Sept. 6, Westmore, Vt. / Volksplane VP-II

At about 08:00 EDT, a homebuilt Volksplane crashed during takeoff from a private airstrip near Westmore, killing the pilot. The pilot had recently completed building the airplane and conducted a ground test prior to making a test flight. He decided to change the original propeller to one with a smaller diameter in order to prevent ground strike damage. The accident flight was to be the first flight in the airplane. A witness said the airplane lifted off after a ground roll of about 1,000 feet but did not climb enough to make it over 50-foot trees at the far end of the airstrip.