Microlighters

Who owns one ?Pros and cons?
Worth the money
safe?

I dont see it reviewed in the african pilot light aircraft reviews

pm jcvb, I think it is one of his toys

J
Do yourself a favour. Go fly it. www.303squadron.com (FABB) Else drop me a pm I will bring it to you but it will take a while as I am snowed under at moment. (I have no financial interest - just like the aerie & it's price) Plenty pro's & cons. At moment I feel it is the best bang for the buck. Couple new offerings comming on line but at moment for production built it is hard to beat at that price. (The guys in Secunda will also always welcome you for a demo) I think the nose wheel looks K@K, but it flies nice. It is in harsh environment and handles well.

What you looking to do with it? It has 9 hr endurance with new long range tanks, but the seat will kill you way before the low fuel light comes on... Fuel injected 100hp people's car powered with reduction belt drive or little extra Rattex 582 it you don't like the VW's.

PS
It is a bit of handfull on ground in windy conditions and if you slapgat u will end up next to runway, but it lands so slow that once you have stopped blushing and swearing at your stupidity you can get back in air (following brief inspection). I speak from experience (I was not PIC. Instructor was trying to show me what happens if you get cocky and viola it obliged and we did not 1 but 2 mild ground loops in succession. ) Once instructor had topped blushing and swearing we did couple more conventional circuits and I bought 1...

Well I itend buying something like that.What a sweet aerie and for the price!!I switched training from weight swift to 3-axis and think it was a wise move

Jacques

One of the problems of the standard side-by-side seating arrangement is the cabin width, especially if you are on the larger side. Take the opportunity at looking at the tandem, i.e. front to back seating arrangement, type planes. Because you are sitting one behind the other the elbow room tends to be a lot more comfortable than being next to each other. Because these planes are sleaker they tend to be quicker. Obviously I am biased but I have a Challenger Clipped Wing, with a little 503 motor that cruises at 75mph at 5300rpm and 85mph at 5750rpm. Add a 582 motor to this little beast and you climb at 1200fpm easily. Alternatives are the Titan Tornado's. There is both a challenger and a Titan for sale on this website. The only (which is not a problem to me) negative is that since the passenger sits behind you you don't have that visual interaction with your passenger, pretty much like riding a bike. This is not an issue if they happen to look like me but unfortunately if they are cute, you can't give them that reassuring hand on the knee when the flying gets a little rough

Cubby pilot at back so he/she can do all the "interacting" with pax from there. Centreline seating is also a winner as is flying with the door off...

arent they still grounded - someobody I know has one with lots of problems that has to be sorted out before airworthy, speak to caa and steve boshoff. sticks breaking off in flights and lots of other problems, I heard...

right seat pilot, I think I know which one you are talking about (hangared at Cato?) and I believe that he has given up and is going to sell!

yip had a couple problems. I hear they now sorted. Mine now had 37hrs since the gounding (Mid July) and all appears as normal...

Not sure what exactly the issues were, but can find out quiet eaily if there is interest.

jacques wrote:Well I itend buying something like that.What a sweet aerie and for the price!!I switched training from weight swift to 3-axis and think it was a wise move

Hello jacques,

jcvb is right about the ground handling. I have a few hours on a J3 cub, albeit a 1/4 scale one - they paint them yellow so that bystanders can see them more easily when they weathercock and get the hell out of the way.

No good in a cross wind take-off, no matter how much wing you hold down and rudder you apply to keep from weathercocking (unless their tail end is attached to something like a glider). Flies great in the air though, with the exception of a bit of adverse yaw. Having more up than down aileron sorts this out but need plenty of rudder in the turn. Landing is deceptively easy but want to be straight and level long before short finals - don't want a wing thrown when close to the ground - only reason that I can tell you this is because it was only a model

Hope you don't have lazy feet!
cheers
BM

ps. - a quiet bunch of well behaved aviators convinced me to take up three axis flying - and loving every minute of it!

Yip can confirm that. I had landings down pat after 3hrs, but take offs took another 2 hrs to get right It is challenging on the ground, but great fun... Think the Cubby may also be a bit more twitchy as it is lighter than Cub (I think?).

[quote="jcvb"]Yip can confirm that. I had landings down pat after 3hrs, but take offs took another 2 hrs to get right

jcvb, - we obviously did not have radio calls for model flying but it was good practice to call out your intentions to the other pilots standing next to you on the flight line - just before nudging the throttle forward on the J3 my call usually went along the lines of "everybody behind the wall, we all know what this thing did last time!!!"

Batman wrote:

jcvb wrote:Yip can confirm that. I had landings down pat after 3hrs, but take offs took another 2 hrs to get right

jcvb, - we obviously did not have radio calls for model flying but it was good practice to call out your intentions to the other pilots standing next to you on the flight line - just before nudging the throttle forward on the J3 my call usually went along the lines of "everybody behind the wall, we all know what this thing did last time!!!"

He he. When I did convex the instructor tried to demonstate the early indications of ground loop and did it so well we ended up next to runway. Quick inspection to check all ok (and remove grass from tailwheel ) we set off again.

On second landing he said I will not let it go as far this time - but alas we once again were facing the wrong way about 50m off the tar checking the U/C and removing the grass from the tailwheel.

3rd time lucky, but was great experience to see it can bite you even if you have truckload of hrs on it... Maybe that why it took me longer to get take off right? I had first hand experience of how easy it was to end off the runway. I have had a couple take offs where on getting airborne I need some serious "work" to regain the centreline. Also it is so light that if you used to flying heavier bliks over controll is a serious problem....


But YA gotta luv it....

demon wrote:

Batman wrote:ps. - a quiet bunch of well behaved aviators convinced me to take up three axis flying - and loving every minute of it!

You either trying to score points or embaress us batman

Or Both