Originally Posted by
WLIU
Actually, my fuzzy reccollection is that in those '90's there was a sort of transition in kits that straddled the ultralight-homebuilt border. I think that is when ultralights started to look a lot more like traditional airplanes rather than hang gliders and ballistic parachutes started to get popular. The economy was good and more folks tried out flying. I think that ships like the CGS Hawk were popular then, and some of those go N-numbers. Around that time two seat ultralights came on the scene and had to get N-numbers. I will guess that the spike in the graph for that time period might reflect that those machines wore out or were retired to the trash bin.