Ruins of the Ultralight Civilization

zaitcev

zaitcev

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Pete Zaitcev
A couple of weeks ago Henning threw off a remark about, approximately, ultralight community being superior. I went and checked them out locally. Aww man, remember all those threads about "GA is dead in America"? And how ultralights are cheap, inexpensive, and affordable enough to provide us with an outlet for flying? Well, you better learn that weight-shift, if you count on it.

What I found is an utter ruin. And yes, the vibrant community existed just a few short years before. Organizations that bound it still dot the landscape, mostly ran by the tenacious old people, but ultralights are gone, replaced with experimentals. We had a fly-in breakfast for a local org: not one ultralight showed up. Half a dozen homebuilts did though.

FAA utterly destroyed everything. I'm just warning you guys: when they come for you, they're not going to be merciful. If they decide to shut down GA, they will, and they'll do it overnight. They'll just up some requirements for CFIs for the purpose of safety, or something innocous like that. Because who can argue against safety?

So far I see they are angling to destroy homebuilders next though, with the usual GA being put aside for now. We keep hearing how they arrange working groups and seminars with NTSB, and such. They must notice how the focus of citizens' activity moved onto the homebuilts, now that ultralights are finished. So that may give us a few extra years to fly while EAA puts up a token resistance. But man, that ultralight thing was very edifying. I saw our future.
 
You mean by opening up light sport it killed the ultalights...especially when they allowed those who were breaking the regs with the abuse of the training waiver to convert over with amnesty?

You're free to fly your, within weight, single seat ultralight today as much as you were five years ago.


You want to explain what the FAA is planning to do to homebuilts?
 
I see you're trying to be intentionally obtuse, but insomuch you are raising the official fig-leaf point that FAA and its apologists use to justify the destruction of ultralights, I think it needs to be debunked.

Yes, you are "free" to fly your 103 ultralight. But how are you going to start flying one? There is no way for that!

Remember that a conversion of a 2-seat machine to E-LSA did not permit to teach in it.

I am a Private pilot already, and I cannot find transition training. The only option for the region is a guy with Cessna 120, who is a CFI. He warned me that it's not high-drag airframe. He trained a guy with Kolb Firefly, so I suppose it "proves" that you can check yourself out in Firefly. Heck if you are tailwheel-qualified, you don't even benefit from that trainig. So here I am with $14,400 in sunk costs and I still cannot get in, unless I just daredevil the whole thing... Hey, they checked themselves out in P-47 in WWII, which is like 50 times more powerful than Firefly.

But while I can migrate "down", nobody can just move "in" from the street. The required costs are too much. Having all the equipment made illegal (with E-LSA move), and taking away teaching privileges of all instructors, FAA made it impossible to become merely an ultralight pilot. Therefore, ultralights cannot form a viable low-cost base for flying. New people must go the GA route, and if they don't have the money, tough luck.

In any case, ultralights disappeared. That's a fact, and no amount of claiming how everyone is free to fly one is going to change that.
 
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I'm not trying to be intentionally obtuse. I'm trying to figure out what acts you're laying blame to the FAA and how you are extending that argument to amateur built.

You get your training in an ultralight by getting a sport pilot instructor to instruct you in a legal two place.

You can hardly blame the FAA for closing a loophole that just about everybody was abusing. If we can't play by the rules, this is why we can't have nice things.

But you still have't explained what you're talking about with regard to homebuilts.
 
I think the idea is most of the ultralight trainers were experimental, and thus you can't pay someone to teach you to fly one. I am not certain that is even correct, I believe you can pay for instruction in any aircraft, you just can't rent an experimental. I suspect that particular limitation could be minimized with a bit of ambition and imagination.
 
I don't get the ultralight guys. They were flying two seaters in violation of the training exemption and when the rules changed they gave up rather then go on breaking the rules.
To your other point just jump in and go. Everything flies the same, just do it.
 
> Everything flies the same, just do it.

I have 300+ hours in ultralights. I disagree with your observation. In my experience;
pilots transitioning from the typical GA/SEL bird will struggle with the following areas.
Hopefully, their self-teaching won't kill them.

- They have much more drag. When you reduce power, they slowdown immediately.

- The wind-in-the-face/chest leads some to seriously misjudge airspeed

- The forward view is typically, very different. Judging pitch attitude is noticeably
different. Ditto for judging the flare.

While my transition was self-taught; I do NOT recommend that approach.
Paying for training is a somewhat(?) similar LSA is the wise thing to-do.

So; how did I transition? Lots of high-speed taxi & crow-hops before I
took it around the pattern. It took me 15-20 hours to become comfortable
with being able to see so much.
 
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rainsux said:
Hopefully, their self-teaching won't kill them.
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Yeah. I remember that Ron Levy bristled at my suggestion that I could check myself out in a C-150. The challenge of a typical 3-axis ultralight, in my opinion, is greater.

Advisory Circular 90-109 addresses some of the theoretical knowledge, but not wind-in-the-face.

rainsux said:
So; how did I transition? Lots of high-speed taxi & crow-hops before I took it around the pattern.
Click to expand...

Some people say that crow-hops are more dangerous than rounds about the pattern, and if it's a design without major vices, they should be avoided. Supposedly a crow-hop requires stuntman-like coordination of controls, while the aircraft quickly transitions through attitudes. Not sure whom to believe.

I'm considering finding an instructor who managed to extract a waver, if such a man or woman exists, then travel for training.
 
The checkout for everything bit thing has gone too far. Pilots have been feminized, sad.
Isn't one of the quicksilvers LSA? Thought there was another as well, that was basically an old school 2 seat ultralight that got LSA'd.
 
Iirc, there is a QuickSilver clone that is SLSA.

I also failed to mention that a higher thrust line also introduces yet another variable to pitch attitude control.
 
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flyingron said:
You mean by opening up light sport it killed the ultalights...especially when they allowed those who were breaking the regs with the abuse of the training waiver to convert over with amnesty?

You're free to fly your, within weight, single seat ultralight today as much as you were five years ago.
Click to expand...


You're right, and the fat ultralight guys were completely ignoring the rules, but I think a better approach would have been to find a way to NOT kill the industry. One of the FAA's responsibilities is to promote aviation, not eliminate vast segments of the industry.
 
I don't know of a "clone". Quicksilver GT-500 is one of the only two airplanes, certificated under Recriational Airplane section of Part 23. There was a "clone" of Challenger, called "Sport Hornet", but company went under after selling perhaps 5 of those. CGS worked on S-LSA Hawk under Danny Dezauche's leadership. Reportedly all the paperwork is done, and they were on the cusp of sales before the November difficulties. Finally, Kolb used offer an S-LSA, called Flier S. It is now apparently withdrawn. GT-500 is the only one of "ultralight-like" airplanes that continues to be available, to the best of my knowledge.

One way or the other, instruction is next to impossible to find. We are talking 10 airplanes across the whole country. Some are aready written off, some were never available for instruction.
 
Found them, Msquared. Link. Certified LSA and as ultralighty as you can get. Website says they will be at Oshkosh and daily demo flights.:yesnod:
 

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I started flying UL's 12 years ago. It was hard to look at the rules and understand where and why they were there to begin with. I fly Ran's stuff, owned 4 S12's with different configurations. Just a blast to fly.

I was a licensed instructions through EAA and could take "students" legally, kinda. Never had anyone care so just flew the snot out of them, then LSA came along and made them legal. Kinda took the fun out of it. :rofl:

By then the aviation bug had pushed me into RV's. :yes:
 
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kyleb said:
One of the FAA's responsibilities is to promote aviation, not eliminate vast segments of the industry.
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No, it is not. It hasn't been since the FAA Reauthorization Act of 1996.

Title IV - Aviation Safety Directs the Administrator to consider the assigning, maintaining, and enhancing of safety and security as the highest priorities in air commerce. Repeals the duty of the Administrator to promote civil aeronautics.

Ref: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/104/s2161
 
What are you transitioning to? There is a CFI in LaMars, IA that will train you in a Challenger. Some CFI's have put their fat ultralights into a Flying Club LLC, they will sell you a membership, then you are flying/training in your own airplane.
 
Ironically I thought about Backyard Flyer, a product of Missouri. However, the design is somewhat controversial. Also, it requires a long 27ft trailer. So, most likely, Kolb Firefly, due to its small dimensions when folded. Unfortunately, it is a kit-only airplane and there's no factory build; also it uses a 2-stroke Hirth engine. So not sure about it.
 
If trailering is a big requirement look at powered parachutes. Best aircraft for trailering by far.
 
Shared the pattern out at LIC last year with a dude in an ultralight. He seemed to be flying regularly, last I checked.

What exactly is the drama about?
 
That's just it, grab your cojones and go, man up or don't. You can teach yourself to fly in these, both my friend and I did in the original Quicksilver which when equipped with the 25hp engine a certain elbow flex range combined with full throttle would bail you out from the very bottom. It was a combined weight shift and rudder with cables to the harness for automatic coordination. I've checked myself out in a lot of planes, many people have.

BTW, there is nothing that says you can't use the 2 seat E-LSA for training, it says you can't charge rental/usage. Rules say nothing against charging a fair price for your instruction. You can charge $50 an hour for your time as an instructor and charge nothing for the plane and the FAA will be very happy to accept that you are not in violation. Now if you try for $150hr, the finding may not go in your favor, but at $50, that is within what others charge without an aircraft either. Obviously $50 an hr in an MX II or Challenger and you have some change left over from your costs.

Have you tried a dealer? Eiper built a pretty good dealer network, but I haven't looked in a while.
 
As far as my own training goes, I scheduled a flight on Sunday with a respected local instructor who teaches tailwheel in a 1942 Cadet. I think I'll be fine to get into a Kolb Firefly or CGS Hawk Ultra after that. It does nothing to unretire all the ultralight instructors, however.
 
I got my tailwheel end in a cub, then just did some internet reading on how the Kolb Firestar flies and just gave it a shot....first flight was a little eye-opening but I did survive.

I too would not recommend crow hops. That's a lot of time very close to the ground for you to be figuring out how this plane flies. Take off normally, get some altitude, get comfortable, try to land it.
 
Yep, spend your time on the ground taxing getting that sight picture then when you take off go straight to altitude and go ahead and do your stalls and slow flight and get comfortable with her down slow and you have Vso and power settings that get you 600 fpm at 1.3 Vso*. Now you have a baseline to set yourself up with that'll get you to a landing.

*Always make sure you have the IAS-CAS chart if applicable.
 
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Don't try the self taught method in a Challenger, this airplane is known for its adverse yaw, and it has hurt/killed several pilots.
 
lr60plt said:
. . .

I too would not recommend crow hops. That's a lot of time very close to the ground for you to be figuring out how this plane flies. Take off normally, get some altitude, get comfortable, try to land it.
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That's really all you can do nowadays in most places. Former fat ultralights turned E-LSA are getting harder to find, as are old EAA / USUA instructors who bothered to get FAA-certificated. And the newer LSA that were built as such really don't handle very much like ULs. Unless you already have some sort of flying experience, it's very difficult to safely ease your way into the hobby nowadays.

That being said, if you have any sort of flying experience at all, and a bit of common sense, you can probably transition to ULs quite easily. I did, for both 3-axis and trikes. Talk to people and read whatever written materials exist about the bird's handling characteristics, taxi around to get the sight picture (which is not as easy as it sounds, especially if you're in a pusher), and then take off and fly.

Get altitude, get used to the sight picture again, fly gently at first to learn the ULs characteristics without exceeding its operational parameters in a catastrophic way, and then set up for landing.

The hardest part for me was getting the sight picture. Everything else was pretty easy. The problem with the sight picture is that it's so wide open that it can be disorienting at first, especially on pushers. It also makes determining your pitch attitude a little... not so much difficult as just different.

Still, if you have an understanding of basic aerodynamics and some common sense, you can transition without killing yourself. I did, and no one ever accused me of being a particularly good pilot. I think I broke the record for most dual time before I even found a CFI crazy enough to sign me off for solo.

So yeah, if I did it, then pretty much anyone with flying experience and common sense can do it. But I do feel bad for people with no flying experience at all who want to get into the sport. Unless they can find an E-LSA and a CFI willing to instruct in it (that's not illegal, by the way, as long as the CFI only charges for his or her time, not the aircraft rental), his or her chances of getting dual in something that flies like a UL are pretty slim.

-Rich
 
what is this "training" thing you're crying about? I know lots of people with ultralights. None of them were "trained" they just figured it out. Yes many of them wrecked a few times, that's part & parcel of flying something that weighs less than large keg of beer.
 
You have to a LoDA to instruct in E-LSA just the same as in EX-AB.
 
zaitcev said:
You have to a LoDA to instruct in E-LSA just the same as in EX-AB.
Click to expand...

Ah, okay. Obviously I'm out of the loop regulations-wise, which isn't unusual for me. My main reason for flying ultralights is to remove myself as far as possible from the FAA's bull****.

So now it looks like they closed that loophole in 2010, just in case there remained any hope for the survival of ultralight flying. FAA really seems intent on making Part 103 go away without actually repealing it. Why else would they, in the name of safety, make it impossible to get training?

Yes, there were abuses, so they made the fat ULs get N-numbers and the instructors get tickets. I guess that wasn't enough.

You'd think they'd have better things to worry about.

-Rich
 
zaitcev said:
As far as my own training goes, I scheduled a flight on Sunday with a respected local instructor who teaches tailwheel in a 1942 Cadet. I think I'll be fine to get into a Kolb Firefly or CGS Hawk Ultra after that. It does nothing to unretire all the ultralight instructors, however.
Click to expand...

I checked out a guy in a two place Kolb. I really don't know what you're rumbling about ? The ultralight portion of Oshkosh seemed as big as it's always been recently. I'm like Henning - started out in an Eipper Formance with a two cycle Cuyuna 430 ! Too bad you're not down here in Florida, I'd get you squared away.

BTW in order to do instruction in an experimental for compensation all you need is a LODA or Letter of Deviation Authority from your FSDO. Really not that big of a deal. When I lived in Denver I seem to recall a UL strip a little south and east of Buckley but that was early nineties.
 
Many of the true 103 ultralights have very similar two-seat versions: Kolb, Challenger, Quicksilver, etc.

But try to find a two seat ultralight-like certified LSA that a LSA CFI will teach you in is nearly impossible.
 
I just met a man whom only flew weight shift back in the 80's. Today he wants to fly an Ultralight. He can not find anyone to take him up in a two seat and show him how to do this.
So he goes buys a single seat and tries to fly it himself. He is still with us but he has a bent up airplane and now he wants to sell her, but its had a prop strike and bent landing gear and other bent things.
I gave him a CFI's phone number and told him to get some help even if it was in an LSA. It would teach him what to do.
 
1600vw said:
I just met a man whom only flew weight shift back in the 80's. Today he wants to fly an Ultralight. He can not find anyone to take him up in a two seat and show him how to do this.
So he goes buys a single seat and tries to fly it himself. He is still with us but he has a bent up airplane and now he wants to sell her, but its had a prop strike and bent landing gear and other bent things.
I gave him a CFI's phone number and told him to get some help even if it was in an LSA. It would teach him what to do.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about your friend's mishap. I suspect that happens very often nowadays.

I also suspect that transitioning from a trike (WSC) to a three-axis UL (airplane) is more difficult than the other way around for most people. Trikes are much simpler, don't require control surface coordination, are more intuitive (in my opinion), and have more direct force feedback.

It's one of the reasons I get ****ed off at FAA for going overboard with the SP / LSA program. I didn't even know about the need for LoDA until last night. The fact that the fat ULs converted to E-LSA now can't be used for instruction without the FAA's explicit imprimatur goes against what they said when they introduced the SP rule, and has its costs in terms of safety for people who actually want to learn to fly ULs, not LSA.

It's also completely unnecessary, when you apply a little common sense to the issue. The only students who would specifically seek instruction in a converted fat UL are those who want to learn to fly similar single-place ULs. If you want to learn to fly a "real" airplane, then you're not going to go looking for an E-LSA to train in. I mean, isn't that pretty obvious?

This is a small part of what I was referring to when I mentioned being tired of the FAA's bull**** in an earlier post. Yes, I agree that the abuses under the Part 103 training exemptions were getting out of hand. There were probably more sightseeing trips than legitimate lessons going on at some airstrips. That had to stop.

But the FAA went overboard. In the interest of "protecting" the ignorant from unauthorized sightseeing, they made it even more risky for those who actually want to get into the UL hobby.

Personally, I think the training exemption for fat ULs and EAA / USUA certified instructors should be restored, but limited to students who have become members of either EAA or USUA and who have current membership cards. That would eliminate the risk to the general public -- casual tourists are not going to join an organization and wait for a membership card just to go sightseeing -- but would restore the training availability for students who actually want UL instruction.

When you think about it, that's really all that had to be done in the first place.

-Rich
 
tinerj said:
But try to find a two seat ultralight-like certified LSA that a LSA CFI will teach you in is nearly impossible.
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It's worse than that. Try to find any LSA that is available for rental/instruction. They're few and far between. Sport Pilot is by and large as much as a non-starter for new pilots as the Rec certificate as. The interest is most centered in the groups of already certified pilots moving downward for whatever reasons.
 
Art is spoiled by Florida, is all. The sky is dark with airplanes there and all the retired guys with their experience collect there. That's why shops like U-Fly-It is located in Jax and they provide transition training in their Quick 2S. But it is not like that elsewhere. Next best is probably the DFW area. Denver is already far worse and finding instruction there would be a challenge.

Note that trike guys stick around through all this, because they can have 2-seaters and instruction. Their numbers in my area exceed those of conventional ultralights. Some of them fly sightseeing trips and the like, and that is despite the cost of modern weight-shift being fairly steep. One guy in my UL club changed a wing on this trike at a cost of $40,000! And of course all of the fly on the power of Rotax 912.

Looking at trikers, I conclude that hand-waving regulation away would be incorrect. It definitely suppresses airplane-like ultralights these days.
 
Pete,
The gist of your entire post reminds me a great deal of the situation taking place in the gyrocopter world. Currently about 7 truly active CFIs in the entire country and NO rental ships to be had. Guys buy relatively cheap one-hole ships off eBay and Craig's list and then promptly wrap them up at best or kill themselves trying at worst. My advice to you is the same advice we give budding gyronauts at the Popular Rotorcraft Association (PRA) - block out some time, make the effort, and TRAVEL to where you can get some good quality instruction. You wouldn't skimp on neurosurgery would you ? Why half-ass flight instruction ?

I don't know what kind of machine you have but if it's two place I will be in Denver on a layover four times next month. If you want to see about getting together send me a PM.
Art
 
There is a guy with an N' numbered two place powered parachute in the Minneapolis Western Suburbs that is legal for dual. They teach out of a grass patch near Lake Minnetonka. I'd suggest starting there. He's got a pretty nice bird!
 
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