Originally Posted by
luftbuggy
Hi--- I'm new to the whole forum world, but am very interested in ultralight aircraft. I have a private pilot's license, but since retirement, I can't afford rental rates. Seems my only option to get back in the air is to build and fly an ultralight plane. I was a product engineer before retiring, and have been a model builder/designer since third grade or so. I use my TurboCAD 3-D program now primarily for designing ultralights. I have many designs developed to various degrees of completion, but two of them to the point that I could start building. One is a very utilitarian design and would be the obvious choice with minimal build time in mind. The other design was developed with a bit of cuteness in mind and has an enclosed (pretty much) cockpit. I guess what I would primarily like from the forum is an exchange of ideas on ultralight design in general, keeping designs simple and light, structural options, and some general encouragement to keep working at it. I live a hundred miles from the nearest EAA chapter, and communication with them indicates very little action and no ultralights, so I'm pretty much on my own. I'll try to figure out how to include pictures with these messages.
EDIT: Added picture