Where is UL growing?

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Originally Posted by Buzz

This sounds like it was a great club for someone wanting to learn to fly a glider. It's terrific that it made learning to fly a glider a social experience and accessible and affordable to an 18 yr old.

As for ultralight clubs that own ultralights and provide instruction to non-pilots, I have never personally heard of one.

I believe they've never existed because these clubs were virtually impossible under the old ultralight dual exemption. However, if a SSTM can be restored, it would make these clubs more possible in the ultralight community.

A main barrier to these clubs in the ultralight community previously was the lack of instructor liability insurance available for ultralights.

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Buzz.

You are in a position to start just such a club. Insurance for the instructor should not be an issue as the instructor has no authority to instruct other than his agreeing to help others and the others willingness to accept his assistance. The fact that the instructor is not licenced or certificitated to teach does a lot to remove him from being liable (my opinion and I am not a lawyer). He should not hold himself out as any kind of expert, only that he has flown before. I needs to be clear, and in writing, that the student alone is responsable for his safety.

You have proposed a workable system here. It is time to put it into action. I think you have a good chance to succeed and demonstrate how well the system can work.

This is what the industry needs and you are in a unique position to demonstrate it. Make a list and post here what additional materials or ideas you need to put your plan into action.

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Originally Posted by Buzz

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I believe they've never existed because these clubs were virtually impossible under the old ultralight dual exemption. However, if a SSTM can be restored, it would make these clubs more possible in the ultralight community.

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When the exemption was available it was an alternative to the SSTM but did not prohibit if. The SSTM was and still is a viable training method. It does not need to be restrored, it needs to be implemented. That is the point of my previous post. The time has come to do it. You must determine if you have the desire and ability. Others can provide encouragement and assistance.

I think the primary reason this was not common in prior years is because the equipment owner was not comfortable allowing the club like access to his equipment. The club should probably be a non profit and the equipment purchased by or donated to the club. The club need not make a up front payment for the equipment, it may enter a purchase agreement to make payments as membership grows and useage continues.

jedi

Duplicate post deleted.

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Originally Posted by jedi

...The club need not make a up front payment for the equipment, it may enter a purchase agreement to make payments as membership grows and useage continues.

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Problem is, if a student damages the aircraft and the club doesn't have the funds to repair it, how will membership grow with no aircraft?

Re instructional liability, even if the instructor is on the ground he is still likely to be sued if a student is hurt or killed. All the lawyer has to do is to claim that the instructor sent the student up when the instructor knew the student wasn't ready, and the student didn't know any better, trusting the instructor... the jury is horrified...

In theory, a SP CFI can get a LODA for primary ultralight instruction in an experimental (ELSA or E-AB), and it does not have to be a prior "ultralight trainer" as was required during the transition. There have been very few LODAs issued, though... One hurdle is that the instructor has to submit a complete training syllabus to the FAA, which is a lot of work to create. I'm surprised that USUA or ASC hasn't jumped on this, and dusted off their old BFI training materials to sell to instructors. But if this could be done, a club with a 2-seater and one or more single seaters could be viable.

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Originally Posted by Bill Berson

I found a free download for Quicksilver MX simulation here for X-Plane.

http://www.x-hangar.com/mxsport.htm

Probably more ultralights available at X-Plane site, but I couldn't find a way to search that site. Found the above from google search .

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Thanks Bill!!

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Originally Posted by Dana

Re instructional liability, even if the instructor is on the ground he is still likely to be sued if a student is hurt or killed. All the lawyer has to do is to claim that the instructor sent the student up when the instructor knew the student wasn't ready, and the student didn't know any better, trusting the instructor... the jury is horrified...

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Dana,

Cirrus was successfully sued for insufficient instruction. I quote from the case when the ruling was overtuned in Appeals. "A negligence claim against an aviation-training provider is barred under the educational-malpractice doctrine where the essence of the claim is that the provider failed to provide an effective education".

A personal injury lawyer is not going to be motivated to take the case [because they work on a contingency] with that legal precedent of Cirrus being found NOT liable on Appeals now sitting out there. Their chance of winning is essentially zero.

A lot of people are of the opinion taking the instructor out of the aircraft INCREASES liability to the instructor. Not according to the courts.

The educational-malpractice doctrine kicks in and protects him from personal liability when the instructor gets out of the airplane. [The educational-malpractice doctrine is why I can't sue my ski instructor when I break my leg, my college professors because I couldn't get a job, etc. etc.]

-Buzz

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Originally Posted by Dana

Problem is, if a student damages the aircraft and the club doesn't have the funds to repair it, how will membership grow with no aircraft?

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The way you keep student damage to aircraft to a known and predictable minimum is the same way an FAA training school does. With a rating system. A flight school uses Student Pilot, Private, Instrument, Multi, etc. Each of those ratings requires the demonstration of certain skill levels and has clear operating limitations [visibilities, airspace, ceilings, # of engines, etc. etc. etc.] Ditto with a GA flying club.

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Originally Posted by Dana

One hurdle is that the instructor has to submit a complete training syllabus to the FAA, which is a lot of work to create.

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There needs to be a new rating system developed around the SSTM. Been working on that for two years. For a template I used the the United States Hang Gliding rating system, which is based on SSTM method and also is for a flight vehicle with operating limitations [wind gradient, cross wind, etc.] akin to the 2-axis MX trainer I envision for this.

By having a rating system with skills required and operating limitations, I believe a club can be self-insured with respect to hull damage.

There is one other KEY part of club design that I believe is necessary. That is the monitoring of the student's adherence to the operating limitations while away from the direct observation of the instructor. For instance, while we can teach a student how to make a power out landing, how do we monitor that he has always flown at a place an altitude where he can reach a suitable field to even make the landing. Each aircraft will have a GPS datalogger that has to be running at all times [or the student gets fined]. The GPS track of every flight is logged into the club on-line logbook. Those logs are reviewed by the instructor to ensure the flight was made within the operating limitations of the club. It's the things a student does when he is no longer in the direct observation of an instructor that will wipe an aircraft out the quickest.

One's share in the club buys one's share in the airplanes. A portion of the rental rate per hour will go into maintenance fund and replacement fund for the airplane. If set properly, there will be enough funds in the reserve to fix/replace the airplane if it's ever damaged or destroyed. Be it by a student or by a freak thunderstorm. The rating system AND operational limitations AND strict monitoring of adherence to the operating limitations on ALL flight operations are what keep that likelihood to a manageable limit. I think we can manage the risk to a member's investment in their club share through those 3 things.

There will need to be a fixed number of shares per trainer. One would not be able to join the club until another member wants to leave and sell their share. However, if this is a training club there should be a steady in-flow of new members and out-flow of graduates ready to sell their share and go buy their first ultralight [either alone or maybe with another graduate]. Hopefully.

Experience will tell how workable this whole concept is.

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Originally Posted by jedi

You must determine if you have the desire and ability. Others can provide encouragement and assistance.

I think the primary reason this was not common in prior years is because the equipment owner was not comfortable allowing club like access to his equipment. The club should probably be a non profit and the equipment purchased by or donated to the club. The club need not make a up front payment for the equipment, it may enter a purchase agreement to make payments as membership grows and useage continues. jedi

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Jedi, I started working on an utralight club training concept using the SSTM, as I may have shared elsewhere, in October '10. There were MANY hurdles to overcome. The largest being a limitation of hangar space within a reasonable drive of my house. Lots of grass airports to use easily accessible to students. No hangars.

The breakthrough came when I stumbled across a super steal on an MX in an enclosed trailer. I bought it for the MX and realized the trailer was the bigger find for me. It will hold 3 MXs. Suddenly I was able to easily scale from 1 trainer to 3 and could operate at virtually any of the available airports.

Will trailering get old at some point? Absolutely. But there are some operational advantages. The biggest is that it allows the club to "scale" and not be held back by the shortage of hangars in the area.

I could not get at the project at all last year. This year I'll be starting. I have a showroom quality MX that came in the trailer that I'll be selling to liquidate the funds and then another MX I bought that is more "trainer quality". No frills.

I'm going to get some operational experience and data with the one MX in the trailer. Once I get 5-10 students through the SSTM process and have some knowledge of wear and tear on the trainer, costs, equipment needs, etc. I'll be ready to form the club, determine what shares will cost, etc. Then I'll sell the club entity the trainer and have the club entity pay me back as the shares are sold.

I don't know how many trainers will need per X members for members to get reasonable access at a reasonable share price. That'll come with some operating experience.

If this club is successful, I'll share our blueprint with whoever can learn from my/our experience.

As you said, I think I've put enough thought and research into the idea and blogged about it enough publicly to where any of the the "woodchucks in the woodpile" I haven't been able to see myself have been brought into the light of day. I can't see any reason WHY it wouldn't work and have committed some personal bucks into it.

Time to get it off the drawing board and into the air. Like all good aviation ideas. [Or try anyway!]

-Buzz

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Originally Posted by jedi

The club should probably be a non profit and the equipment purchased by or donated to the club.

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By "non-profit" what you may mean is 501(3)(c). I looked at setting one up so anyone that would donate to the club could take a tax write-off.

For the little benefit that would provide, the work involved in setting one up didn't make it seem worth it.

What the club would need to be is an LLC. Those are fairly easy to set up. The members are going to have partial ownership in assets [trainers] that could land on something, hit something etc. An LLC will protect the members from any personal liability from their partial ownership of the asset.

They'll be personally liable for their flying. But that is a risk every ultralight pilot takes now and has always taken. Nothing new there.

-Buzz

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Originally Posted by jedi

Buzz. You are in a position to start just such a club. You have proposed a workable system here. It is time to put it into action. I think you have a good chance to succeed and demonstrate how well the system can work. This is what the industry needs and you are in a unique position to demonstrate it. Make a list and post here what additional materials or ideas you need to put your plan into action.

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Jedi, my experience in starting some businesses that were successful "paradigm shifters" is that one has to put their idea other there and invite knowledgeable people to critique it. It is a whole lot cheaper for others to point out what you "don't know you don't know" that finding that out during the launch.

So those that have challenged the idea here have made a great contribution already.

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Originally Posted by Buzz

.....I started working on an utralight club training concept using the SSTM, as I may have shared elsewhere, in October '10. There were MANY hurdles to overcome. The largest being a limitation of hangar space within a reasonable drive of my house. Lots of grass airports to use easily accessible to students. No hangars.

The breakthrough came when I stumbled across a super steal on an MX in an enclosed trailer. I bought it for the MX and realized the trailer was the bigger find for me. It will hold 3 MXs. Suddenly I was able to easily scale from 1 trainer to 3 and could operate at virtually any of the available airports.

Will trailering get old at some point? Absolutely. But there are some operational advantages. The biggest is that it allows the club to "scale" and not be held back by the shortage of hangars in the area.

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There is a good chance you will be primarily a weekend operation. Not sure what part of the country you are in weather wise with regard to thunderstorms etc. but you may find a Friday set up and Sunday teardown works well. Also, one of the clubs next big purchases may be a temporary hanger for summer storage if the operation is seasonal. Sometimes hanger storage is more efficient flight time wise than having a second trainer that seldom gets assembled.

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Originally Posted by jedi

There is a good chance you will be primarily a weekend operation. Not sure what part of the country you are in weather wise with regard to thunderstorms etc. but you may find a Friday set up and Sunday teardown works well.

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Yep. I anticipate nearly all the training is going to be done at sunrise and suset starting on Friday nite and going through Sunday. Watching the weather and tearing down during the weekend as necessary.

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Originally Posted by jedi

Also, one of the clubs next big purchases may be a temporary hanger for summer storage if the operation is seasonal. Sometimes hanger storage is more efficient flight time wise than having a second trainer that seldom gets assembled.

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Not having to trailer and setup will be a huge improvement as the club grows. trailering now got me past the hangar space limitation in my area. And also has let me work on the trainer at home when I have time.[Cleaning it up, pulling off the engine, etc.]

At least the fact that the SSTM can be done in a class format provides the manpower needed to speed up the setup and teardown. 4-5 people unloading and assemblying an MX will make it go pretty fast. Also, if the manpower is students, there is at least some training benefit in that they are getting to know the airplane better they are flying.

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Originally Posted by jedi

Buzz. You are in a position to start just such a club. You have proposed a workable system here. It is time to put it into action. I think you have a good chance to succeed and demonstrate how well the system can work. This is what the industry needs and you are in a unique position to demonstrate it. Make a list and post here what additional materials or ideas you need to put your plan into action.

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Jedi, thanks for both your words of encouragement and your offer of support.

My experience in starting some organizations that were successful "paradigm shifters" is that one has to put their idea other there and invite knowledgeable people to critique it. It is a whole lot cheaper for others to point out what you "don't know you don't know" than finding that out when the idea flops in execution.

So those that have challenged the idea here have made a great contribution already.

As for materials or ideas, I'm thinking the help I need is how to structure a club around fractional ownership. Wonder what experience anyone has?

-Buzz

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Originally Posted by Buzz

The way you keep student damage to aircraft to a known and predictable minimum is the same way an FAA training school does. With a rating system. A flight school uses Student Pilot, Private, Instrument, Multi, etc. Each of those ratings requires the demonstration of certain skill levels and has clear operating limitations [visibilities, airspace, ceilings, # of engines, etc. etc. etc.] Ditto with a GA flying club.

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Doesn't help when the student's first solo is his first flight, what rating does he have? The early history of ultralights shows this, Quicksilver dealers took lots of parts orders on Monday mornings...

Most PPG instructors require the student to own his own gear prior to solo, or agree to pay for any damages.

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Originally Posted by Dana

Doesn't help when the student's first solo is his first flight, what rating does he have?

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Dana- You ask really great questions and bring up key points that need to be discussed.

Re: rating. A "rating" as I am using it is a "training phase". There are prerequisites one has to meet before entering the phase. A particular set of skills are worked on in the phase and there are operation limitations for the training phase.

The operating limitations of the particular training phase ensures the student doesn't get into a situation beyond their current skill level. I can't fly into instrument conditions on my Private license because I'll get behind the airplane in IMC. So there are operating limitations on my rating regarding weather, ceilings, etc. [One of the operating limitations of every phase is that you successfully completed the last one. I can't go from Student Pilot to Instrument Pilot, for example, in GA. I need to complete the Private first.]

There is a certain set of skills required to advance to each level. For instance, in the PPG training I suspect the student has to be able to launch the PPG overhead with consistent skill before they get into the training phase where they learn to run with the PPG for launch. If students are allowed to go into the launch training before they’ve learned to master getting the PPG overhead and controlling it, then I suspect there will be a lot of PPGs wrecked during training.

When I join the club I am in my “penguin” phase. That’s my rating. The prerequisite is I’ve joined the club and bought my share.

During this training phase I never leave the ground. I am working on the skills necessary for me to have so I am always ahead of the MX in my first crow hop.

My [limited] experience with the SSTM is that the “penquin” phase can be several hours of practice taxing and learning throttle control in the MX. Often over several sessions. Also learning preflight, etc. is also done during this training phase.

There is a lot of training that occurs during the “penguin” rating under the SSTM method in an MX. In contrast, my penguin phase when I learned to fly GA, was very short. I was in the airplane 15 minutes before we left the ground the first time. But that’s all the penguin phase needed to be because I was not not the one that needed to be ahead of the airplane at all times. He was.

A training club is going to need a rating system to have established training phases with established operating limitations for the phase. The ratings/operating limits is what will ensure a consistent quality of instruction for each student and ensure each student is not advanced to the next stage util they are ready.

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Originally Posted by Dana

The early history of ultralights shows this, Quicksilver dealers took lots of parts orders on Monday mornings...

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Yep!

Anyone reading this thread that believes they can teach themselves to fly their ultralight needs to keep that in mind. If they try to teach themselves, history has shown they will likely be buying parts for it.

However, those parts orders were not an indictment of the SSTM in the hands of an instructor knowledgeable in the methodology and using the right ultralight.

Instructors like Dan Johnston and Mark Smith at Tri-State Kites who did lots of SSTM will tell you they were not replacing parts on their MXs because their students were damaging them during the training process.

The ultralight community needs to figure out how get non-pilots ultralight training and overcome the loss of 2-place ultralight training exemption. One way is use the training methodology and particular ultralights that very successful instructors like Dan and Mark were using to train before the 2-place ultralights even existed.

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Originally Posted by Dana

Most PPG instructors require the student to own his own gear prior to solo, or agree to pay for any damages.

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I believe PPGs are taught using SSTM in most cases, aren’t they?

None of the instructors I know that taught SSTM in the early days using MXs required the student to own the aircraft or agree to pay for damages. [Which I take as a pretty good indicator of how much easier it is to train someone to fly an MX using SSTM than to train someone to fly a PPG.]

That they did not require that, is also more support for the idea that an ultralight training club involving fractional ownership

Thanks for your thoughts Dana.

-Buzz

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Originally Posted by Buzz

...... As for materials or ideas, I'm thinking the help I need is how to structure a club around fractional ownership. Wonder what experience anyone has? .........

-Buzz

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Start with a ground school and get people interested. Also, computer simulation will help a lot without need for aircraft ownership or dammage deposit. Those in the club at that point may be able to help with bylaws and other formal requirements. Once interest is verified it will be much easier to get vollunteers to come forward. Local chamber of commerce, Lyons club, etc. will have experiance helpers.

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Originally Posted by jedi

Start with a ground school and get people interested. Also, computer simulation will help a lot without need for aircraft ownership or damage deposit. Those in the club at that point may be able to help with bylaws and other formal requirements. Once interest is verified it will be much easier to get volunteers to come forward. Local chamber of commerce, Lyons club, etc. will have experience helpers.

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The USUA has a very good written training guide that can be adapted to the SSTM method. The illustrations even use a “MX” type ultralight. While the course was based on dual, it’s ultralight oriented with respect to weather, flight theory, etc. The sections in the manual just need to be read by the student in a different sequence.

Re: sim. One thing about the SSTM is that it does not lend itself well to simulation because there is a lot more visual reference to the ground in the early training portion. The first accumulated hour of flight time is flown at 1-5ft of altitude using the ground for atltitude/attitude reference. The student is sensing a lot with the peripheral vision both to sides and down. Whereas in dual, they are using mostly horizon reference, which lends itself well to simulation.

If we can have the same success the pioneer UL instructors using SSTM had, we should avoid the need for any damage deposit even without simulation.

All speculation now. 5-10 adults through SSTM will provide more data. That’s the goal