Learning to fly Ultralights

[1600vw]

jedi: I agree with what you are saying.

But for the person who has never flown in anything but an airliner, this was me, some dual time in a small little aircraft as a quicksilver was needed just to get me comfortable. It took me about 5 hrs in the air in what I called a lawn chair type of seat to get comfortable. The plane I was flying in had daul throttles. My friend was worried about me messing with this throttle and told me I could put my hands in my lap. I looked at him and told him I had a death grip on the seat and was not letting go. He laughed.

Without these flights I doubt I would have done this alone.

Now I believe I am ready for being trained in a single seater by an instructor on the ground to further my flying certificates. Before this UL training I was not ready for single seat instructor on the ground training, no way.

So if you have had some flight time I believe you are a canadate for single seat instructor on the ground type of training.

But if you where like I was and totally new to flying never been up in anything, you need dual time from a qualified instructor. Learn to fly your UL well and move on to SP.

Now I believe this SP certificate for this type of person whom has moved up from UL could be done in a single seat EAB with the instructor on the ground very safely for this person has already flown, knows what the rudder does, its not there to turn the plane. Nows how to bank and follow a course, this person is perfect for this type of single seat instructor on the ground training, and this country has hundreds of people whom fit this catagory whom need this type of training and would jump to get it.

[Buzz]

Where can I find more information about single seat training methods?

Hi Rawheels, I had read your post a couple of days ago and was thinking about a suitable response.

I realized on some reflectiong that my first question needed to be: "Are you interested in teaching yourself or others?"

I can see that from your further posts is that your interest is in the potential of the SSM to get people safely flying rather than as a self teaching method.

A very important distinction needs to be made here. That is that the bad reputation of the SSM is because of the numerous incidences of ultralight buyers thinking they could self-teach using SSM. SSM is NOT a way of teaching oneself to fly an ultralight. If one takes the time to read through Norm's posts, he was NOT self-teaching. He had a number of aviation mentors teaching along the way.

As I have pointed out previously, I don't think the SSM can be highly successful with any ultralight. Dan Johnson and other veterans of the early period of the ultralight industry prior to the availability of 2-seat ultralights will attest to the high safety rate of the single seat training they did at the time. What we have to remember is that they were primarily using 2-axis, single surface airfoil ultralights like the Quicksilver MX.

It's my contention that an experienced and knowledgeable SSM instructor using the SSM with a very basic 2-axis ultralight will have the same high levels of success the instructors using the SSM in the early days of the industry had.

As I have also said, the last person I'd get SSM training from is a instructor only experienced in dual training. The training sequence and methodology are so different, it would be like asking a football coach to teach you how to place baseball.

-Buzz

[Buzz]

jedi: I agree with what you are saying.
But for the person who has never flown in anything but an airliner, this was me, some dual time in a small little aircraft as a quicksilver was needed just to get me comfortable.

You may not understand the very large differences between what a student experiences in the SSM from your perspective of having only learned using the dual method.

In the dual method, a student gets in the ultralight and goes immediatley to 5-700 feet in their first minute of flight. They are at that altitude for at least 10 minutes. Sometimes for an hour. The sensation is overwhelming. They are in sensory overload.

In SSM method, done properly, the student has spent, in some cases, a couple hours over a couple training sessions getting acclimated to the ultralight on the ground. Taxing it around, learning throttle control [which your instructor did not want you touching in your dual method] and getting a feel for all the sensations, sounds, etc. of being in the ultralight. They also build confidence in their use of the throttle, how the ultralight will feel as it transitions through the speeds up to just below takeoff, etc.

On their first training sessions where they actually leave the ground, they reach 1 foot of altitude and the first flight lasts for a few seconds. They are so far "ahead" of the ultralight from their prior ground practice that the sensation is not overwhelming. The purpose of that first flight is to introduce, for only a few seconds, the sensation of actually being off the ground. This is a small step up from the prior sensatory experience they've acquired in their ground practice. So they are never put into a situation where they get hit with so many new sensations that they feel "uncomfortable".

I agree that one needs dual time if the experience one is going to have in their first flight in a single seater is going to be 5-700 feet off the ground. I do not agree one needs several hours of flying around at 5-700 feet to be comfortable being 12 inches off the ground for a couple hundred feet.

Too many people believe that the sequence of learning in the SSM is the same as in the dual method, just without the instructor on-board. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sequence, the sensations and the experiences are vastly different.

-Buzz

[Buzz]

Where can I find more information about single seat training methods?

Mark Smth of Tri-State Kites about 3 hours SW of you in Mt. Vernon IN was one of the first Quicksilver dealers and probably trained more people than anyone else using the SSM prior to Quicksilver coming out with the 2-place.

Last year he explained his SSM training methodology on the yahoo group Quicksilveraircraftowners site when there was discussion there about the SSM. I'll try and find his post and repost it here for you so you can see his methodology.

-Buzz

[Buzz]

dual time in a small little aircraft as a quicksilver was needed just to get me comfortable.

Unfortunately, this whole discussion about bring back the SSM was prompted by the new Sport Pilot rule which has eliminated all training in aircraft you refer to. There is no more dual training allowed for hire in 2-place ultralights. Unless has a friend with a 2-place Quicksilver that will give you 5 hours of flight time for free, they could not get the airtime you received. It's no longer available.

[jedi]

Unfortunately, this whole discussion about bring back the SSM was prompted by the new Sport Pilot rule which has eliminated all training in aircraft you refer to. There is no more dual training allowed for hire in 2-place ultralights. Unless has a friend with a 2-place Quicksilver that will give you 5 hours of flight time for free, they could not get the airtime you received. It's no longer available.

Yes, this is the whole reason we are having this discussion. Norm is not alone in this catch 22 operation. The non renual of the Ultralignt Training Exemption and the restrictive FARs are affecting thousands of pilots and hundreds of thousands of wanabe pilots while AOPA, EAA, SAA, SSA and fifty more alphabet orginizations lament about the poor state of the economy and high student drop out rate.

[jedi]

Pied Piper
There are three things man should do before every flight.

1. A check list.
2. Think!
3. The Aviators Prayer

I do not know what I don’t know but I do know that what I do not know can kill me.

Please help me in guessing what it is I should know in order to survive the day.

Thank you!

[Buzz]

There is no substitute for dual flight training. There is no excuse not to get dual training-ever. I for one will never condone "self teaching" or "learn by doing" flight training. We get enough bad press in aviation and we don't need any more news articles about fools augering their planes into the ground.

Pacerpilot-
I'm glad you made this point.

From it I realize that we need to change the acronym to SSTM. [Single
Seat Teaching Method]. What we're talking about is an experienced, knowledgeable ultralight instructor using a particular training methodology and a particular type of single seat ultralight to get people safely into ultralight flying.

There is an old line that any doctor that treats himself has a fool for a patient. With SSTM, anytime the instructor and the student are the same person, the student has a fool for an instructor.

This is not about people trying to teach themselves to fly an ultralight. This is about "Can we safely teach people to fly ultralights now that we are back to the early days of the ultralight industry when 2-place ultralights for ultralight instructors were not available."

One option today for getting people safely into ultralight flying is have them get dual instruction a lot heavier and faster than an ultralight and "transition down" into legal ultralights.

We have to remember that option was available at the onset of the ultralight industry. Virtually no one took that route. No one was going out to the local FBO for instruction before the transitioned into their ultralight.

Unfortunately, many of them took the "teach myself route" instead. In their eyes it was more affordable.

To say "There is no substitute for dual training" is to say the ultralight community has no future. It will essentially die out. "Dual ultralight instruction" is history and the early ultralight industry has shown that the probability of people taking "transition down" dual to get into legal ultralights is very low.

Without a way of expanding the availability of instruction to those that get into ultralight flying, we're also promoting self-teaching.

It's my premise that the way to expand that availability is to brush off the SSTM.

Look at why it worked [simplicity of the ultralight designs at the time], how it worked [training sequence] and then update it [with today's technologies].

For example, with a GPS tracker, Google Earth and a Go-Pro video an instructor can review an ultralight student's flight away from the airport in incredible detail. "Was he/she always within gliding distance of a safe landing if the 2-cycle quit?", etc. When I did my Private solo practice 40 years ago all my CFI could do in term's of reviewing my flight practice with me is ask "How'd it go?"]

-Buzz

[Buzz]

One other point I think is important to make. I'm also not suggesting that every ultralight buyer can be taught using the SSTM in their own ultralight.

I might want to own a Cessna 210 but I'm not going to earn my Private in it. A Cessna 150 is a much more suitable trainer. Not every ultralight will be equally suitable for the SSTM. I think the 2-axis control of the Quicksilver MX makes it the more suitable trainer. The simpler the ultralight is, the better. I believe SSTM should be done with a dedicated ultralight trainer.

One won't train in the same conditions as one can with dual instruction. Initial SSTM flights are crow hops and should be done in calm conditions. Wind is one more variable that can overload a student's information processing in the initial hops and should be eliminated from initial training sessions.

While SSTM has some operational limitations over the old dual ultralight instruction method, it also has some advantages for the instructor. One is scaleability. One could buy 4 MXs for the cost of a 2-place. 4 students could be doing their initial flights in a class.

[1600vw]

Unfortunately, this whole discussion about bring back the SSM was prompted by the new Sport Pilot rule which has eliminated all training in aircraft you refer to. There is no more dual training allowed for hire in 2-place ultralights. Unless has a friend with a 2-place Quicksilver that will give you 5 hours of flight time for free, they could not get the airtime you received. It's no longer available.

Sure you can. You register your dual seat quicksilver as a EAB. Check here for this answer.

http://www.sportpilot.org/questions/...asp?topicid=12

Fly Smart