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PUFA NEWSLETTER
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March 17, 1998
Beverley Lawrence, President
Tobias Kreisz, Vice-President
Mario LeBel, Treasurer
Debbie Major, Secretary
Mail to: Pacific Ultralight Flying Association
102-16071 82 Avenue
Surrey, B.C. V3S 2L6
PUFA Newsletter published by Glenn Ursel
From The President
by Beverley Lawrence
Over the years I have seen that it is generally pilot error that causes ultralight accidents. A mistake in judgement, pushing the weather or sometimes amazingly 'running out of gas'. However there have been several accidents, some fatal, as a result of structural failure which could have been prevented with a thorough preflight inspection.
PUFA members are concerned about the number of times they have seen people missing something on their preflight. In the interest of safety it was suggested at the February meeting that Pufa organize a group of members who would be available, on request, to inspect other members’ ultralights. There would be no charge, and no liability involved. But members, or non members, could call on this group to inspect their ultralight once or twice a year or most importantly after the ultralight had been worked on.
A second pair of eyes is always helpful, especially as familiarity can breed 'content' !!!
If you are interested in being part of the inspection team, please put your name forward or, if you would like to take advantage of a free inspection, call me at 856-4300.
Editorial Note
by Glenn Ursel
I have included a couple of recent articles by Kathy Lubitz which may be of interest to some of you.
A recently immigrated Russian ultralighter, Andrew Douglas, contacted us recently with his ideas for improving our PUFA Web Page. At his request a link to his web page has been inserted into the “Around the Patch” section of the PUFA page.
When I viewed his web page, I discovered his renditions of ultralighting in the Siberian Region of Russia. One of those stories is republished in this newsletter.
Andrew Douglas was born in 1956 in the city of Yakutsk (population currently 225,200) which is within Yakutia, the largest region of the Russian Federation. Andrew studied radio electronics at the Tomsk Institute of Radio & Electronics and came to Canada only 3 months ago. He is looking for employment in the local ultralight aviation industry.
Finally, I have included a recent idea of Daryl Hegyi’s for a PUFA Logo design contest. You can think about it and bring your ideas for discussion at this month’s meeting.
Another idea of Daryl Hegyi’s is to design an electronic membership application form for the PUFA Web Page with provision for emailed submission.
Ultralight or Homebuilt? *
It has come to the attention of Ultra-light Pilots Association of Canada (UPAC) that some ultra-light pilots are purchasing aircraft that have paper work which class them as ultra-lights but that when the paper work is submitted to Transport to change ownership, it comes back as an amateur built.
About 25 years ago the home-built, or amateur built, aeroplane was called an Ultra-light. When Transport created the "I" registered category of aircraft in the early 1980's, they called them Ultra-lights and changed the term for the home-built aircraft from Ultra-light to Amateur Built.
The word Ultra-light now means the C-I registered aircraft; it used to mean a homebuilt registered as C-F or C-G. This is causing confusion. Some of these old home-builts are being marketed as ultra-lights when in fact they are amateur builts.
I recently heard from a number of ultra-light pilots who have purchased these old home-builts with the idea of flying them with an ultra-light licence. They got a surprise when the paperwork came back with amateur built aircraft on it.
Ultra-light pilots are currently able to fly homebuilts that weigh less than 1058 lb. with a stall speed of 45 mph or less. (Proposed regulation will change this to 1200 lbs. and 45 mph or less stall speed.) Most homebuilt aircraft are too heavy or stall too fast to be flown with an ultra-light licence. If the purchaser is lucky his homebuilt falls within these limits; if he is not, he has an airplane he cannot fly unless he gets a Recreational Pilot Permit or higher licence.
There are a couple of things to check for when you are buying an ultra-light airplane to make sure it is not one of these old home-builts. Check for the dates on the paperwork and make sure it is current. Also, all real ultra-lights have C-I registration letters on the airplane. If the registration is a C-F or C-G, ask for more information to make sure it is eligible to flown with an ultra-light licence.
If you have any questions, call a UPAC director. We'll be happy to help.
Ultralight Flight Training Unit Requirements *
Notify Transport of your intention to offer in flight and ground training. Submit a letter which includes the following:
· statement of intent to conduct flight training for private
and/or commercial UL licences.
· the name of the proposed school and the names of the
holders of the valid Commercial UL
Licences who will be providing the training. Include
their licence numbers.
· your intent to adopt Transports's approved syllabus
for private and/or commercial air and/or
ground training, OR send in your training syllabus developed
from Part II of the Flight
Instructor's Guide as applicable to the type of UL aeroplane
being used.
· a description of the type of ultralight aeroplane to
be used for training purposes.
· the name and location of the aerodrome.
· a phone number where you can be reached during business
hours.
As well, a pre-solo exam has to written and approved by Transport. The suggested pass is 80%. Some question from the Ultralight and Hang Gliding Information Manual should be included as well as questions on to following subjects:
1. Air regulations, air navigation orders, and air traffic rules
and procedures.
2. NOTAMs, and AICs.
3. Basic aerodynamics applicable to the type of ultralight
aircraft used for training.
4. Stall recognition and recovery procedures.
5. Other emergency procedures.
6. Illusions created by drift.
7. Wake turbulence.
8. Medical aspects of flight (use of drugs, fatigue, etc.).
9. Weight and balance computations and considerations.
10. Meteorology applicable to ultralight flying.
11. Pilot decision making.
The local office should have an information package with the above information as well any specific processes or procedures necessary.
The way the current regulations are written, the pre-solo exam has to be administered by a Commercial Ultralight Pilot. Flight training however can be done by the Commercial UL Pilot and/or a Class 4 Instructor. The ground school instructor(s) must be familiar with the material in the course. There must be a classroom available for the ground school. Some ground school instructors offer their course at the local community college.
Since the CARs have been introduced, there is the requirement to have a letter from Transport Canada allowing operation of the flight school. Because we do not use certified aircraft, we do not need AMEs and AMOs. Ultralights presently do not require journey or technical log books although it is a good idea.
If you want to be able to issue the Student Pilot Permit on site, you must become an "Authorized Person." To do this, contact the nearest Transport Canada office and find out when you may take the course. The course teaches you how to properly fill in the forms and collect the paperwork. It is not necessary but becoming an Authorized Person will be a convenience that allows you to certify true copies, collect documentation, and issue the Student Permit.
*Originally published by Kathy Lubitz in her Canadian Ultralight Information web page at: http://www.ionline.net/~elubitz/
Ultralights over Yakutia **
“...The morning was foggy and cold... When I left the camp and approached "the runway", Volodia was standing at the engine, his hands hanging down tiredly. "Can't start up this brute...", he muttered not turning towards me. It was a usual whim of our ultralight's engine - it didn't want to start after cold autumn nights. Having remembered a "drastic remedy", I put my glove on the inlet pipe of carburettor (the engine resembled a one-pawed mole) and pulled the start cable. The engine sneezed once. Inspired with this little success, I continued to pull the cable till the engine uttered a roar and began to work (the friendly mole waved me with its short paw). In a few minutes I took off from the taiga river's bank into the layer of thick fog ..."
These lines of my diary were written in 1989 during our first expedition along the Kolyma river. "We" were a small group which called itself Ultralight Aviation Club "MICROLET". Probably our club began its history like a lot of others in the Soviet Union: at first one of us tried flying a Rogallo hang glider, then told his friends about it ... and after that a group of enthusiasts looked for materials for their hang gliders, built them in a small workshop and gathered to fly from the hills near our town on weekends.
It seems that it was not so long ago, but is now fifteen years past already. At first we were amateur sportsmen; we trained, took part in contests. We built our hang gliders by ourselves and had gone the way from the simplest Rogallo to the modern sport wings. At the end of the 80’s we were already grown-ups and began to understand, that this was our life work. It was necessary for us to be professionals.
At that time the chief of the local geodesic service had offered to build us an ultralight for transportation of workers and cargoes to the field bases of geodesic brigades. I think, he was a far-seeing man and had understood that it is better to have a small but your own aviation than to go cap in hand to the monopolist "Aeroflot". And he was right - "Aeroflot" inflated the prices for its services to such extent that it absorbed more than a half of the enterprise budget.
During our first expedition it became clear, that we need a float plane ultralight - a wheeled trike could land only on the big river's banks, but there was enough water surface for trike on floats. There are the vast areas in the north tundra covered with thousands of lakes, with narrow tussocky strips of solid land between them. Such ultralights were later built in our club.
The first variant, “The Flying Boat” was ready by the summer of 1990. This ultralight flew well enough, but only with the pilot. With a passenger, its rate of climb was not more then 1 m/s. For more climb rate, we hadn't enough power - we had an engine of only 28 h.p. The ultralight was very comfortable, but had one shortcoming - a bad field of view down and forward for the pilot sitting nearly on the bottom of the boat. When I was landing on a narrow taiga river for the first time, it seemed to me that I was going right down through the forest - I didn't see the river surface till the last moment! That is why our next work was an ultralight with inflatable floats, a kind of catamaran. Last autumn we made the test flights.
Now we are planning to organize the tourist routes by ultralights. Yakutia (by the way, resembling Alaska in many respects), the land of beautiful unpolluted nature, attracts a lot of foreign tourists in recent years. Usually they travel by ships to the popular “Lena's Cliffs" - the huge limestone rocks on the bank of the river, freakishly eroded, looking like the teeth of a fantastic gigantic dragon. I think nobody will refuse to fly as a passenger of an ultra light airplane over this wonder of nature. There are also many prospects for air tourism at other parts of Yakutia. But, frankly speaking, there is one problem - the heavy situation with Russian marketing of light aviation. Probably we can solve this problem with the help of other countries ...
From the diary: " ... The ground disappears out of sight just at thirty metres of altitude. Some more minutes of blind flying and the blue sky shines over my head. The boundless ocean of white fog covers the earth and only small mountains stick up to the left. The air is so transparent that a ridge two hundred kilometers ahead is seen clear-cut, like painted on the horizon. Soon rents appear in the fog; I begin to make out a bank's line of the river, which I'm flying along. Approximately half way the river turns sharply to the right, then I have to fly over a swampy plain. Now, if the engine fails, I can't hope for a safe landing on the bank or some island. Sixty kilometers of thin larch taiga, lakes, small rivers and creeks between continuous tussocky swamp will pass by me. The fog melts away. On some lakes I notice white points, always two of them - they are swan's couples, flying out for hibernating to the South in China. About fifty-five kilometers away, I make out the tiny light squares on the horizon - this is the Zyrianka settlement, the object of my flight! Suddenly the engine's even roar is interrupted with some claps. It seems that the ultra-light is meeting with invisible obstacles, so that my body is thrown back and forth in the seat. Panic-stricken I push the throttle lever as far as it will go. The engine howls, sneezes some more and then begins to run without misfiring. I guardedly haul down the throttle lever. Again claps! Not tempting fate more, I increase power and ride at top speed. If only I reach the settlement! Another forty minutes passes over the river until the settlement's buildings flash under me and there is at last the long-awaited aerodrome! I reduce power; the engine stops itself and, in the silence, I glide on the runway. A crunch of gravel under the wheels sounds like a music ..."
**Originally written by Andrew V. Douglas in 1992 and currently published
at his Internet website,
http://mypage.direct.ca/v/vdouglas