For centuries humans tried to achieve flight and failed. Once flight principles were understood the general public wanted to have privately owned affordable aircraft.
In the late 1970's and early 1980's hang gliding got popular but people really wanted aircraft that were powered that you could fly out of fields and personal air strips. That is when the ultralight / microlight aircraft started hitting the market.
In the United States you don't have to register ultralight aircraft and there is no license requirements to fly one. So technically a 12 year old kid could fly one if their parents let them. I have actually seen that before where a kid grew up around them and the parents trained the kid and eventually let him fly.
I bugged the hell out of my parents for years about it but didn't actually get to fly until I was 18. Abusive right???
We had a 1984 Paraplane that had two engines with two propellers that rotated in opposite directions. It was only a one seat aircraft. After flying that I wanted to get a more powerful unit that could carry a passenger. I ended up getting a used 1995 Buckeye Powered Parachute that has a 582cc Rotax two cylinder two stroke engine in it.. Two stroke engines have a high power to weight ratio and ultralights in the United States are supposed to have a dry weight (without fuel) of 254lb or less unless it is considered a trainer aircraft. For many years everyone was really pushing to get the limit put up to 500lb or less under the argument that everyone is trying to make the aircraft lighter to get under the 254lb requirement but that is compromising the integrity of the machine.
There are fixed winged ultralights as well but my main one was considered a powered parachute.
The parachute inflates and follows the same flight principles of a fixed wing.
I'm going to take you through a standard flight with the Buckeye!
First we got the Buckeye out of the barn and put it up against an old pickup truck to warm up the engine and make sure it would consistently run without back firing or fouling spark plugs. I never fouled a spark plug in that machine which is really good especially for a two stroke engine.
(Note: All images are original)
In the picture below my dad is getting the Buckeye ready to warm up.
After that we pushed it out to the runway which was grass air strip at the back of the property and laid out the parachute. We had to make sure everything looked right and the lines that connect the parachute to the powered unit weren't all twisted.
After that was done I would get my sweatshirt on and my helmet on. Even if it is hot on the ground it gets pretty cold as you climb to higher altitudes.
Once you turn the throttle up you get propelled forward and the parachute inflates and rises up above you in the correct position and once that creates enough lift you will take off. Pretty quickly I'm able to get to 100ft of altitude.
I would usually circle back around and make sure everything was running fine while I was around the runway encase I needed to land right away.
On this particular day I was climbing up to see how high I could get. The runway is right in the center of the photo.
That day I got to 6,550 ft high. So over a mile high in the clouds.
Time for a selfie. On a later date I went over 8,700 ft high.
On the landing you want to be going into the wind and once you touch down you shut the engine off and pull the cords for the parachute so it collapses behind you.
Safely on the ground!
Flying is a lot of fun and taking people up for this first time was usually the most interesting flights mainly because it was a totally new experience for them and they were super excited. The helmets have intercoms in them so you could talk to each other which was cool. Unfortunately that ultralight is back in Indiana and I'm out in Arizona now. I often see people flying powered parachutes around here and miss flying. The ultimate goal is to get back into flying more and eventually work my way up to owning my own fighter jet. Sounds crazy but it is very possible. There are many private individuals that own L-39 Albatros' and also other jet fighters.
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