The world floats sideways as I press on the steering pedal. A mirror-smooth lake wheels beneath a dimming orange sky. A warm breeze rushes over my cheeks. It's twilight, and the Florida air is still warm. I ease off the pedal and the craft lazily straightens out. Five hundred feet below, black cows graze in a paddock, ignoring the strange craft drifting overhead. This is the closest thing to flying the way it happens in a dream: just you, the air, and the Earth gliding past below you. Welcome to the world of ultralight flying. According to federal regulations, a powered ultralight is an aircraft that weighs less than 254 pounds, carries a maximum 5 gal. of gas, doesn't fly faster than 63 mph and seats only one person. You can legally fly it without a pilot's license, without training -- without any qualifications at all.
Of course, that would be insane: Plenty of people who thought they could teach themselves to fly have died proving otherwise. And so for years the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allowed some two-seat ships to operate under ultralight rules strictly for the sake of flight instruction. Problem was, these planes were so great for flying friends around that soon ultralight manufacturers were selling more of them than the single-seaters. Clearly, the rules were being bent.
When the FAA introduced the new Sport Pilot initiative three years ago, its main purpose was to make light-plane licenses more accessible to the public. But it also closed the two-seat ultralight loophole. After Jan. 31, 2008, these planes will be classified as Light-Sport Aircraft; operating one will require a sport pilot license. At that point, only one-seaters can fly as ultralights.
For budget-conscious fliers, that's actually good news. Two-seaters represent the most affordable way for recreational pilots to get airborne and take a friend -- or an instructor -- along. To tap into this market, plane makers have come up with cool machines that cost about the same as a base-model SUV. To test some of the best, I hit the Sun 'n Fun air show in Lakeland, Fla. Here's how they handled.
Amphibious Fun
One of the great advantages of ultralights is that you don't need an airport -- a couple of hundred feet of open field and you're all set. Throw pontoons into the equation and you open up a whole other set of possibilities.
I drove with flight instructor Dave Cadmus from the air show over to the Gulf Coast town of Bradenton Beach. There, we met up with retired airline pilot Warren Fienga -- a man who enjoys living on the water with a cheery orange floatplane, the Quicksilver Sprint II ($29,000), tied to his dock. "Down in Florida, you don't need wheels," Fienga says. "Not with all this water."
Sitting side by side under the Dacron-covered wing, Cadmus and I taxied out to open water and turned into the wind. He put in the throttle on the 65-hp Rotax 582 and we accelerated over the light chop, climbing smartly. With big aftermarket floats and two grown men hanging in the slipstream, we were anything but aerodynamic, but that didn't matter as we buzzed along at low speed, the water sparkling below.
After a short midair briefing, Cadmus handed over the controls and talked me through a shallow turn. With all that drag, the Quicksilver needed a firm hand -- lots of rudder and opposite aileron to keep the turn from getting too steep. After a few more turns, Cadmus said I was ready for a water landing: throttle back, steep descent, skim over the waves and settle gently down. In an instant, the bird becomes a boat. Who needs wheels, indeed.
Cross-country Craft
Unlike some other ultralights, the snug, lightweight CGS Hawk Arrow ($28,000) actually looks like a plane, and its basic flight mechanics work the same as a Cessna's or a 747's. Thanks to its full complement of rudder, elevator and ailerons, the pilot can directly command the airplane's pitch, yaw and bank.
With pilot Steve Bensinger in the front seat, I hopped in back for a 4-mile flight to South Lakeland Airpark, a residential community built around a grass airstrip. Away from the air show's crowded skies, we practiced low approaches and touch-and-go's. After a pit stop, we swapped places. Of all the planes I flew at Lakeland, this one felt the most familiar -- the only one I could take off in and land on my first flight. "It's a good cross-country plane, for an ultralight," Bensinger said. For comfort and planelike flying, the Hawk Arrow tops my list.
Hawk Arrow Its enclosed co*ckpit and the clear plastic on the aluminum-tube fuselage provide almost as much visibility as an open-air co*ckpit.
GTE Trek Essentially a powered hang glider, the Trek is quick and stable; the pilot steers by shifting his weight.
Harnessing Gravity
Also called weight-shift aircraft, trikes are essentially motorized hang gliders. The airframe hangs on a universal joint beneath the triangular sail, and the pilot turns, dives and climbs by shifting the center of gravity sideways or back to front. The Air Creation GTE Trek ($35,000) was nimble and fast, with a cruising speed of 50 mph. That means it can take off in a stiff breeze: No fear of getting blown helplessly downwind.
As dusk settled over central Florida, my demonstration pilot, Neil Bungard, took us to 800 ft., then hauled the steering bar to one side and sent us into a steep turn. "That's nothing," he said as we leveled out. "This thing's capable of doing a wingover that would have us down to the ground in 7 seconds."
Once Bungard had us straight and level, he handed me the controls. Briefly. Compared to the conventional planes I've flown, the controls are exactly opposite, so everything I did to make the plane fly better actually made it worse, an unnerving sensation that had me handing back the controls with alacrity. It would take just a few hours in the air to get used to -- an investment well worth the effort. A trike's stability, speed and maneuverability make it a perfect vehicle for aerotrekking, the newly minted pastime of zipping down canyons at low altitude.
Slow-mo Chute
The Powrachute Pegasus ($19,300) looks more like a go-kart than an aircraft: It's basically seats bolted into a cage of tubular aluminum, with a 65-hp Rotax 582 engine and a pusher prop in the back. Lift comes from an inflatable wing, like the canopies that sky divers rely on, only larger.
Fast? No. The powered parachute is so slow (cruising speed: 33 mph) that it can't fly in winds over 15 mph. But of all the aircraft I tested, it was by far the simplest to fly. "Two hours of ground school, two hours in flight and you're ready to solo," said my demo pilot, Galen Geigley.
On takeoff, Geigley arranged the chute on the ground behind the machine, then climbed into his seat and inflated the parachute by opening the throttle and moving the plane forward. As our little wheels bobbled over the turf, the chute swung overhead. We gained speed and lifted off within 300 ft. To turn, Geigley pressed a rudder pedal, pulling down a corner of the canopy. The chute is impossible to stall or spin; lose power and you descend like a sky diver. It's hard to imagine a safer way to fly. Thanks to the lack of surrounding co*ckpit, the visibility is amazing. For pure delight in the sensation of flying, you can't beat it.
Pegasus Although it's not powerful enough to get airborne in winds stronger than 15 mph, this craft is well-designed for a novice flyer: easy to learn and extremely safe.
Affordable Pocket Chopper
I'm a simple man, with one simple desire: a helicopter. Unfortunately, I'm not a millionaire. That's why the Mosquito XE is so exciting. Here's a whirlybird that hits 85 mph, lugs 240 pounds, and costs $27,500 -- less than a pickup truck.
Caveats: It's only available as a kit, so you'll have to build it yourself. Manufacturer Innovator Technologies of Calgary, Alberta, says the average build takes 250 hours, using standard tools. Also, you need a sport pilot license to fly it.
The same craft with floats and a 5-gal. tank -- the Mosquito XEL -- qualifies as an ultralight, because FAA regulations give a weight allowance to float-equipped aircraft. So no license is required. But it's not a good idea to fly anything without training. The XEL is $28,500 as a kit; $33,500 fully built.
Watching designer John Uptigrove putting the machine through its paces at Sun 'n Fun -- hovering over the grass, floating backward -- it was hard not to fantasize about clearing a space in the workshop and getting busy on my very own vertical-takeoff flying machine.
Water Wings: Quicksilver's two-seater Sprint II floatplane cruises at 40 mph and costs less than $30,000.
Jeff Wise
Journalist
Jeff Wise is a journalist specializing in aviation, adventure, and psychology and was recently featured in the Netflix documentary “MH370: The Plane That Disappeared.” He lives north of New York City and for fun flies gliders and single-engine airplanes.
