Need advice on ultralight build

[TheBigSoulwinner]

Hey everyone, my name is Andrew.
I am a complete newbie to flying, unless paper airplanes count lol[emoji23]
I have a friend who has some flying experience, but no ultralight experience, but we both want to go together to build an ultralight.
The thing is I want to stay under $1500-$2000 if at all possible.
Is it even possible to still build one for that price?
Any ideas?
I have don a lot of research on different old non-copyrighted plans, and have an idea what I want, but wanted to get some advice from people who have been there done that.

Thanks in advance!!!


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[rick9mjn]

The best “”””fun”””” for the amount of money, of that you listed , the best idea.....would be for you and or your Friend, is to join a local glider / soaring cub. ..............................................good luck /good day rick

[TheBigSoulwinner]

Ok


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[TheBigSoulwinner]

Looking mor for the neatness of being able to build and fly my own work


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[Kyle Boatright]

The thing is I want to stay under $1500-$2000 if at all possible.
Is it even possible to still build one for that price?


I don't think that is possible unless you find a free engine and prop and get a heck of a bargain on the rest.

[CHICAGORANDY]

About the least cost that comes to mind is something like the Affordaplane. For that you'd need to budget $4000-$7000.

Not many 'very low cost' options in powered flight I'm thinking.

[Sam Buchanan]

About the least cost that comes to mind is something like the Affordaplane. For that you'd need to budget $4000-$7000.

He said he wanted to build an ultralight....... ;)

To answer the original question---I do not believe it is possible to build a viable powered ultralight for $1500-2000. Just the cost of raw material for the airframe is more than that...then there is the engine/prop/etc.....

The MiniMax I built 25 years ago from plans was over $5000 in 1995 dollars and that was with a used engine. The Legal Eagle I built nine years ago (built from plans, no kit) was $10,000 with half of that being a new engine.

Here is a very basic ultralight kit that can be flown with a single-cylinder two-stroke:

https://www.airdromeaeroplanes.com/thedreamclassic.html

The airframe kit is $3500. Add an engine and you will be $7500+. And to answer the next question....no, you won't save much money by sourcing the materials yourself. The Dream Classic is only available as a kit.

8316

[CHICAGORANDY]

Hi Sam, I must have screwed up my Googling? When I punched in Affordaplane, it came back as a part 103 Ultralight kit in that price range?

Do you have some U/L kits in mind for less than that?

[Sam Buchanan]

Hi Sam, I must have screwed up my Googling? When I punched in Affordaplane, it came back as a part 103 Ultralight kit in that price range?

Do you have some U/L kits in mind for less than that?

Google doesn't know much about the fine points of Part 103. ;)

The AffordaPlane ends up being much too heavy to qualify for 103. See my post above yours for a legal option.

[TheBigSoulwinner]

What kind of power to weight ratio is acceptable on an ultralight engine?


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[TheBigSoulwinner]

I have been into gokarts quite a bit, and have reliable engines that Could strip down to bare minimum, and have it weigh 28-30 lbs. pushing 20hp


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[Sam Buchanan]

I have been into gokarts quite a bit, and have reliable engines that Could strip down to bare minimum, and have it weigh 28-30 lbs. pushing 20hp


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You are asking questions that have complex answers but one factor to consider is optimizing prop tip speed. This requires an engine with a gearbox unless very small-diameter props are used which are not suitable for anything but the tiniest ultralights. The single-cylinder engines sometimes in use for ULs are the in 30-35 hp range and are geared to allow the prop to remain in a useful RPM range.

Here is one example:

https://www.polinithor.com/en/polini-thor-250-thor-250-ds-2/

There are used engines out there that have been out of production for several years......if you care to roll the dice....

[CHICAGORANDY]

Google doesn't know much about the fine points of Part 103. ;)

The AffordaPlane ends up being much too heavy to qualify for 103. See my post above yours for a legal option.

Thanks for the heads-up and good info - Truly appreciated. I've a lot to learn about these here airplanes.

[TheBigSoulwinner]

Same here!


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[flyrgreen]

"a lot of research into old non-copywrite plans" --- That's a very dicey area. If you and your friend have no aeronautical design experience, building from old UL plans that weren't worth copywriting is signing up to repeat fatal mistakes from the early UL days. And if you're going to design your own, you will need to do a lot of reading about weight & balance, metallurgy, prop tip speeds/gear reduction, structure design, etc.
And as others have said here, under $2000 is not real. Find a banged-up ultralight that was a good design and rebuild it. You could find one without engine in that money range. Read up on fabric strength testing on old fabric.

[TheBigSoulwinner]

Thanks, I see what you all are saying.
I guess that is why I asked.


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[Ronald Franck]

The Bloop Motorfloater would make Orville and Wilber proud. It's a lightweight, build at home with hand tools kind of machine but a fair weather flyer, not intended to handle gusty winds. Plans for the Bloop are free to download and quite well documented. This is about as basic as you can get and as low cost as possible. Forget the go-cart motor. You want something that is designed from the ground up as an aviation engine/prop combo. The Bloop uses a engine/prop combo borrowed from a powered parachute. It will be your biggest expense. If you build one be sure to get some time flying in a two-seater like a Quad Cities Challenger before climbing into a single seater. Good luck. Arriving at any destination starts with the first step.
http://m-sandlin.info/bloop/bloop.htm