Ultraviolet (UV) Protection for your ultralight aircraft!
Ultraviolet protection for your ultralight aircraft!
UltralightNews.com
In the early days of ultralights, ultralight aircraft were no more than hang gliders with power packs. The little Mac
101, Chrysler Westbend, Pioneer chainsaw and little Solo engines lifted
lightweight hang gliders into the air for short 15 minute interludes of
flight.
These flights occurred early in the morning or late in the evening, just
before dawn or dusk. The pilot would arrive at his chosen flying sight
with his little glider all wrapped up in its bag.
The assembly neatly tied to a one off designed roof rack, usually on top
of a Volkswagen Beetle with 8 feet of bag hanging over front and back.
Once the flight was over back into its bag the glider would go.
The average pilot would put in about 10 hours of flight in a year. This meant that his aircraft had a total of 10
hours of ultraviolet exposure in a year, all at times when the sun's rays were at their weakest.
Todays ultralights are considerably different than that of their predecessors. Today the craft are no longer folded
down into bags, but are left out in the open, in farmers fields, or small open hangars.
In the fields they are exposed to UV light 8 to 12 hours a day 365 days of the year. If hangared or covered they are
still exposed to UV when the craft is flown.
In training we average about 450 hours a year. This is logged hours
using an hour meter on the engine. It does not consider the time the
craft is left outside uncovered while we're talking to students,
waiting for weather to clear, or having a bite to eat.
Life expectancy for this fabric in these conditions in Canada has been
shown to be about a year.
Ultraviolet (UV) Protection for your ultralight aircraft.
