I have been dreaming of owning an ultralight since I first saw one when I was 11 years old! 20 years later i finally made that dream a reality!! Anyways, I just wanted to introduce myself and hopefully get to know some of you. The plane is a 98' firefly with w/ 447 rotax.
Congrats and have fun
Congratulations and welcome to the group. Enjoy your new bird and stay safe!
Just beautiful! You're going to have all kinds of fun!
Hal Bryan
EAA Lifetime 638979
Vintage 714005 | Warbirds 553527
Managing Editor
EAA—The Spirit of Aviation
Congratulations and welcome to the EAA Forums!
Thanks!
quick question, is www.cps-parts.com the best place to get 447 parts?
Welcome to the forum, Keith.
Back in the day, I flew the predecessor (I seem to recall twin pusher Solo's?) of that airplane. A local guy built it and kept it at my grass strip. From what I recall it flew nice...but under-powered for my 240 pounds! Have fun, and be safe!
Jim
Twin engines? That sounds interesting!Originally Posted by Jim Rosenow
So i learned a valueable lesson today pretaining to the firefly. Make sure the chains for the steerable tailwheel are pretty tight. Mine were not tight enough and fell off while doing a high speed taxi. Good thing it stops quickly when shut off. I dont really care for the design of the tail wheel. I will post a picture of it when I go back wednesday.
Good luck with it, Keith. All the Kolbs are great flying airplanes. I flew an Ultrastar for 5 years or so.
The Kolb tailwheel is simple, but more than adequate for such a light plane. Correct spring tension is important for any tailwheel.
The Kolb Flyer (their first kit design) was the predecessor of the Ultrastar, with twin engines mounted off the fuselage under the wing, which precluded the wing folding that the later models have. They were close enough to the centerline that there were no major asymmetric effects if one quit, but it couldn't maintain flight on one engine (though it could go a long way in a shallow descent).
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