1. Taildragger. Limited nose visibility on the ground. Harder to control on the ground. "Watch that rudder! Don't tail-spin it! Easy on those brakes, boy! You'll ground-loop the aircraft! Don't land on all three tires, you'll stall out! Land on the mains, then bring the tail down!" and so on. Of course, those who first learned how to fly on Taildraggers (aka "conventional gear") will sneer at us nose-wheelers for those statements.
2. Less stable than the Cessna, like mentioned in the post above. Especially at low speeds.
3. High performance engine and a 4-bladed prop that puts out a mind-boggling p-factor (compared to the 172).
4. Very sensitive control responses.
5. No multi-thousand-dollar Garmin navigational, and radio stacks or the equivalent.
The 172 is designed with safety and ease of flight in mind. The P-51 is designed to intercept, escort, and shoot down aircraft at long ranges and high speeds (piston engine-wise).
But if I had $250,000 , I'd take a new Cirrus SR-22 or a used twin-engine Raytheon Baron 51-P/TC (pressurized AND turbocharged, mmmm). I'd also like to have $20,000 set aside for various fees and costs.
lukexcom wrote:
The 172 is designed with safety and ease of flight in mind. The P-51 is designed to intercept, escort, and shoot down aircraft at long ranges and high speeds (piston engine-wise).
This is fucking rich, you're calling a 1,200 pound max take off weight
ultralight with a 100 hp engine the same as a 12,000 pound fighter
powered by a 1,650 hp merlin?
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
This is fucking rich, you're calling a 1,200 pound max take off weight
ultralight with a 100 hp engine the same as a 12,000 pound fighter
powered by a 1,650 hp merlin?
LoL, no, of course not. Here's why:
Peregrin Toker wrote:Isn't a P51 much harder to control than a Cessna?
Victorhadin responded with his own statement, and I responded with what you quoted.
In other words, we were (or at least I was, maybe Peregrin meant the T-51) talking about the P-51 Mustang of WW2.
But if it's the T-51 you're talking about, then yes, it's easy to fly too, except for the taildragger aspect which will be a bit daunting to us raised on nose-wheels.
jenat-lai wrote:
At least the C172 is a real plane
Which performs crappier than the T-51. Face it, General aviation is in
a real doldrums, no real innovation there at all, except for those
kilobuck navigation/comm systems which you can put into anything
with a dashboard, from an ultralight to a LearJet.
There really hasn't been any fucking innovation at all, everything costs
a fuckload of money, unlike say the Boating market, where you've got
a boat for virtually every spending bracket.
Mostly because of the FAA. It takes ages to get a lot of things approved
by the FAA. Ultralights don't have to deal with a lot of the bureaucratic
red tape and hassle that General Aviation does, so it's evolving pretty
damn fast right now, and it might just be the thing that brings piloting
to the common man, not a 48 year old design that costs as much as
a house.
now Beech Bonanza V tail... Turbocharged... that's my style!
Bah, we laugh at your wannabe turbocharged plane.
Behold the glory of a 14 cylinder radial with 1,900 hp available, and it
can be yours for 525,000 EUR.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Wicked Pilot wrote:If you wanna be a useless pilot, then go ahead and fly strictly ultralights. Those of us who are legitimate aviators will fly the real things.
So homebuilts are no longer the 'real thing', ey? What about that Pitts my uncle built? Don't guess that's the 'real thing',either, even though it's classified as an experimental.
Face it, the 'real thing' is in a point of stagnation, a point of stagnation that hasn't changed in the last 40 years. Other than radios and navigation, a brand new C172 isn't that different from one 30 years ago. I mean, seriously, civilian ground transportation has advanced further than general aviation.
What it needs is someone like Burt Rutan at the helm of Cessna, with the CEO of Ford as the manager. Combine ingenuity with someone with good business sense to market to everyone.
Legitimate aviators my ass. If you can fly an expermental that you built yourself, then you are just as good an aviator as someone who has went out and bought a 150 thou Cessna, if not better.
Nathan F wrote:So homebuilts are no longer the 'real thing', ey? What about that Pitts my uncle built? Don't guess that's the 'real thing',either, even though it's classified as an experimental.
Are you fucking blind? I said ultralights, not 'every and all experimentals.'
Face it, the 'real thing' is in a point of stagnation, a point of stagnation that hasn't changed in the last 40 years. Other than radios and navigation, a brand new C172 isn't that different from one 30 years ago.
Oh, so I see you've flown both the older and newer Skyhawks? Tell me, how many hours have you logged in those aircraft.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
Got enough hot air in this thread to go ballooning... but I am wandering off topic with that....
First, let's define what an ultralight is and isn't (I'm using US terms, under the assumption that the folks spitting "FAA" like the cussword it is live in the US). Under FAR Part 103, an ultralight has
1) one seat
2) weighs less than 254 lbs (less than 155 lbs if unpowered)
3) carries no more than 5 gallons of fuel
4) flies no faster than 55 knots in level flight
5) power-off stall speed does not exceed 24 knots
That's IT. If it does not conform to the above it is not an ultralight. There is no such thing as a "two seat ultralight" - if you see one it's either registered as an experimental homebuilt (in which case it flies under Part 91 as a 'real aircraft") or it is an "ultralight trainer" operating under an exemption to the regulations, or it is an illegal aircraft.
What the OP was describing as a "good buy" is potentially a "light sport aircraft" or whatever the hell they're calling it these days. "Sport Pilot" is close to being a reality, but is not an actuality at the time I am typing this.
OK, I'm glad we got that out of the way. You know, it wouldn't hurt ya'll to read the FARs, particularly Part 103 since it's the shortest part of the whole mess anyhow - like three whole pages. Anyhow...
I started in ultralights. Yes, real ultralights. OK, I started in a real ultralight trainer. We're talking about an aircraft weighing less than 400 lbs, that carried two, and had neither floors nor doors nor windows. So I have a little experience in this area. After some time, I started flying a two seat experimental aircraft, empty weight 535 lbs, gross take-off weight 900 lbs. I also hold a private pilot license and have time in the Cessna 150, 172, Beechcraft Sundowner, Piper Warrior and Arrow, and Mooney (for accuracy's sake, I will clarify that I do not feel qualified to solo in a Mooney - I play co-pilot to a buddy who owns one. I'm comfortable at altitude, but have not been offered take-offs or landing in it - well, it's his plane)
My take on it? If you're really off the ground, you're really flying. They're all "real airplanes", but also real different airplanes. So don't kid yourself.
I got out of ultralights not because I had problems but because I got tired of funerals and helping to haul wrecks off turf runways. The term that comes to mind is "bloody mess". I also discovered a desire to take passengers which, of course, you can't do in single-seat airplane.
When I stepped into GA - those "crap" airplanes someone was going on about - I made a discovery. The 10-15 knot crosswinds that I found difficult to terrifying in an "ultralight", and had seen ultralights and near-ultralights cartwheel as a result of - were no big deal in a GA airplane. While I would not seek out an opportunity to fly a GA four-seater - those airplanes with "awful" performance - in a 25 knot full perpendicular crosswind, I have done so, done so successfully, and without undue terror. To do so in the 500 - 900 lbs aircraft I've flown would be... well, somewhere between "really dumb" and "suicidal".
So, in addition to allowing you to bring friends and family along, those "poor performance" aircraft can also handle a bit stronger weather than your ultralights and "sport planes". Now, I'm not some whiz-bang engineer, I don't have a fancy college degree in aerodynamics, I'm "just" a pilot, but my experience has been that the lower the weight the less weather your aircraft can handle - and by "weather" I mean not only rain and snow but wind as well. This is dependent on the weight and power of the aircraft - both of which are strongly limited in both ultralights and sport planes.
A substantial part of flight training is not "how do I make this thing go where I point it" but also navigation and limitations and judgement - and those will take the same amount of time to learn regardless of what machine you fly. Learning to point the machine where you want it to go is frequently the least difficult thing about earning your license. I can't help but think that has a lot to do with why I saw so many ultralights crash over the years - no training required for that. Sure, you can point and go - but can you keep from getting lost? Do you know what to do when something goes wrong? (And things will go wrong)
Don't like the FAA regs on maintenance? Well, buddy, it's like this - if you're going to build and maintain your own airplane YOU will have to make maintenance decisions. If you're wrong you can die. And there's no gaurantee that death will be quick or painless, either. The guys I hung out with who were flying ultralights and experimentals successfully - that is, minimal problems, no crashes, no fatalities for hundreds of hours - followed an inspection and maintenance schedule even more stringent than the FAA requires of Part 91 aircraft. Are there stupid rules? Yes, there certainly are. But the old saw "the regs are written in blood" is true for many other rules. Which is why I saw people with ultralights who weren't required to keep maintenance logs maintaining logs on their engines and props and airframes just as if they were a "real airplane". Because that's part of how you become an old pilot.
If you can't afford to maintain your machine in airworthy condition you can't afford to fly.
I'd also like to point out that both ultralights and sport planes are severely limited in where they can go. (So are most homebuilts). You can't fly them over cities, into towered airports, or at night. If you have no desire to do any of that, fine - then it's no problem. But be aware those limitations exist and they are not going away any time soon, if ever. Personally, 90% or more of my flying is daytime, un-towered fields, and over farms. That 10% of flying at night, over cities, and into towered airports, however, was sufficiently important that, in addition to my desire to carry passengers along, it was a major factor in my decision to get a license. And it can be handy. When my local airport shut down temporarially in 2000 to repair and improve the runway they temporarially re-located the FBO to a towered field with scheduled airline travel - those of us with private licenses and higher kept flying. Those with "lesser" certification sat on the ground for most of the summer, or had to relocate 80 miles away instead of 10. Bummer, huh?
See, there's more to it than just the sticker price on the vehicle. And getting back to that - in some respects, I think the pre-1964 C172 has some advantages over the 1999 and more recent models. And while the C152 is a newer airplane than any of the half-dozen C150's I've flown, the marginally shorter stopping distance of a C150 sure came in handy that time I wound up landing in someone's backyard (and boy was he surprised!) Newer isn't always better, and that latest GPS and avionics will not replace good, basic flying skills - the old "stick and rudder' techniques. Geez, man, you've got 50 year old Cessnas still flying and still in demand - there's a lot to be said for a design that spans half the history of powered flight. They may not be fast, new, sexy, powerful, or pretty (unless you like duct-tape upholstery) but cripes, they're reliable. They're durable. There's a LOT to be said for those qualities!
Behold the glory of a 14 cylinder radial with 1,900 hp available, and it
can be yours for 525,000 EUR.
And it i'll get to 2,250hp with an emergency methanol or nitrous oxide boost system fitted. Though the replica's might not have that.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Found the article that twigged me onto stuff like the T-51, etc. They're
not really ultralights *slaps head* but really "light sport planes"
Popular Mechanics wrote:
For tens of thousands of aspiring pilots whose wallets are too thin for a private pilot's license and a type-certified airplane, taking to the skies has long meant facing down a dilemma: Buying an ultralight gets you airborne fast. The tradeoff is that these aircraft have only a limited range, not to mention that, for many, their spindly airframes and open cockpits have all the appeal of gliding through the air on a flying trapeze. Kitplanes look and feel more like "real planes." But having built one ourselves, we know it requires months of exacting work ("Sign Of The Zodiac," Aug. 1997, page 46).
Well, folks, the days of wrangling over the airborne "Goldilocks dilemma" are about to end. By the end of 2003, the Department of Transportation (DOT) is expected to authorize an altogether new level of pilot and aircraft certification. For the first time, owning a ready-to-fly airplane-- not an ultralight or kitplane--will become as inexpensive as buying an SUV and as easy as getting a driver's license.
Everyone who has examined the proposed rule changes-- from the experts at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) to plane manufacturers and part-time flight instructors-- predicts that the new rules will do more than make flying cheaper and easier. They suggest it will spark an aerial renaissance by introducing a crop of imaginative new aircraft and reintroducing modern versions of the great aviation classics, including the Piper J-3 Cub.
No Medical Exam
Great planes at great prices is only part of the story. The Sport Pilot Initiative, as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule changes are widely known, is also streamlining pilot licensing. The biggest change is the elimination of the costly and, some say, overly restrictive FAA medical exam. In a sense, your state driver's license will become your license to fly. If the state deems you healthy enough to get behind the wheel of a car, the FAA will consider you healthy enough to climb into the cockpit of a light sport plane. To get your new Sport Pilot certificate, you will need to do little more than successfully complete ground school and log 20 hours of flight time, which includes cross-country and solo flights. (We have posted the fine print on the PM.Zone.)
If this all sounds too good to be true, nobody would blame you for being skeptical, especially in our post-9/11 world. The FAA sees it differently, says spokesperson Alison Duquette. With their light weight and small fuel capacity, light sport planes present minimal threat as a projectile.
There is another less obvious reason for the industry's excitement. The official FAA blessing embodied in the rules means that Sport Pilot aircraft will become easier to insure. And as we all know, obtaining insurance is the key to obtaining financing for that initial purchase. Not only will the new ready-to-fly light sport planes be priced in the same range as high-end SUVs, they will be insured and financed in much the same way. Some experts have predicted that, as the market matures, a winged version of the airport car-rental business will take off.
Aerial Revolution
As might be expected, the simplified pilot certification has already spurred manufacturers to create new designs that fit the FAA power and weight rules for light sport aircraft (see "Aircraft Specs"). Traditionalists should feel right at home with these conventional airframes, as will their spouses, who have been known to veto flight clearance for some of the spindly creations out there.
So, what exactly will the first crop of light sport aircraft look like? During our visit to the EAA's AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wis., we found that the whole equation of private airplane ownership is about to change. A reasonable base line for comparison is the new Cessna 172 Skyhawk, an excellent, durable 4-place type-certified aircraft that its manufacturer describes as "the perfect first airplane." Prices start at more than $150,000. Light sport planes will sell in the $50,000 range.
Here are some examples, but keep in mind that prices can change: The Jabiru Calypso, a factory-built, will carry a sticker price of about $65,000. From there it appears that prices will only go down. Flightstar will sell the composite-airframe CT model for as little as $56,000. In the same price range will be the all-metal Rans S-7, a model type- certified for production though currently sold in kit form. Rans founder Randy Schlitter has his sights set on higher volume and economy of scale to reduce prices further. "We'd like to build about 600 per year here in the U.S. and sell them for nearer to $45,000, using computer-controlled machining and modular construction modeled on the World War II bomber production techniques to reduce costs."
The new regulations will also make it easier to complete a homebuilt airplane from a kit. Current rules require owners do at least 51 percent of the work. "Enthusiasts simply don't have the time or perhaps the necessary skill to spend 500 to 1000 hours over a period of years building an airplane," says Ron Wagner, of the EAA Sport Pilot Team. When the DOT signs off on the revised rules--the FAA gave its blessing in July 2003--you will be able to buy a kitplane that is 95 percent complete. And yes, painting counts toward the owner's contribution to construction.
Want something a little more out of the ordinary? Interplane's Sky Boy, a Czech- built high-wing pusher, has been promised in ready-to-fly form for $39,000.
While the sales of single-engine planes aren't likely to soon return to their peak of 10,000-plus per year enjoyed during the 1970s, it seems certain sales will quickly triple or quadruple their current 1000-per- year pace. And how appropriate that so many new pilots may take to the skies this year, the centennial of the Wright brothers' first flight.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
MKSheppard, do you have any flying experience? Just curious (and I'm new around here)
Don't get the wrong idea from my prior post - I'm looking at a Sport Plane, too. But my overall impression of that article you quoted is that it's a nice ad for the sport plane industry, but not the whole story.
You still have to pay for an aircraft - and on top of the sticker price there's insurance, maintenance, recurrency training...
You still have to get flight lessons - and that will still cost money. Almost no one gets an FAA license (and we are talking about an FAA license) in the minimum time. I certainly didn't earn my private in 40 hours, despite prior experience in flying and navigating ultralights.
Sport planes, like all planes, have limitations. I have yet to achieve the performance ratings in the Pilot Operating Handbook of any aircraft I have ever flown - except for that spin I took in a C150, that did go "by the book". Nor have most pilots I've known - the only two exceptions I can recall being a gentleman who has been flying 30+ years and is presently an airline captain, and a lady down in Tennesse who has 50,000+ hours and 60 years of experience. You don't get those skills without a lot of time, money, and effort invested.
I guess my best advice to you is don't get too cheap with aviation. There is a certain minimum cost in time, money, effort, and committment required to do this safely. If you can't pay the fare, don't ride the train (or plane)
I'd be interested to see what privilages and restrictions will apply to a the holder of a Sport Pilot certificate holder. I'd imagine it will only allow solo local flights into uncontrolled airspace during the day with severe clear weather.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
Here you go, Wickedpilot. "Certification of Aircraft and Airmen for the Operation of Light-Sport Aircraft", Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) 4910-13.
I personally thought it would be a bit more restrictive than what the FAA wants it to be.
Nathan F wrote:So homebuilts are no longer the 'real thing', ey? What about that Pitts my uncle built? Don't guess that's the 'real thing',either, even though it's classified as an experimental.
Are you fucking blind? I said ultralights, not 'every and all experimentals.'
From what I could tell, this isn't a thread on ultralights, but experimentals and homebuilts. I assumed you were talking about what everyone else had been talking about.
Face it, the 'real thing' is in a point of stagnation, a point of stagnation that hasn't changed in the last 40 years. Other than radios and navigation, a brand new C172 isn't that different from one 30 years ago.
Oh, so I see you've flown both the older and newer Skyhawks? Tell me, how many hours have you logged in those aircraft.
[/quote] 0.0 hours, myself, but, from what I can see from readings, they don't appear to be all that different. Do tell me if I'm mistaken. Am I wrong that general aviation is stagnating?
Agent Fisher wrote:If I could have and fly any warbird, I would choose the P-38 Lighting. Or a Stuka.
Too bad there are all of two flying P-38s left in the world. Maybe one or two more if the rest of the Lost Squadron is retrieved.
And as I recall, just one Stuka remains, in nonflying condition.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Here's why:
