Now This is Really Flying

Today, as we enter the halfway mark through 1983, the fledgling ultralight industry is set to boom, and we mean boom. Al ready in Australia, there are more than a dozen actual types being produced with probably a dozen more about to take to the sky in the coming year. lri the. USA; where the ultralight has already taken off in a big way, there are currently about 30,000 such aircraft produced by companies With up to 200 or more employees. In America, it is big business with FAA projections looking towards more than 200,000 such aircraft being produced by the end of this decade alone.

Australia obviously won’t notch up that type of numerical growth but 6n a per capita basis we may even exceed the achievements of the US industry. After all, Australia’s ultralights are generally ahead of the US equivalents, as was in evidence at the 1983 SAAA Mangalore Air Show. At Mangalore, visiting EAA members from Oshkosh were amazed and gratified at the design achievements that we as a nation were making. They felt primarily that our machines were built better, designed stronger, had better aerodynamics and generally, being proper three-axis machines, were more like ‘real’ aeroplanes rather than merely powered hang gliders. Australia of course has exported many ultralights to North America and currently, the Hornet, Scout and Jackaroo are all produced under license in the USA.

With the cost of a new two-seat GA Lightie running at more than $50,000 and the average four-seater costing in excess of twice that figure, and with hourly DOCs exceeding fifty or more dollars for even a modest aircraft, is it a wonder that these mini aircraft, called ultralights, are beginning to get a lot of attention from people who like to fly without inviting bankruptcy.

So, with this in mind, AUSTRALIAN AVIATION decided to get aboard the ultralight experience to see if it was as good as the converts were saying. The first point in question was also our way of thinking the most important – pilot training.

Buying a kit for a few thousand dollars, taking it to a paddock and launching oneself into space is simply not the way to survive. Marketers of ultralights agree entirely, and nowadays almost all provide a dedicated and sophisticated training curriculum before the pilot receives his or her ‘wings’.

One organisation that impressed us was Sunsport Flying and coincidentally the aircraft they market, the Mustang, was a design that we felt had a lot to offer in terms of practicality and structural integrity. In fact, when Brigadier Charles Yaeger, the first man to exceed the speed of sound and a long-standing USAF and NASA test pilot flew the Mustang at the ’83 Schofields his major comment was that it was over-engineered!

So with a little soul searching (perhaps fear!) yours truly signed up for the regular Sunsport training programme, guaranteed to get him into the air in an ultralight, survive and perhaps ever enjoy it – the latter turning out to be the understatement of the century!

The guiding hand behind Sunsport is David Hughes, an ex-engineer who now is marketing his fast-growing company with the vigour of a man who knows when he has backed a winner. Backing David in the instruction role are a number of qualified flight instructors headed by John Robinson as training director. John holds a CPL, is a grade 1 flight instructor and is a product of Bankstown’s prestigious AFTS flying school.

The course commences with a comprehensive four-night theory class that explains the mysteries behind aerodynamics, meteorology, and rules of the air, and is really not very dissimilar to your average Basic Air Knowledge (BAK) course as prescribed for a Private Pilot Licence (PPL). Once the theory classes have been satisfactorily completed it is off to Mittagong where Sunsport use the local Aero Club airfield for flight instruction.

The Mittagong base is excellent, relatively close to Sydney and set amidst a beautiful country that begs you to stay the weekend and fly, fly, fly. Sunsport are planning to build their own hangar on the field and will be able to base up to a dozen ultralights there for training and rental. The strip itself found its origins in the Second World War as an alternate and training strip. As the strip is a full thousand metres in length and is bordered by wide, even expanses of grassed run-off area, it is ideal for the training environment.

Day one of the flight training begins at dawn, brisk air, a virgin sun and still air, an ultralight pilot’s dream and enough to make you feel great just to be alive. Day one also has you learning about the most difficult thing there is to do with an ultralight, particularly a tail dragger, and that is taxing. Taxiing is where you want to end up somewhere but never seem to get there! Once the technique is mastered though, you wonder why it was so difficult in the first place. Like everything it is simply a matter of experience, confidence and proper instruction. A breeze makes things tough though, and we soon learn to taxi with full aileron correction on the windward wing with heaps of rudder to achieve the desired heading. In this regard, flying an ultralight is very much like sailing a small sailboat.

Day two, all going well, sees us performing ‘hops’, though a more realistic term might simply be ‘impacts’. In this scenario you taxi straight and fast, tail up, go for max power and back goes the stick. You are flying! Once airborne you are busy keeping everything pointing in the right direction. Get that left wing up, nose is dropping, right-wing is overcorrecting, the wind is slewing me off the runway centreline, boot in some rudder. And so it goes till you reduce power and usually hit terra firma with your heart in your mouth. After fifteen minutes of this and getting the Mustang airborne for the first time, I taxied back, shut down and found that my hands were shaking too much to pour a much-needed coffee. It was nine in the morning and I had just experienced the most exciting thing that had happened to me for many a long year.

From the moment you are airborne, hopping down the long Mittagong runway, you begin to learn quickly. You commence planned and exact landings, and power turns and quickly progress to proper GA-style circuits. The fact that an ultralight can turn comfortably within the width of most runway boundaries is left to the ‘aces’ with a dozen or more hours’ experience (remember you have gone from first belt-up to solo in less than two hours engine running time), but to engender the importance of procedure and flying discipline Sunsport promote full circuits in the circuits and bumps stage. From this point, you have the confidence to attempt engine-out dead stick landings which in an ultralight are about as dangerous as in a glider. The Mustang flies the same except all you have for company is the wind whistling through the wires. Exciting stuff!

So there you have it – your wings. You can now fly an ultralight and an entirely new spectrum of flying awaits you.

But what can you precisely do with your new skills?

Till recently all ultralight flying activity was governed by the Department of Aviation’s ANO 95. 1O which was rather restrictive, to say the least. ANO 95. 10 stated, for instance, that you could not fly above 300 feet, nor even cross a sealed road, and must stay clear of crowds, buildings and virtually anywhere inhabited by mankind. Obviously, there was little room for development with the current legislation and as both the USA and UK have considerably more liberal rulings on the flight operations of ultralights it was only a matter of time before the situation in Australia would redress itself. And so we have an entirely new ANO termed 95. 22 which in its initial draft recommends a maximum height of 500 feet, additional cross-country privileges regarding transit across roads, lakes etc. and allows an ultralight to achieve a performance spectrum not attainable with the old 95. 10. A major design breakthrough is raising the maximum weight limit from 181 kg (400 lb) all up to one of empty weight of 150 kg (330 lb). This allows for a stronger airframe, longer endurance through larger fuel tanks, bigger motors and niceties like instrumentation and perhaps two-way radio.

At the time of writing much depended on the formation of the Australian Ultralight Federation which held its inaugural meeting, with DofA patronage, at the 1983 SAAA Mangalore Air Show. Commenting on DofA’s attitude to ultralights, Departmental spokesman Trevor Burns stated that the Department wants the fast-growing ultralight movement to govern itself in a similar fashion as do the Australian Parachutist Federation, the Gliding Federation of Australia, the Australian Ballooning Federation and the Hang Gliding Federation of Australia. All these successful bodies grew from the same traumatic origins through which the Ultralight Federation is now passing. The status of the industry will be heavily monitored by the AUF as will be the allocation of training school licences and eventual flying licences.

It is all early days though, as the AUF are scheduled to resubmit their draft (declared at Mangalore) by June, DofA should have completed their final draft by August and then it merely has to pass via the executive for full endorsement, probably around this summer.

Ultralights will then literally take off as the new ANO also allows two-seat training aircraft which will initially attract a far greater number of trainees (and qualified pilots a little low on a sense of adventure) to a sport where one does genuinely wonder what it will be like after that first mind-boggling takeoff. Believe me, it is great!

Will flying an ultralight lead to a speedier PPL? Most qualified pilots we spoke to felt that obviously, someone with several hours on ultralights would assimilate into GA much faster than a raw novice. While the Department is adamant at this stage that ultralight flying time cannot be used in the process of acquiring a PPL they did point out that this situation could be different once the AUF has proved itself as an effective administrative body and the industry has grown a little more. The British CAA allow time credits for ultralight flight and it is generally felt that a compromise locally may be in effect by 1985. This would then have considerable repercussions on just how our PPL pilots are trained in addition to an obvious decrease in the cost of obtaining the same. Either way, it has to be a positive thing for the future of aviation generally.

So positive in fact that many established GA companies are beginning to sit up and take note. It is believed that Ansett General Aviation has studied at length the British Dragon two-seat ultralight, while Navair and Paxford Aviation, distributors of Robin aircraft, are both about to launch into the marketing of ultralights. When you consider that more than half the people who commence a PPL course fade away through lack of money or inability to handle the workload, while of those who do gain a PPL, the majority let it lapse within five years of acquiring the same. These figures tell us something very relevant to ultralights, that firstly GA flying nowadays is far too costly for the average person and secondly, in our highly regulated and complex airspace environment, many low-hour, minimal-experience pilots simply have given up the battle of staying alive in what is seen by many as an over-regulated industry. The fact that these people number in the tens of thousands indicates the potential market awaiting the Australian ultralight industry.

Our message is simple: if you love flying, really love it, then give ultralights a go. Believe me, you will never be the same again – they are simply that much fun.