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ISSUE 10 SEPTEMBER 2010
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Let's
Keep Them Flying
By
Dan Grunloh, Editor, Light
Plane World |
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The
sight of several 25-year-old
ultralights flying daily at
AirVenture 2010 in the ultralight
and light plane area disproves
several myths many people believe
about the early ultralights going
back to the 1980s. Those pilots
remind us that we need to preserve
our ultralight history not simply in
museums, but with actual flying
aircraft. What should you do if you
encounter an old tattered ultralight
in a shed or see an advertisement
for a 25-year-old ultralight
"new in the box"? Read
more
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An
Open Letter to Ultralight Pilots
By Tim O'Connor
 My
first 200 hours of flying were
completed in an Air Command 447
ultralight gyroplane. During this
two-year time frame, I often
became frustrated with the
attitude many general aviation and
even experimental pilots, airport
owners, and airport employees had
toward ultralight pilots, both
gyro and fixed wing. To me this
attitude seemed more than unfair.
However, over the past few months,
I've been dealing more and more
with ultralight pilots, and the
stainless image I had is starting
to take a few scratches and dings.
Read
more
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Runaway
Powered Parachute Takes Off
Without Pilot
 On
August 14, 2010, a powered
parachute (PPC) got away from its
pilot at a fly-in rally in Tracy,
California, and took off on its
own. Witnesses stated that the
pilot was unable to start the
engine with the electric starter,
so he got out to start it by hand
with the pull starter. It fired up
at full throttle. He couldn't
reach the throttle before he was
knocked down and run over by the
rear tire. Read
more and watch the video |
FAA
Ready to Issue Flight Training
LODAS for Experimentals
Barriers increase for E-LSA
instruction
The long-awaited guidance
for LODAs or Letter of Deviation
Authority has finally been
published by the FAA, but the
guidance does very little to
improve training availability for
E-LSA aircraft. The various FAA
branches have been debating for
quite some time the final
guidelines that Flight Standards
offices would use to issue these
authorizations. The new LODA
procedures, however, appear to
increase barriers to training for
E-LSA aircraft by limiting LODAs
to areas where certified LSA are
not available and by not allowing
the use of E-LSA trainers for the
purpose of attaining ratings,
certificates, or other flying
privileges. Read
more
Listen
to EAA’s David Oord discuss
what it all means on The Powered
Sport Flying Radio Show with
Roy Beisswenger.
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Catastrophic
Wing Failure, Ballistic Parachute
Save Captured on Video
 An
incredible video that’s gone
viral on YouTube shows a wing
collapsing on a RANS S-9 Chaos
during an air show performance in
the city of El Trébol, Santa Fe
province, Argentina, this past
Sunday, August 15. Seconds after
the wing breaks away, pilot Dino
Moline was able to immediately and
successfully deploy the airplane’s
Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS)
parachute, and the aircraft
floated safely to the ground with
Moline emerging uninjured. Read
more and watch the video |
NTSB
Final: Trike Fatality Caused by
Tumble
On March 13, 2010, a
ski-equipped Antares trike
impacted terrain about two miles
north of the Birchwood Airport in
Chugiak, Alaska. The aircraft was
substantially damaged, and the
experienced 54-year-old private
pilot was fatally injured. There
were no witnesses, and initially
the cause of the accident eluded
investigators. There was evidence
of in-flight airframe failure. The
pilot was found about 10 feet from
the wreckage, but there were no
tracks in the snow and the
automotive-style seatbelt had
apparently failed. Some weeks
later a digital video camera that
had been mounted on the trike was
found at the site after a snow
melt, and investigators learned
the camera had captured the tragic
crash. Read
more |
FAA
Finalizes Recurrent Aircraft
Registration Rule
 In
about six months, nearly 30,000
aircraft registrations will expire
even though they were issued
without an expiration date. Over
the next three years, all 357,000
aircraft in the U.S. registry must
be re-registered. The date of
required re-registration is
determined by the month of the
year the original registration was
issued, and owners are given a
specific range of time to apply.
Thereafter, owners will need to
renew their aircraft registrations
every three years. Read
more |
Sport
Pilot Endorsements to be Added to
Certificates
Under the current rules sport
pilots or pilots with sport pilot
privileges must carry their
pilot's logbook on flights to show
key endorsements for authorizing
sport pilot privileges. The FAA
will soon issue new sport pilot
certificates with the required
endorsements printed on the
certificate. This will be an
automatic process with no action
required by pilots and at no
additional cost. The FAA asks that
all pilots with sport pilot
endorsements ensure that their
address is up to date in the FAA
Database. View
the FAA notice |
Is
Your 2-Stroke Engine About to
Fail? Keep it Running with this
Webinar
 This
new webinar is presented by Brian
Carpenter who, along with his wife
Carol, teaches an annual
three-week light-sport aircraft
repairman course here in Oshkosh.
The Carpenters own Rainbow
Aviation, a full-service sport
pilot facility in California.
Brian teaches repairman inspection
and maintenance courses for
airplane, weight shift, and
powered parachute. Brian is a
sport pilot examiner, a
certificated flight instructor -
instrument, and an airframe and
powerplant mechanic with
inspection authorization, and he
has been an EAA technical
counselor. He has built many
experimental and ultralight
aircraft and is the designer and
builder of the Ranger. View
the video |
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Trike
Odyssey to AirVenture 2010
 Larry
Mednick and Abid Farooqui, owners
of TampaBay Aerosport and
Evolution Trikes in Zephyrhills,
Florida, offered the opportunity
for six people, to join them as a
team in attending Trikefest in
Illinois and assist with their
vendor space at EAA AirVenture
Oshkosh. In addition to Larry and
Abid, the group included Sean
Scott, accompanied by his
11-year-old son, Clayton, who was
his copilot and cameraman; Dan and
Amy Saunders; and my husband, Wes,
and me. Sean provided ground
support in the form of a large RV
and 24-foot cargo trailer that
held all of our baggage and
supplies. With this ground support
in place, so began the great trike
odyssey to AirVenture 2010. Read
more
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Carburetor
Troubles Solved
 I
had some trouble with my airplane. I
think you might learn a few things
from my convoluted troubleshooting
and mistakes as well as maybe enjoy
a chuckle or two. Last year when I
converted my Rotax 503 to dual
carburetors, I was having a problem
with the carburetors overflowing
with fuel when the engine was
running. It was hard to miss. I had
started my Quicksilver MXL II with a
tailwind, and the fuel dribbled
right down the back of my neck. The
problem stopped immediately when I
closed the fuel valve.
Unfortunately, so did the engine. Read
more
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The
Defensive Go-Around to Avoid
Problems Behind You
Think safety, not convenience
 Yes,
Virginia, there's such a thing as a
go-around to avoid problems behind
you. Let me tell you a story. It was
not a dark and stormy night. It was
a bright early spring day, filled
with those events that illuminate
our times. I wish to talk only about
one of those events. I was teaching
a new student pattern work, and
after turning crosswind to downwind
we cleared left and saw a red
aircraft heading at us about a
quarter of a mile away. But before
that, I already had the chills; on
climb-out we heard someone call a
go-around in a world-weary flippant
tone. Being an "old" pro,
long past the time of eligibility
for social security, such calls give
me the creeps and put my situational
awareness antennae in high gear. Read
more
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From
the EAA Light Plane Community and
Facebook
The message forums at
Oshkosh365 are alive with
activity. Here are the latest
discussions!
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| Videos
from the light plane world |
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Summer
Trek to AirVenture in a Challenger
II With Floats
Dan Lance trailered his
Challenger II for much of his trip
from Arizona to EAA AirVenture
Oshkosh 2010 and landed it at the
ultralight runway. Enjoy some
moving and still pictures of his
flights from neighboring Oshkosh
airports and lakes such as West
Bend and Hartford before the
landing at "The Big
Show." Includes sound
effects! View
the video |
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The
Flying Red Goat
It's called the Red Goat air
chair, and it pretty much is what
you would expect from an aircraft
named as such. See it
gravity-launch from the cliffs of
Torrey Pines, California. View
the video |
| Submit
light plane videos that you just
had to watch again; and probably
forwarded to your friends. Send
them to LightPlaneWorld@EAA.org. |
| Featured
Photo Gallery |
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More
Ultralights and Light Planes of
AirVenture 2010
Here's another look at some of
the people and planes "down
at The Farm" at EAA
AirVenture Oshkosh. Watch for
stories about some of these
builders and pilots in future
issues of Light Plane World.
View
the gallery
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Engines
Q. What are the
advantages and disadvantages of a
four-stroke engine? Answer
Powered
Parachute
Q. What is the typical
service life of a powered
parachute canopy? Answer
Weight
Shift Trikes
Q. Do your arms get
tired holding on the bar all the
time? Answer
Fixed-Wing
Airplane
Q. What are flaperons?
Answer
Powered
Paraglider
Q. How much does a
powered paraglider weigh? Answer |
Encore
for Popular Webinar on 2-stroke
Engines
Brian Carpenter gave his talk on
2-stroke engines last month;
however, due to its popularity, we
are bringing him back to give it
again, just in case you missed it.
Brian teaches the Repairman
inspection and maintenance courses
for airplane, weight shift, and
powered parachute. Brian is a Sport
Pilot Examiner, a CFII, an A & P
mechanic with an inspection
authorization, and an EAA Technical
Counselor. He has built many
experimental and ultralight aircraft
and is the designer and builder of
the Ranger.
All
webinars begin at 7 p.m. CDT. To
find out more about upcoming EAA
Webinars and to register, visit the webinars
page. |
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Bob
Hovey - Ultralight Pioneer
EAA Experimenter,
September 1986
 Long
before people began putting
engines on hang gliders and
calling them ultralights, this
aerospace engineer built and flew
an airplane with an empty weight
of 98 pounds. His second model
which flew in 1971 was called the
Whing Ding II and had an empty
weight of 116 pounds. Bob Hovey
went on to design more ultralights
including the Delta Bird at 218
pounds and the Super Hawk which
weighed 248 pounds. Both were
flown at EAA Oshkosh '83.
Read
the article
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| Q. In
your opinion, what is the
predominant attitude about
ultralights within the FAA?
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