Hi All, In the tradition of FGers mentioning their RL flying experience, I thought I'd mention the microlight trial flight I took yesterday.
I'd already had a couple of hours in GA aircraft while on business in the USA, but here in the UK the very high cost of lessons, hire etc. is a big barrier for entry, and I haven't pursued flying seriously. I was at an airshow at my local museum of flight (http://www.nms.ac.uk/flight/home/index.asp) and got chatting to some microlighters, so signed up for a trial flight at the local microlight school (right next to the museum - http://www.sites.ecosse.net/graeme.ritchie/eosm/home.asp). They have about 50 microlights at the airstrip, all of the trike kind - see the picture on the website for an idea of what they are like. The views over East Lothian were stunning - and matched very closely the scenery in FG! (Try flying East from Edinburgh Airport EGPH). With almost no body-work and a high wing, your view is only limited by the rotation of your head, which was quite a change from the restricted view in a C172. The controls are reversed in comparison with a normal yoke, but because you are moving the wing directly using a control-bar, and can see the effects of your control inputs, it's pretty intuitive. Because you are moving the wing directly, it requires more force than a yoke, and you feel turbulence more. While practising turns we encountered our own wake turbulence, which was quite noticable! However, it is incredibly stable - from full deflection of the wing, it returns to straight-and-levelish flight almost immediately, with a couple fo oscillations. No need for an auto-pilot - you can happily fly it hands-off Instrumentation is minimal, as this is a pure VFR aircraft. Altimeter, ASI, VSI, EGT, Fuel, and compass. We didn't even have a radio for the flight, though the airfield is manned and has a published frequency. The aircraft we were using was quite an old model, so we were cruising at 52mph, and getting 900fpm rate of ascent. While it was very pleasant cruising at this speed, when we dove to 70mph, the wind buffet was quite chilling. The newest microlights cruise at 90mph and apparently have much better fairings - a bit like touring motorcycles I guess. The aircraft takes-off and landing very little space - certainly way less than a c172, and it seems there are quite a few airstrips in Scotland that only microlights can use. In comparison with GA aircraft, everything is way simpler, lighter and (most importantly) cheaper. MTOW for microlights in the UK is 450kg, but the aircraft I was in had a MTOW of 406kg. Empty, the aircraft weighed about 200kg. Brand new aircraft are around £20k, and used aircraft start from £2k. Owners are allowed to do their own maintenance, the aircraft run on petrol and use about £10 per hour in fuel. The NPPL license is minimum 25 hours, as opposed to 40 for a GA aircraft. I've signed up for some more lessons, so maybe this time next year I'll be posting that I've got my license! I'd highly recommend a trial lesson as a way to get into the air for real, mine was £55 for 30 minutes, which is about the cost of MSFS and some scenery, which we get for free from FG! -Stuart PS: £1 is about $1.8 for those wishing to do a conversion. ___________________________________________________________ All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
