General Aviation... in Korea?

This past weekend Sarah I left Busan for a bit of adventure and excitement.

We woke up early on Saturday and took the 8 AM KTX to Daejeon (the city where the EPIK orientation was) where we went our separate ways. I went to a small ultralight club located near a smaller town outside of Daejeon while Sarah met up with some other expats and volunteered at the Daejeon Dog Shelter.
After our respective escapades we met back at the train station and caught another train to Daegu where we met up with Ian and Keith, two friends who went to HWS with us. Our visit in Daegu included an authentic Russian dinner at a family-owned restaurant, live jazz music and gigantic American-style breakfast with ingredients purchased at the Daegu Costco. It was a great weekend.

Since coming to Korea I've been hoping to find out more about the general aviation scene here. At first, I only came across a website for a US military flying club near Seoul and a couple websites with some basic info about paragliding and hang gliding. A few months back I happened upon the website for Expat Flyers, a flying club located outside of Daejeon. I got in touch with the manager/founder of the club and decided to make a visit - the first Saturday of every month they have an open-house type event.

After Sarah met up with the other foreigners who would be going to the dog shelter, I got on a bus that took a little over an hour to reach Depyong-Ri, a little town outside of Daejeon. The club manager, Matthew had told me to give him a call when I arrived in Depyong-Ri, but he didn't answer his phone. I soon realized why when I saw his aircraft flying close by. At this point I was accosted by a group of middle school students asking where I was going. I tried to tell them about the airfield, but they had no idea what I was talking about. Determined to help, they called one of their teachers who spoke English, but she also knew nothing about a small aircraft club. The Taxi driver was equally clueless but luckily at this point I got through to Matthew, who explained to the driver. After a 10 minute ride along one-way dirt roads through farmer's fields we arrived at the airport. It wasn't very big, and fairly well hidden.



There were 3 small hangars, a tool shed, a clubhouse and an outhouse. There were about 5 aircraft visible, but I was told that there is a total of about 10 or so on the airfield. There were about 10 people at the airport, including Matthew and his two students. I hung around the airport for several hours and got to know Matthew, his students and some of the other pilots there. I also talked to the owner of the Korean ultralight club, Mr. Lee, who is a retired Korean air force pilot.

The expat fliers club was just started this year and is tied in with the Korean ultralight club. Mr. Lee spoke some English and was able to answer some of my questions about flying in Korea. He worked as a flight instructor in California and then flew in the Korean Air force. He started the ultralight club in the mid-90s. He said that there are about 30 ultralight clubs in South Korea. When I asked about interest in General Aviation in Korea, he said that many people are scared of and superstitious about flying, and that many people just don't know about it. I thought of the middle school students and taxi driver in Depyong that were unaware of the airport even with its close proximity and clearly visible aircraft flying around.

After they took another flight, I accompanied Matthew and his students to lunch in town. I also asked Matthew about why there wasn't more interest or even awareness of general aviation, and why it was limited only to paragliding, hang-gliding and ultralights. He gave me several reasons why. He agreed that many people were scared of flying and also unaware of it. A big reason why it was so non-existent before the 1980s was the close proximity to North Korea. The two Koreas officially remain at war to this day and there have been numerous incidents since the Korean war ended. It easy to see why it would be difficult to get permission to fly in a country constantly on alert for an attack or espionage.
This changed in the 80s when some "upper-class", "rich" and otherwise "privileged" gentlemen decided that ultralights would be there new, exclusive hobby. Matthew explained that the creation of this new hobby was done very poorly. Apparently it was poorly regulated and managed, and there were many accidents. Even though it has endured as a sport to this day and improvements are being made, it still suffers from these problems, which has encouraged a public perception of aviation as being not only dangerous, but also exclusively available to the upper-crust.
Not a very optimistic tale, but when I asked Mr. Lee about the future of general aviation in Korea, he was hopeful that it would continue to grow and branch out in the future, although it would be a slow process.

After returning from lunch, the students took a few more flights while I snapped some pictures of the airport and talked to some of the other ultralight pilots who had showed up. It was nice just to hang out at an airport and talk to pilots again; it really made me miss flying.

Here are some more pictures from the airport:





Inside the clubhouse:


Matthew and a student, getting ready to go:


... and after landing: