air Racing League, an amateur racing league.

Toth noted he would be in the sportsman class, and with his “Volkswagen engine,” he would only race against similar planes. “You can go there and see if your Volkswagen is a little faster than someone else’s – if someone else shows up,” Toth added.

The speed that Poffenberger and Toth went during their record-setting flight is normal for the Sonex, Toth said. But, depending on the engine that pilots buy, it can get up to 130 miles an hour.

Toth mentioned he tried to go to one race in Texas. He flew to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to visit his mom and brother. As Toth got ready to go to Texas, the plane’s battery died. He thought it’d be a simple fix – since the plane runs on a motorcycle battery.

So Toth went to a nearby motorcycle shop, but they had to order the battery and he wasn’t able to make the race. For now, Toth – who was waiting on some parts to fix his plane’s ignition system – encourages other pilots to set their own record.

“I’ve had some other friends at the airfield go, ‘We’re going to beat your record.’ OK, well, go ahead,” Toth said. “Have fun with it. … It’s something different, instead of just going out and flying around. Why not set a record?”