Ultralight Flying

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rmemedic said:
Vince, I know the bush pilot thing sounds awesome, and I REALLY wanted to do it, but it's just not worth it. Pay is crap, you're either working all the time or not at all, and you do a lot of ***** chores for the company you're with.
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I don't want to do bush pilot, I want to get my commercial license after and try to get a job on a small airline after my career is done in the military. Or, throw the 60 000$ in to a commercial helicopter license and get a job with it. My buddy is in Bangkok right now as helicopter pilot. At first he was in Markham doing 120 000$ a year, but the guy have a multimillionaire grand-father and he paid everything :rolleyes:

But all of this is maybe just a really expensive dream :p
 
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vince492 said:
I don't want to do bush pilot, I want to get my commercial license after and try to get a job on a small airline after my career is done in the military. Or, throw the 60 000$ in to a commercial helicopter license and get a job with it. My buddy is in Bangkok right now as helicopter pilot. At first he was in Markham doing 120 000$ a year, but the guy have a multimillionaire grand-father and he paid everything :rolleyes:

But all of this is maybe just a really expensive dream :p
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Sorry, just sounded like since you wanted your float rating and fishing and hunting up north that you wanted bush pilot... The airline industry is difficult to get in. They all want pilots with lots of hours on type, it's a huge risk with them having new pilots. Your buddy got very lucky. Most people start off at or below 40,000/year, and you won't be the guy in the left seat.

I have a buddy with his commercial license, his dual rating and some other important tickets and he made a go of being a pro pilot... He now works in the military as a medic.
 
rmemedic said:
You can also get a decent ultralight for the same amount of cash.
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There are some very convenient advantages with a ppg, however. Such as you can store it in your shed or even closet, transport it with a car (I had a modified hitch attachment to put mine on), take off and land from any field/beach. Best of all: you can travel with it -- one of those pictures was me landing on an airstrip in Indonesia (about 70km from Jakarta). I had brought my paramotor in a large suitcase (fuel tank removed and new one bought in Indonesia) and my para-wing was in a sack in the overhead compartment.

As for where to train... I think there is a guy in St. Catherines area that sells machines and trains: http://www.poweredparaglidingontario.com/. I trained from a guy in London, On, as I was living near there at the time.
 
VifferFun: Is the RV-4 an ultralight? Never thought it was, and the one you posted has a C-F___ registration, whereas I thought ultralights were C-I____....:confused:
 
just curious said:
VifferFun: Is the RV-4 an ultralight? Never thought it was, and the one you posted has a C-F___ registration, whereas I thought ultralights were C-I____....:confused:
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RV-4 stalls too fast to be an ultralight, but they can be built very close to max weight as an advanced ultralight.
I believe the RV-12 is in the advanced ultralight class.

The sonex is also a really great kit to look at. Aerobatic, can do decent miles in them.
 
just curious, but where would early WWI type aircraft fit in? Would they be considered ultralights?
 
ItIsWhatItIs said:
Any plane can be rebranded as a homebuilt/ultralight. Homebuilt/ultralight has more to do with maintenance requirements and usage restrictions.
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ok, so it's not size, weight, power?
 
BusaBob said:
ok, so it's not size, weight, power?
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No. Your usage will be limited, ie no passengers. What's the point of a big plane with lots of power if you are not allowed to fly at night with no passengers. Also flying is not cheap. The gyrocopter I was going to build weighing only 250 lbs would have used 20 to 30 dollars of fuel for an hour of flight time. Scale it up to bigger planes, there is no way the average guy can affford to fly. That is partly why I haven't put the wheels in motion to get this done. The other part is the cost to get the ultralight license, about 4000. In the US you can fly with a drivers license. I would look into a pilot license with all the bells and whistles and forget the ultralight license. With that license you can fly ultralights/homebuilts and small production made planes. This way you can start off flying ultralights and when you are ready to "upgrade" to a commercially made plane you don't have to worry about licensing.
 
ItIsWhatItIs said:
No. Your usage will be limited, ie no passengers. What's the point of a big plane with lots of power if you are not allowed to fly at night with no passengers. Also flying is not cheap. The gyrocopter I was going to build weighing only 250 lbs would have used 20 to 30 dollars of fuel for an hour of flight time. Scale it up to bigger planes, there is no way the average guy can affford to fly. That is partly why I haven't put the wheels in motion to get this done. The other part is the cost to get the ultralight license, about 4000. In the US you can fly with a drivers license. I would look into a pilot license with all the bells and whistles and forget the ultralight license. With that license you can fly ultralights/homebuilts and small production made planes. This way you can start off flying ultralights and when you are ready to "upgrade" to a commercially made plane you don't have to worry about licensing.
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+1 to this. It's kind of like some people going through and getting their recreational license over a full private pilots license. Never really made sense to me. Save a little $$$ and then go straight to PPL. You won't regret it. Plus, you get to tell people you're a pilot. :cool: From last night:

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Started flying when I retired from racing (the first time).Never finished it but have 65hrs in a 172. Booked my cross country four times and got weathered out.Too bad because all I needed was that and a check flight and I was done. Figured I would go back racing while I was still young enough to bounce. Now that I have retired again maybe its time to finish it. Next best thing to racing was taking off for the first time with no instructor.
 
ItIsWhatItIs said:
Any plane can be rebranded as a homebuilt/ultralight. Homebuilt/ultralight has more to do with maintenance requirements and usage restrictions.
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Absolutely wrong.
The biggest an ultralight can be is 1200 lbs +/- a few full gross weight with a stall speed (meaning the speed at which the wing can't produce enough lift) of 45 mph max. So it must be able to fly slower than that, but there is no actual speed limit.
Youre also reduced in what types of airspace you can fly in.
They can be registered as a home built and can take passengers as long as the pilot has his ticket.

Now, you can build other aircraft that fit in to general aviation. There are lots of different types. They are typically registered as experimental, but most will follow VFR rules, unless they have been properly inspected during certain stages of the build and have the proper equipment, then they are registered as a certified plane and are capable of IFR with the right equipment. But, a certified plane has to have certain things like annual inspections etc
 
rmemedic said:
Absolutely wrong.
The biggest an ultralight can be is 1200 lbs +/- a few full gross weight with a stall speed (meaning the speed at which the wing can't produce enough lift) of 45 mph max. So it must be able to fly slower than that, but there is no actual speed limit.
Youre also reduced in what types of airspace you can fly in.
They can be registered as a home built and can take passengers as long as the pilot has his ticket.

Now, you can build other aircraft that fit in to general aviation. There are lots of different types. They are typically registered as experimental, but most will follow VFR rules, unless they have been properly inspected during certain stages of the build and have the proper equipment, then they are registered as a certified plane and are capable of IFR with the right equipment. But, a certified plane has to have certain things like annual inspections etc
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I'm a little confused by the statement in bold: if the stall speed is 45 mph, doesn't that mean that the plane is unable to fly slower than 45 mph (i.e. it will stall)?
 
BusaBob said:
I'm a little confused by the statement in bold: if the stall speed is 45 mph, doesn't that mean that the plane is unable to fly slower than 45 mph (i.e. it will stall)?
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Exactly. If it needs more than 45mph IAS to fly it can't be an ultralight.
Take 2 planes of say 1000lbs. If one has a stall of 40 and one of 50, the only one that can be an ultralight is the one with a stall below 45.
 
ItIsWhatItIs said:
No. Your usage will be limited, ie no passengers. What's the point of a big plane with lots of power if you are not allowed to fly at night with no passengers. Also flying is not cheap. The gyrocopter I was going to build weighing only 250 lbs would have used 20 to 30 dollars of fuel for an hour of flight time. Scale it up to bigger planes, there is no way the average guy can affford to fly. That is partly why I haven't put the wheels in motion to get this done. The other part is the cost to get the ultralight license, about 4000. In the US you can fly with a drivers license.
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Are you sure about that? From what I was told, the US doesn't have an "Ultralight Class" but instead calls them "Light-Sport Aircraft" and their requirements are more stringent than in Canada.

ItIsWhatItIs said:
I would look into a pilot license with all the bells and whistles and forget the ultralight license. With that license you can fly ultralights/homebuilts and small production made planes. This way you can start off flying ultralights and when you are ready to "upgrade" to a commercially made plane you don't have to worry about licensing.
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If you hold your PPL, you are exempt from the Ultralight written exam and your required hours are reduced from 10 hours to 5 hours. As a person new to flying, I would be putting in at least 16 hours before getting my ultralight license.

I think that getting your private pilot's license costs about $10,000 where as an Ultralight license only costs about $3000. That's a pretty significant difference. I might be interested in the full private license at some point in the future, but I'll worry about that when the time comes. The worst-case scenario is that I spent $3000 on Ultralight training which really isn't a big deal, since I consider it $3000 worth of fun :P Also, I'm sure that my training in an Ultralight would make the transition to a regular plane much easier. My instructor (who flies both ultralights and Cessnas) said that ultralights are more difficult to fly.
 
Diesel said:
There are some very convenient advantages with a ppg, however. Such as you can store it in your shed or even closet, transport it with a car (I had a modified hitch attachment to put mine on), take off and land from any field/beach. Best of all: you can travel with it -- one of those pictures was me landing on an airstrip in Indonesia (about 70km from Jakarta). I had brought my paramotor in a large suitcase (fuel tank removed and new one bought in Indonesia) and my para-wing was in a sack in the overhead compartment.

As for where to train... I think there is a guy in St. Catherines area that sells machines and trains: http://www.poweredparaglidingontario.com/. I trained from a guy in London, On, as I was living near there at the time.
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That does look like a lot of fun! It would certainly be a much cheaper hobby since your wouldn't have to worry about a hangar for your plane.

If someone gets their regular Ultralight license, does this also qualify them to fly a powered paraglider, or do you need a license specifically for that purpose?
 
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The ultralight license covers trikes (think old school hang glider with a motor and a seat) and I also believe It covers powered parachutes.

There are a bunch of ultralights that have foldable/removable wings so you can trailer them to your take off point.
Im pretty sure that the sonex I mentioned has this option, takes 15 minutes they said... But I might be thinking of another plane. The sonex is pretty cool, cheaper to build (about 20,000 for a nice set up).
I know the zenith 601s had wing spar issues with a certain wing type, but the full info has slipped my head. I was interested in one of those, but if I built an u/l I'd go sonex.... But I'd prefer my RV-4!
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