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Getting to Sun N Fun this year was a trick in itself with all the construction going on. Miss one detour sign and you found yourself either away out in the country or half way to Tampa or Orlando depending on your approach vector.
Once on site you just followed the signs to the Ultralight Camping area. Where the camping registrar would ask for your EAA membership (the campgrounds are only open to EAA members) and then $15 U.S. per day for the entire show, plus another $15 per  day for flight line passes for each person wishing to enter the flight line. For this you got to camp in a field with ample washrooms, shower facilities and a small campground store.
From the campground it is only a couple of minutes hike to the ultralight area, and it is even quicker when you bring along your own "L’il Gimpster." The "L’il Gimpster" is a little electric cart that I have for motoring around sites like Oshkosh and Lakeland. I mount two tripods on it, one for my video camera the other for my 35 mm camera.
It also carries the extra battery needed to power the video camera. Over the years I have found that I am always running out of power using those little camcorder batteries so I now use a regular car battery with an adapter and 15 feet of battery cord it lets me just about do anything I want.
Another advantage is that when it gets low (after 6 hours of video taping) I just hook a set of booster cables from my truck to it to charge it while at the same time I can turn the air conditioner on and catch 40 winks.
Yea I know I’m getting older – but WISER.
Oh yea the show! The show doesn’t start until Sunday and I usually arrive Friday night or Saturday –and every year that I can remember manufacturers are still rolling in and setting up late Saturday night or Sunday morning. Many of the late arriving manufactures located right in Florida. This year was no exception with the people from Progressive Aerodyne and Aventura arriving Saturday after midnight.
Sunday morning I loaded the "L’il Gimpster" up and headed out to see what was going on. A quick trip around the patch revealed that two of the fastest growing segments of ultralight aviation were at the show. In fact Powered Parachutes and Trikes made up what looked to be more than half of the displays.
Powered parachutes come in several different configurations. The first is what we’ll refer to as the conventional powered parachute. This model is available in both a single place and two place version . The pilots sit inside a framework, of wheels, aluminum tubing, and a seat. To date all the ones that I have seen have been pushers - engine and prop located behind the pilot. With the two place craft using a tandem seating arrangement – front and back seating. The craft flies under a canopy or parachute.
Another type of powered parachute – which was first, introduced at Oshkosh last year uses a framework similar to a three-wheeled bicycle. That is it has two larger wheels in the back, with one wheel hooked to a set of handlebars in the front. And yes you can actually pedal it from place to place.
The third and final type, encountered is the "Para-Glider."
Here you are the airframe – that’s right you become the landing gear. A pilot straps the engine, propeller, gas tank etc. onto his back, fires the engine up and then runs along the ground until enough air is forced into the chute for a takeoff.
The other segment mentioned is the "Trikes." These to come in at  least two configurations . The first and most common is a unit which like the powered parachutes uses an airframe featuring wheels, attached to an airframe with the engine again in a pusher configuration. With all of the two place craft seen to date being tandem seating. In a trike the craft flies under a wing – similar to a hang glider but of course much stronger.
Two new trikes featured at the show were a unit that was no more than a powered hang glider...
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Powered Parachutes
Now this isn’t to say that all powered parachutes are the same because there not – as was clearly demonstrated by several Canadian manufactures, (leave it up to us Canadians to come up with a better mouse trap) of powered parachutes at this years Sun N Fun.
Click here to link to Sun N Fun 98 powered parachutes The Nova 1
Ultralight aviation is all about small companies with a dream. A dream to become the next PIPER, TAYLOR, CESSNA. A new company that introduced two of their dreams at Sun N Fun was the people from
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Beaver and Chinook
Two words that are associated with Canada's west. True enough a company from western Canada is reintroducing two very popular ultralight aircraft designs from Canada's ultralight aviation history....
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Kitfox and Avid enter the UL market
It took nearly 15 years but two of the worlds largest producers of experimental aircraft Avid and Kitfox are now entering the ultralightlight market with the Kitfox "Lite" and the Avid Champion.....click here for full story
The HiperLight
In 1980's during one of my excursions out to British Columbia I came across a little bi-plane called the Hiperlight by Sorrel Aviation....
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The Slepcev Storch
Several years ago I did a story on the Slepcev Storch single place.  This was a very unique craft that outwardly looked like a world war 11 reconisance plane. This year at Sun N Fun Nestor Slepcev, introduced the 2 place version...
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Engines at Sun N Fun
Engines, engines, engines - this is how I first got into ultralights - repairing engines. Back then we were always on the look out for a better engine. In that search we went from the, West Bend to the Yamaha, to the Cayuna, Kawasaki, and Kohler then finally on to the Rotax.....
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ll word ultralight. According to the builder/designer Bob Corey from Charleston Maine this is the third in a series of "Spruce Coupe's". The craft at the show was powered by a 45 HP Zenoah engine. According to Bob with this engine the craft lifts off in about 150 feet, climbs out at about 600 feet per minute and cruises around at close 55mph. According to Bob the plane if built from plans, (he offers both kits and plans) the plane should take the average person about 600 hours to built. The kit sells for $3995 without and engine or $6995 with the engine and prop.For more information contact NWT
Company RR1 Box 4730 Dept. UF Charleston, ME 04422, 207-285-7829
never had an opportunity to actually see one fly. After seeing it land and take off from the ultralight strip at Sun N Fun all my doubts about the performance of this little beauty went up in a puff of smoke. All aluminum rivet together construction is used on the Hummel Bird. It also uses standard stick and rudder controls - in a very short coupled tail dragger configuration. On a half Volkswagen engine it leapt into the air in about 200 feet, and cruised through the circuit at what looked to be close to 90 mph. While landing did use up a great deal of the runway, it never the less was able to get down and turned around in about the same distance as some of the faster two place
craft.