Tinworm-wings: De-regulation

Thursday, 3 July 2008

De-regulation

Dragonfly - with retracting undercarriage

Ace Magic Laser with a Rotax 447 engine

Viera, cross between Batplane and Noddy-plane

I am in love with three new microlights, one of them three axis, the other two, weightshift. All three of them weigh under 115kg (empty), so that they qualify as de-regulated aircraft. De-regulation is unheard of. The trend is almost always towards rule-making, constraints, hand-tying....but along comes the CAA and says that as long as you are only really likely to kill yourself, you can build and fly an unregistered aircraft, never have to submit it for testing, etc.

Brilliant.

That said, all three of my new love-affairs have been rigorously tested to comply with American FAA standards (the Viera also complies with Czech stds). They are the Dragonfly (really a powered hang-glider with real soaring capabilities and a trike) with a retractable undercarriage, a very economical engine and beautiful lines, designed by Ben Ashman at Sywell, which is where I am learning to fly.

Then there is a Rotax 447 powered Ace Magic with a Laser wing, which is designed by a Brit, built in India and to be marketed here by P&M Microlights (a leader in the British market). This machine has real microlight performance while being small enough, like the Dragonfly, to fit in the back of a car with the wing on the roof.

The Viera was suggested to me by Cath Vickers at Sywell, who said that she sort of imagined that it would be my kind of thing. Not sure how to take that! Either she thinks I am an innovative type, confident of my manhood or she thinks I am a knob! The Viera is a very funny looking aeroplane. Again, it is deregulated, can pack down pretty small and weighs less than its pilot. It has this really funky Batmobile style control column and the pilot is effectively sitting on the leading edge of the wing behind an engine mounted on a snoot. Peculiarly cute. Here's what people have been saying about it.

a tricyle undercarriaged alternative - more conventional but somehow less cute

I was planning on buying a second hand aircraft until I talked to an expert at the BMAA about wings etc and concluded that it could almost be more cost effective buying a cheap microlight new, as the betsometer test, which tests to see whether the sail is sound, can only assure you that it is ok NOW. So you could face replacing it at the cost of several thousand next year if it is a few years old.

The Ace Magic will be selling for £8,000. The version of the Dragonfly I have my eye on is about £10,000 and the Viera will sell for about £8,500 if I assemble it myself or £12,000 factory built. Learning to fly is reckoned to take one hour per year of age, so it will be rather more expensive than I originally budgeted for and will eat into my aeroplane budget. I will just have to wait and see what I can work out once I have my licence.

Of course, if I get the Viera, having got my licence on weightshift, I will need about ten hours conversion, but talking to the people at Sywell, who are as enthusiastic about 3-axis as about weightshift, the conversion is very straighforward. I would love to be able to fly both types. Previously you were always expected to choose.

My mortgage company say the money is on the way to my bank right now! Very exciting.

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Ground handling (how to store an aeroplane at home and get it to the airfield)

A trial flight in a Thruster, when I was 28, c.1991

I have started to learn to fly before...TWICE! First time round I had just graduated and got a job at an aerodrome in Cornwall, where I earned flying hours by fuelling microlights, giving hourly weather reports to the Met office etc. The weather was bad, so there was little flying to be had...and in the end I was paid with broken propellers and bits of crashed fuselage to hang on the wall. The boss was a great bloke called Ian Stokes, who had been a leading light in forming the BMAA and had manufactured Thrusters in the early days . In retirement he moved to The Gambia and became a publican and, shockingly, was murdered this year.

Flying Rogues

ten years on from my first experiences at Moorland Flying School (and now nearly ten years ago) the flying school was under new management and my girlfriend and I booked full courses. We both made good progress initially but never felt we were being moved on and had difficulty pinning the instructor down to signing our logbooks. When another instructor signed himself as P1, we got suspicious, contacted the CAA and were horrified to learn that our instructor did not have a current instructor rating, that we had not been insured and that none of our hours counted towards our licences. We were eventually refunded and the instructors were prosecuted by the CAA.

The very sympathetic CAA investigator spoke to the BMAA on our behalf and my hours have been allowed to count (at the discretion of the school). But in point of fact, I flew way over the minimum number of hours subsequently, so it is really quite academic in the end.

Around 2001 an instructor in Norfolk tried to convince me that if I bought his aeroplane he could teach me at a cut rate, as I'd then be using my own plane. Great idea, I thought, except that it turned out that the aircraft in question had failed a noise test and could not be used from the instructor's field. He later admitted that I would have to learn on his aeroplane at the normal rate. He resisted showing me the paperwork, kept avoiding me and eventually, when it was quite clear I wasn't going to buy without the paperwork, told me to F-off.

So far my experience has been that there are a lot of rogues in flying, which is one reason why I was so very impressed by the professional set-up at Sywell.

by air to Africa

My sister and I were lucky to fly many thousands of miles in the 1960s and '70s in many aircraft types, including BOAC VC-10s, Boeing 707s and even a Nigerian Airways Dakota, as our dad (and later our mum) had teaching posts in Kenya and Nigeria. Those were still the romantic days of flying, when passengers walked across tarmac and up steps, rather than walking down the tubes that have turned passenger flying into a mundane affair. (Mind you, aren't take-offs still incredibly exciting!?)

Back then air hostesses GAVE children the sorts of nick-nacks that their parents have to pay fortunes for from the airline catalogue these days; things like model aeroplanes, keyrings etc. We were also given sweets to help us cope with depressurisation. (And they were hostesses, so nobody give me a hard time)

Mum says that I cracked my first joke when I was small, on a flight out to Kenya, when I said, "Mummy, shouldn't there be a wing on this side of the plane too". Apparently I got her with that one.

At Kano airport I remember standing behind an engine and thinking how hot it still was....and then being told that the engine was cold. The heat was Kano. I got a headache and took several days to aclimatise.

The airport perri-ways at Kano were littered with aircraft that didn't make it, including a burnt-out Mig 15. The Nigerian Airforce flew them and my dad played squash with one of their pilots, Ben, at the Kano Club. I recall a Mig fly-past on my birthday. Was it arranged with Ben over a beer? Was it a pure coincidence?

At Entebbe airport (Uganda) I remember climbing down the steps on to the runway and being encircled by soldiers with machine guns, who then went through all our belongings and confiscated my cherished Swiss Army penknife, purchased on one of numerous European stop-overs. That was in the twitchy time after the Israeli hijacking ...and mum had to stifle my protests.

Before my first flight to Nairobi, as an infant, I was scared stiff. I didn't understand that I wouldn't have to sit astride the fuselage, as I did on my pedalcar! In a funny way, I not only overcame that fear but have come full circle; microlighting is just like sitting on that pedalcar......open to the elements - real flying!