Khun Wichai Laksanakorn was the fourth president of the Thai Flying Club. When he was in 8th grade (mau 4), he won the Air Force contest for Rubber-band powered balsa airplnes (kleung bin chai yang). He started flying when he was 39 at the Civilian Flying Training Division of the Royal Thai Airforce at Don Muang. This was class 33, and Wichai was the head of the class. Khun Wichai has been to Oshkosh in US more than 12 times, and he has owned four different airplanes – including a Piper Cherokee, Cessna P210, Piper Malibu, and PZL-104 Wilga. They are all different and they are all his favorite, he says. The Cherokee is docile, the 210 and Malibu are for long distance, and the Wilga is just plain fun.

Wichai served as Secretary of the Thai Flying Club for 6 years under the second President Air Chief Marshall Amporn Kondee. There were two major advances in General Aviation in Thailand that occurred during his sixth year as Secretary. The first was that the club succeeded to convince the authority to allow registration of private aircraft under an individual’s name. Previously, they were only registered under the club’s name. The second major advancement was that they succeeded to convince the authority to deregulate and to allow cross-country flights without prior permission. Previously, the club had to request two weeks in advance. Subsequent to deregulation, they could file a flight plan and go. Khun Wichai stresses that these advances were only possible because of the ten years of good behavior on the part of the club in which time, the club had built a good trust and friendship relationship with the Department of Civil Aviation. This is one of the special ways that progress is made in Thailand.

Khun Wichai also has his helicopter license which he received at the Civil Aviation Training Center in Hua Hin in a R22 and Engstrom helicopter. He also has a helicopter kit in his factory. He explains that flying is something that is born in you. He was always mechanical minded and after graduating from Chulalongkorn University and then completing his Masters in Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State, he set up his own consulting engineering firm in Bangkok. Wichai’s greatest trip was in his Cessna P210 flying from Santa Monica, California to Thailand via Greenland, Europe and India. He has flown many times in L.A., USA and even made a 6 hour flight from Washington, DC to Oshkosh in a C172 with Tango Squadron’s Captain Samran. Wichai’s flying experience in USA and as a mechanical engineer has been a great help for building the relationship between the club and the Department of Aviation. He has had two “landings-outside-of-airstrip,” as he calls them. One was in Malaysia when he was flying with Kruu Sirapol and they ditched in a cleared construction area of thFirst Flight the Moviee Malaysian Navy Base at Lumut (northwest of Kuala Lumpur). They were confined in a hotel for 7 days for interrogation, but everyone was very polite to them. His second “landing-outside-of-airstrip” was in the Wilga in a sugar cane field. The engine quit due to a low fuel situation during a turn. Wichai loves the aircraft with strange configuration, so the Wilga has a special charm for him. He also loves the radial engine, because there are not many left these days. His love for this special plane has given a special character to aviation in Thailand, because this airplane is very expensive and demanding to maintain, so it shows the love for aviation and the trust and cooperation from the DCA. He loves the flying and handling of a highly maneuverable machine, and it was his and his partner’s idea to paint a grasshopper logo on the side.