Speaker 1: Welcome to car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to car Stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Scott Benjamin. I'm Ben Bullen, and we are
Speaker 1: joined as always with our super producer Kurt Vitamin G. Garrett.
Speaker 1: How's it going, Kurt? That's going great? How are you
Speaker 1: guys doing, Vitamin G? I like it? You like it
Speaker 1: because you wrote that. I like it, dude. I thought
Speaker 1: that was great, like your own material. I guess we'll
Speaker 1: see how it flies in the in the real world,
Speaker 1: you know. But today, guys, we have something a little
Speaker 1: bit different to talk about, if that's if that's all right.
Speaker 1: We've got, uh, something that's a little bit a little
Speaker 1: bit out of our wheelhouse, but it's something that we're
Speaker 1: observers of and we think it is is interesting, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Car Stuff is a show about everything that floats, flies,
Speaker 1: swims over drives. Yeah, these uh, these sometimes fly, uh
Speaker 1: they drive around a little bit. I guess, um, Kurt,
Speaker 1: this is what this is one of your ideas. It
Speaker 1: came from. You know, we have these lists of ideas
Speaker 1: that we can of you know, circulated between the three
Speaker 1: of us of you know, thinks possible, shows, things that
Speaker 1: we want to do. And uh, one of the things
Speaker 1: that Kurt wanted to talk about was was ultralight aircraft
Speaker 1: and I found it really fascinated. Was just you know,
Speaker 1: simply a line item. You know, Kurt thought, well, I'll
Speaker 1: throw this on the list and see if that see
Speaker 1: if this idea flies. Yeah, okay, well that's terrible, but
Speaker 1: um yeah, I mean I think it's fascinating as well.
Speaker 1: There's there's gosh, I don't know if there's a long
Speaker 1: history that we need to go into or anything, but
Speaker 1: just kind of just I just really want to have
Speaker 1: a discussion about the crafts themselves, and the people that
Speaker 1: fly them, and and how they're made, and some of
Speaker 1: the surprising regulations or lack of regulations that go into
Speaker 1: um um, getting one of these things up in the air.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's fascinating. So so before we begin, though, Kurt,
Speaker 1: I just we we had an off air discussion briefly
Speaker 1: about this, and you don't necessarily have any firsthand experience
Speaker 1: with these, right, no other than see them in the air.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, same here really, but I guess there's a
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a family tie in we'll talk
Speaker 1: about later that you know, we should discuss at some point.
Speaker 1: But um, I find them fascinating as well. I mean
Speaker 1: you said as a kid, you you've seen them around
Speaker 1: and and we're kind of intrigued by them, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was one in particular that I used to see
Speaker 1: all the time flying overhead and never dawned on me
Speaker 1: exactly what was going on up there. It just looked
Speaker 1: neat and that was an adult. As I think about it,
Speaker 1: I realized how nuts it is sit up there and
Speaker 1: one of these things and just screws around. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit terrifying to think about, isn't it. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really is. I mean, so this was was it
Speaker 1: a neighbor? Do you know who the person was? Um? No,
Speaker 1: I did not. You sure it wasn't a remote control vehicle? No,
Speaker 1: it was definitely an ultralight airplane because they sound a
Speaker 1: lot similar, don't they when they're in the yeast buzz? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they really do have like a just a high pitch buzz.
Speaker 1: You're right, it sounds like a great big lawnmower fly right, Scott.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to something that you mentioned. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be good news for anybody in the
Speaker 1: hold my beer and watch this crowd. Uh, And it's
Speaker 1: the following. When we think of ultra lights, of course,
Speaker 1: we also think of other kinds of aviation, right, everything
Speaker 1: from military craft to little sesstenas and so on. To
Speaker 1: fly one of those, you need a pilot's license, makes sense, right,
Speaker 1: of course it does. You need to get probably a
Speaker 1: physical of some sort to evaluate your physical, mental readiness,
Speaker 1: your ability. You have to and to get the pilot's license,
Speaker 1: you have to log a ton of flight hours. You
Speaker 1: don't have to do that with an ultra light. This
Speaker 1: is true. An ultra light does not require a license
Speaker 1: or a medical certificate of any kind due to a
Speaker 1: Federal Aviation regulation called Part one oh three. And Part
Speaker 1: one oh three is just that piece of detail somewhere
Speaker 1: in the great tone of the Federal Aviation Regulation that
Speaker 1: defines what an ultralight actually is. And maybe that's where
Speaker 1: we should should start, because it's kind of a you
Speaker 1: know it when you see it thing. But we do
Speaker 1: have some pretty solid quantitative constraints that define an ultra light.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, and I've I've actually just this morning,
Speaker 1: I looked up the f a R. Part one oh
Speaker 1: three regulation. You know that is there the exemption for
Speaker 1: ultra light And it's a lengthy piece of text and
Speaker 1: there's no way we're going to read through it. But
Speaker 1: it has been boiled down in many places just kind
Speaker 1: of the the bare elements, and it's pretty simple really.
Speaker 1: And these are just for the United States. There's there
Speaker 1: are other regulations in different countries, and these standards are
Speaker 1: just for the United States. And these are subject to change,
Speaker 1: of course. I mean I think that they do change occasionally,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, these have remained in place
Speaker 1: for a long long time. The first one is who
Speaker 1: you mentioned this already. They're not required to meet any
Speaker 1: kind of aeronautical knowledge, age, or experience requirements. In order
Speaker 1: to um, you know, have have this, uh the ability
Speaker 1: to one of these things. I have to have an
Speaker 1: airman or a medical certificate in order to be able
Speaker 1: to do this. The vehicle itself should only have one seat.
Speaker 1: Here in the United States. That's a little different. In
Speaker 1: other countries. You can have a passenger, but only two
Speaker 1: that's the maximum in an altar light craft in inns
Speaker 1: country across the world. But but United States is not
Speaker 1: alone in having just one one seat, uh, you know.
Speaker 1: Rule by the way, there are other countries that say,
Speaker 1: you know one only is the limit. It also can
Speaker 1: be used only for recreational support or support flying. That's
Speaker 1: I guess the idea would be that you know, you're
Speaker 1: not going to run a crop duster operation out of this,
Speaker 1: You're not going to transport people for money in this,
Speaker 1: You're not going to use that as your mail delivery
Speaker 1: vehicle unless unless you're in a very remote place and
Speaker 1: that's really about the only way to get them there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's your flying go card. It's kind of what it is.
Speaker 1: And also there's some hard restrictions again as you said, Scott,
Speaker 1: in the US on fuel capacity, on the weight, on
Speaker 1: the speed. I think the maximum fuel capacity for an
Speaker 1: ultra light craft here in the US is only five gallons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: five gallons nineteen leaders is the is the maximum fuel
Speaker 1: that you can have on board. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of this plays into the weight. There's a maximum
Speaker 1: takeoff weight for these vehicles as well, now that I
Speaker 1: guess of christ that includes the the occupant right and
Speaker 1: the fuel and all that. However, if you just look
Speaker 1: at the craft itself, the vehicle itself, if it's powered, um,
Speaker 1: oh that's nothing. We have to talk about. There are
Speaker 1: gliders also, and then there's powered and unpowered. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the unpowered vehicles have to weigh less than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty five pounds. That's the glider type of vehicle,
Speaker 1: of course. I mean it's the one that just don't
Speaker 1: you know, the ones that don't have any engine. You're
Speaker 1: just up there on the wind and that's about it, right. Um.
Speaker 1: The other ones are powered and they have to weigh
Speaker 1: less than two hundred and fifty four pounds empty. Now
Speaker 1: that also that excludes floats and safety devices things like that,
Speaker 1: so you know, they know that you're gonna need that
Speaker 1: type things, right right, that's just the craft and the
Speaker 1: engine for the powered aircraft. Also interesting that they didn't
Speaker 1: just round it up to two. Yeah, that's what I
Speaker 1: found that strange to like what what an odd number
Speaker 1: to two or four pounds. It probably has to do
Speaker 1: something with like the when they were initially starting this
Speaker 1: whole thing and character you know, um, I guess characterizing
Speaker 1: that first ultralight aircraft that they were going to say,
Speaker 1: here's the one that we're going to build our restrictions
Speaker 1: based around. I don't know, man that choice to make
Speaker 1: it instead of a hundred pounds heavier. That is a
Speaker 1: very specific choice, and it feels like someone with uh
Speaker 1: legislative or legal background was involved. It feels like legs.
Speaker 1: It does, doesn't it. And you know they also have
Speaker 1: top speeds that they're allowed to achieve, right yeah, So
Speaker 1: top speed is is only fifty five knots, which is
Speaker 1: about sixty three miles per hour. That is at full
Speaker 1: power in level flights, so not particularly quick. So they're
Speaker 1: easy to spot if they're in the air. They're not
Speaker 1: gonna fly over and you know you're not going to
Speaker 1: hear them and and kind of miss seeing them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like when you hear them, they're they're right there. Also,
Speaker 1: they have a stall speed which is relatively low. I
Speaker 1: mean twenty four knots again, twenty eight miles. They're just
Speaker 1: gliding at that point. You have very very slow speed. Um.
Speaker 1: But but some of the other things you know we
Speaker 1: talked about, um you know, not requiring a license, but
Speaker 1: certification for the craft itself is also pretty lax, right
Speaker 1: oh yeah, very very lax. And it kind of makes
Speaker 1: sense because one thing that might surprise a lot of
Speaker 1: us in the audience today to learn about ultra light
Speaker 1: is that ultra light is very much an umbrella term.
Speaker 1: It's the constraints that we just presented apply to no
Speaker 1: less than six distinct types of ultra light craft. And
Speaker 1: I think there's I think some of us may have
Speaker 1: had experience with one of these actually or more, because
Speaker 1: believe it or not, a hot air balloon qualifies as well,
Speaker 1: it qualifies as a lighter than air ultra light no kidding, Yeah,
Speaker 1: these could be there, their backpack balloons there, that's what
Speaker 1: they're called. Right, it's a great idea, right and curtain yeah, alright, uh.
Speaker 1: And then you know the powered airships they're also the
Speaker 1: I think the thing that most of us think about. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll just I'll do the six types real quick, lighter
Speaker 1: than air ultra lights. There the power fixed wings, which
Speaker 1: I think most of us think of. You know, that's
Speaker 1: the one where there's usually it's just uh it's one
Speaker 1: wide wing and probably a tail fin and then maybe
Speaker 1: three tiny wheels and a guy looking really smug, looks
Speaker 1: like he's sitting in a lawnchair. It looks like he's
Speaker 1: sitting in the launch in the sky, which is the dream. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're here, I guess the fixed wing ones. They you know,
Speaker 1: they sometimes they'll have a little body build to round
Speaker 1: them as well. Um that's a lightweight type of wood,
Speaker 1: very thin veneer type wood, but has you know, foam inside.
Speaker 1: It's going to have all the rigidness that it requires.
Speaker 1: But think about back leo'k go back to the right
Speaker 1: brothers and their plane. I mean that was that was cloth,
Speaker 1: you know, covered in cloth and was just a firehouse.
Speaker 1: It's very lightweight wood frame, but it had cloth covering
Speaker 1: and that's not all that uncommon and that that type
Speaker 1: of design carried. I mean people use that type of
Speaker 1: design in of course in war planes, even World War one,
Speaker 1: world ward. I don't know about World War two, maybe
Speaker 1: not at that point, but um, I think it depended
Speaker 1: on the military. Yeah, uh, in the in the conflict.
Speaker 1: It's actually a reasonable design. I mean, if you put
Speaker 1: the right coatings on that and make sure that you
Speaker 1: know that that that that gives you the the lightweight
Speaker 1: flexibility that you need in order to build something that's
Speaker 1: substantial in size yet light enough to have a smaller
Speaker 1: engine to power it enough to get it up in
Speaker 1: the air and also bring a human along. Because the
Speaker 1: thing about all the ultra lights were naming is that
Speaker 1: they do carry a human occupant. Just from an engineering standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's pretty impressive to put this together right there. There's
Speaker 1: another one that I think is really interesting. The third
Speaker 1: type would be the powered parachutes or powered gliders. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. I do, yes, Yeah. Do
Speaker 1: you have any personal experience with these guys? No? Not
Speaker 1: not a powered parachute, no, no, um, But man, those
Speaker 1: are a weird design, aren't they. That's the one where
Speaker 1: you strap what looks like a like a gigantic warehouse fan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like you know the the you know the
Speaker 1: airboats in Florida the swamps like a swamp boat. I
Speaker 1: guess that we see. And those are ridiculously fast and
Speaker 1: maneuverable and all that. But it's like you're putting one
Speaker 1: of those on a backpack and just jumping off a
Speaker 1: cliff with a parachute on. Really, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: there's really not much more to that. I mean, you
Speaker 1: take a running leap down and you run down a
Speaker 1: hillside and jump into the air and and just hope
Speaker 1: you go right. I mean, that's the idea. You've got
Speaker 1: an engine that's strapped your back. That's it's heavy, that's
Speaker 1: propelling you forward. But you gotta hope that everything works
Speaker 1: out just right. And I think that's the case with
Speaker 1: all of these designs. You know what, let me see
Speaker 1: my rant. I guess to the end of this uh
Speaker 1: this this show but and I don't even know if
Speaker 1: it's a rant, but it's more just my disbelief that
Speaker 1: somebody would put enough faith in Okay, okay, I'm getting already.
Speaker 1: So yeah, what are the other types of design has been? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's the there's the rotorcraft, which can be divided into
Speaker 1: two categories, helicopters and europlanes giro planes. Yeah, you're you're
Speaker 1: pronouncing it like the uh you know, it's funny, Okay,
Speaker 1: So in this case it would be giro, right, I
Speaker 1: mean you say Giro. I believe when you're talking about
Speaker 1: something like this, like this giro scoop a euro plane. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but in the food sense, when it's it's like a
Speaker 1: pronounce a euro right, Yeah, it's funny. I never thought
Speaker 1: of it that way. It's I think it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: a weird rule in English is a ridiculous language and
Speaker 1: also full disclosure. I haven't eaten anything today, So I'm
Speaker 1: very into the idea of a euro plane. You don't
Speaker 1: know how it works, but you're gonna find out later.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find out later. Man. We used to have
Speaker 1: this great Mediterranean place across the street. It's gone. Do
Speaker 1: you remember that? One has nothing to do with this show. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sorry, well, relate to the game, but
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get euros. Sometimes that the gyro planes,
Speaker 1: and you are correct, Scott, that is the correct pronunciation.
Speaker 1: The gyro planes are sometimes referred to as gyro copters
Speaker 1: or auto gyros, and the difference here is that a
Speaker 1: helicopter uses a powered rotor or more than one rotor,
Speaker 1: powered rotor and rotary wings to fly and also maintain
Speaker 1: that directional control, right to pitch the jaw and so on.
Speaker 1: But giro plane uses a traditional engine and propeller for thrust,
Speaker 1: and there's an unpowered rotor that helps with theft. What
Speaker 1: we really Yeah, that's a strange idea. I can't I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to look at a diagram of this thing
Speaker 1: to figure that out. That's really strange, all right, Well, anyways,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's it's okay. So that's another type. Right,
Speaker 1: that's another type. So there are people building their own helicopters.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that. And then there's even more, right,
Speaker 1: there's more types, two more types. There's the trikes or
Speaker 1: the weight shift. Now they are available in single seat
Speaker 1: ultra light versions. These to me looks so silly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then when you get and you get to the
Speaker 1: two seater version, now it's no longer an ultra light. Remember,
Speaker 1: because an ultra light in the US has one passenger
Speaker 1: in the U. S okay, so yeah, but elsewhere, I
Speaker 1: guess two seater it could be an ultra light right
Speaker 1: in another place, Yeah, sure it could be classified as that.
Speaker 1: But man, okay again, I'm wanting to go into that,
Speaker 1: not not ramp, but wanting to go into that questioning
Speaker 1: the sanity of people that want to build these. Really
Speaker 1: the it sounds like it sounds like a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. But well, we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: trike formation. One thing's interesting there. Um For for the
Speaker 1: two seater versions, it's it's like an old school biplane.
Speaker 1: And for as far as the seating, it's motorcycle seating.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. You your passenger is going
Speaker 1: to be directly behind you, and then the last one.
Speaker 1: Of course, all empowered ultra light fall into this single
Speaker 1: category gliders or sail planes. We should probably do a
Speaker 1: quick course correction for anybody who automatically thought of the
Speaker 1: stereotypical glider. You know, when you hear glider, you think, okay,
Speaker 1: there's someone who has decided to to live for the moment,
Speaker 1: or they've made their peace with the great beyond, and
Speaker 1: they say, the way I want to court death today
Speaker 1: is to run off a cliff while I have this
Speaker 1: this very light harness, this holding me to a frame,
Speaker 1: uh that you know should catch the wind. You're talking
Speaker 1: about hand gliders, hang gliders. We usually think of hang gliders,
Speaker 1: but these unmpowered gliders and sail planes are a world
Speaker 1: beyond that. We were talking some top notch material science
Speaker 1: to totally encase the pilot. Can you say pilot if
Speaker 1: it's a glider? Yeah, sure, okay, And these things do
Speaker 1: often look like planes to the casual observer. They would
Speaker 1: look like a small aircraft. But the thing is there's
Speaker 1: no engine in there. Right. It's entirely based on leveraging
Speaker 1: what we know about physics. Okay, now I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit curious about this. Now, I don't think that anybody
Speaker 1: here is going to know the answer to this, but
Speaker 1: I do recall in the past hearing that you can
Speaker 1: go up for glider rides. You can pay for a
Speaker 1: glider ride where you know, another plane tows you into
Speaker 1: the air, they disconnect, the guy wired and I like you,
Speaker 1: you know, float back to Earth of course. You know,
Speaker 1: you're you're soaring and it's supposedly a beautiful experience. You
Speaker 1: know it at um sunset or sunrise or whatever, and
Speaker 1: you know you land safely at the airport that you
Speaker 1: took off from after you know whatever. It is maybe
Speaker 1: a thirty minute flight, an empowered flight, you know, if
Speaker 1: you've got a skilled person behind the the yok or
Speaker 1: whatever the control is in a a lider. But I'm
Speaker 1: curious now though, I didn't think that you're allowed to
Speaker 1: have a second person. So maybe there's a second category
Speaker 1: of these that is a different type of glider. Um
Speaker 1: these are the ones with like enormous wingspans, though, the
Speaker 1: ones that have you know, a fifty ft wingspan. It
Speaker 1: looks like fifty ft anyway, right, Yeah, to qualify for
Speaker 1: ultra light status, still any of those six categories have
Speaker 1: to in the US only have one person, but there
Speaker 1: are things like sail planes that may have Essentially, it's this,
Speaker 1: whenever you have more than one person, even if all
Speaker 1: the other rules of the ultra light glider are are
Speaker 1: checked off successfully, that thing automatically becomes an aircraft like
Speaker 1: a small light air requiring different licensing, different license because
Speaker 1: because someone else's life is in your hands. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, and you know what I mean. Just to
Speaker 1: get back to this just a little bit, the certification
Speaker 1: I mean, ultra light vehicles and and all of their
Speaker 1: components equipment are not required to meet any kind of
Speaker 1: airworthiness certification or standards that are specified for aircraft. So
Speaker 1: that's the differentiation between what you were just talking about
Speaker 1: the sailplanes with two seats or more. I guess just
Speaker 1: to probably in a in a sailplane, you wouldn't really
Speaker 1: have more than that, I don't think. I don't think
Speaker 1: there any three head that have three capacity for three rather,
Speaker 1: but the ultra lights themselves don't have to have any
Speaker 1: kind of certificates for air worthiness or anything like that,
Speaker 1: which is crazy to me. I mean, that sounds absurd
Speaker 1: that you're going to be in an aircraft that doesn't
Speaker 1: really require a certificate for air worthiness. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: up to you to decide whether that thing is gonna
Speaker 1: fly or not. You can have them inspected, of course,
Speaker 1: and you probably should. I mean that's another part of
Speaker 1: this is that you don't have to have any kind
Speaker 1: of training to do it. You don't have to have
Speaker 1: any kind of expertise in order to build one of
Speaker 1: these yourself. But it's strongly suggested that you have them
Speaker 1: checked out by somebody who knows what they're doing, Somebody
Speaker 1: that is, you know, competent and capable of doing this,
Speaker 1: Somebody that has some sort of of aeronautical knowledge, you know,
Speaker 1: a basis in in the basics, you know that that
Speaker 1: knows what you're going to require and what's right, what's
Speaker 1: not right, that type of thing. Because for you to fly,
Speaker 1: you know, you're as an operator yourself. You don't have
Speaker 1: to have any kind of aircnatical knowledge. You don't have
Speaker 1: to meet any kind of age requirement. Uh, there has
Speaker 1: to there's no experience requirement necessary. You don't have to have,
Speaker 1: you know, a certain number of hours as a passenger
Speaker 1: in one of these vehicles. Obviously you can't really that
Speaker 1: first time up for you in an ultralight technically should
Speaker 1: be your first time up in the air in that craft. Ever,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get like a ride along to
Speaker 1: see how your craft operates under the control of you know,
Speaker 1: somebody who's a master or somebody who's you know, a
Speaker 1: certified a certified pilot. You're just gonna have to get
Speaker 1: up there and go for it and hope that everything
Speaker 1: works out right. I mean, and I know a lot
Speaker 1: of pilots that do have licenses are the ones that
Speaker 1: end up behind, you know, the controls of these things.
Speaker 1: So it's not always just somebody that has no experience
Speaker 1: and decides they're gonna build a plane in their garage.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes it's somebody who does have a lot of
Speaker 1: experience in flight and lots of hours of experience and
Speaker 1: they and they do this, And I feel a little
Speaker 1: bit better about those people. You know that they that
Speaker 1: they are up there above us, you know, above crowded
Speaker 1: areas or above you know crowds or whatever, um and
Speaker 1: they've got a little bit of experience. But there's there's
Speaker 1: no registration for these vehicles at all. They don't have
Speaker 1: to have registration markings like other planes do as well,
Speaker 1: Like even even I mean, jeez, even watercraft have to
Speaker 1: be registered and have markings on them. These don't have to.
Speaker 1: There there is just such a wild west world. Really,
Speaker 1: when you think about the way ultra lights operate, it's strange.
Speaker 1: I can imagine not having any training, especially these days
Speaker 1: when there's all sorts of virtual experiences you can engage in,
Speaker 1: it still doesn't seem to be any even vitual type
Speaker 1: training to fly an ultralight aircraft. There might be wouldn't
Speaker 1: that be cool? There should be, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: maybe the closest you could come to this would be,
Speaker 1: you know, and at home video game type thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a console game that you would play, But that
Speaker 1: doesn't give you any kind of real sensation. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like you're getting into, you know, a multimillion
Speaker 1: dollar simulator like a lot of these airline companies provide
Speaker 1: for pos to train into to refine their skill. Do
Speaker 1: you want do you want to know something nuts? Uh,
Speaker 1: my girlfriend's dad actually builds those for builds those simulators
Speaker 1: that commercial pilots go on. Yeah, yeah, and you can
Speaker 1: get into them, but they're really they're they're pretty pricey. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can see the appeal of an ultralight for someone
Speaker 1: who's curious about aviation, simply because you don't have to
Speaker 1: get private pilot license or the you know, the sport
Speaker 1: pilot license, which is easier to get. You can, as
Speaker 1: you said, Scott, literally build this thing in your backyard,
Speaker 1: take it into the air. You don't have to have insurance,
Speaker 1: even you should, but you'll have to you really should,
Speaker 1: you know, Can I tell you how extreme this goes?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just so that people have a like
Speaker 1: a clear understanding of how simple this is. You can
Speaker 1: go to sites and you can you know, find kits
Speaker 1: of course, and you can find plans. If you wanted
Speaker 1: to do it that way, you could you know, build
Speaker 1: your own kit, I guess, or you could order a kit.
Speaker 1: But you can go to a site and I just
Speaker 1: for example, here I went to one called ea dot
Speaker 1: org and they have ultra light manufacturers and there are
Speaker 1: links to a bunch of different companies that have you know,
Speaker 1: fixed wing scrolling down here to look. They have powered parachutes,
Speaker 1: they have trikes, they have a concept aviation craft. I
Speaker 1: guess these are all concepts really and a lot of
Speaker 1: them are helicopters, they have powered paragliders. They've got all
Speaker 1: kinds of categories of ultra light that you can order
Speaker 1: kids from or at least link to the manufacturers to
Speaker 1: purchase the kids, and they're often they are several thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in price. Right, there's another route he could go here,
Speaker 1: and that is that you could just kind of go
Speaker 1: at it yourself if you want. And there's a guy
Speaker 1: that I've found this morning. I was watching just a
Speaker 1: very short video. It's about five minutes long, and it's
Speaker 1: real simple to find online. If you want to do
Speaker 1: a keyword search, you can find this guy and you'll
Speaker 1: probably have a good chuckle at how he how he
Speaker 1: speaks and everything he's he's just kind of a kind
Speaker 1: of a down home kind of guy. If if that
Speaker 1: conveys that message. Um, but this guy has put together
Speaker 1: a plane and ultra light plane entirely from parts that
Speaker 1: he's sourced from home depot. Entirely every part is from
Speaker 1: home depot. And I thought, okay, that's how's that possible?
Speaker 1: But then you realize, okay, of course it's got a
Speaker 1: very very small engine. It has a ten horsepower to
Speaker 1: come see lawnmower engine that that's what powers this thing.
Speaker 1: And that makes sense because that's approximately what all these
Speaker 1: these guys are flying with. Anyway. Um, he's got plans
Speaker 1: that you can purchase from him if you want to,
Speaker 1: if you want to go to his website. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's like fifty dollars to buy
Speaker 1: the plans for this this craft. But his name is
Speaker 1: Jack Harper, and so if you look up Jack Harper
Speaker 1: Home Depot ultra Light, you'll probably find this guy's video online.
Speaker 1: And it's just it shows you kind of a quick
Speaker 1: view of some build photographs, you know, along the way,
Speaker 1: you know, him building the thing, and um, mostly it's
Speaker 1: an interview that's done by another guy. That's that's kind
Speaker 1: of I mean, honestly, the guy is kind of laughing
Speaker 1: at him a little bit. But the guy is at
Speaker 1: an ultra light show or an air show showing off
Speaker 1: what he's done. And it flies, It really does. It operates, um.
Speaker 1: But it's it's clever the way he designed it and
Speaker 1: kept it lightweight enough to you know, meet the the
Speaker 1: standards for the ultra light. Jack Harper, that's it, Jack Harper, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jack Harper and he's out of Jacksonville, Florida. And um
Speaker 1: again real real, simple plans. But it's an all wood aircraft.
Speaker 1: There's some foam in the wings, like I had mentioned, Uh,
Speaker 1: this real light engine you can buy plans. I think
Speaker 1: in the video he's lamenting the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: home depot won't pay him to to to advertise this plant.
Speaker 1: You know. He says, you know, you've got an airplane
Speaker 1: here in your you know, in your store. It's in
Speaker 1: your store. I can tell you how to bring all
Speaker 1: these parts together and make one and it works. And
Speaker 1: I think his his example is a bright yellow one.
Speaker 1: It looks it looks like a lot like um, some
Speaker 1: other kids that I've seen, some other ultra like kids.
Speaker 1: So it's not that different. It has things like, you know,
Speaker 1: it looks like wheelbarrel wheels maybe as the three wheels
Speaker 1: that you know, the landing gear. I suppose that's all
Speaker 1: that are always out. Um of course there's you know,
Speaker 1: wires and things like that that you sourced by the foot,
Speaker 1: you know, on spools and the would of course, and
Speaker 1: you have to cut all this to you know, they
Speaker 1: write specifications and everything. But he'll he'll sell you the
Speaker 1: plans for fifty bucks. Apparently, you know, this reminds me
Speaker 1: of I don't know if you guys ever saw this
Speaker 1: growing up, but this reminds me of all those ads
Speaker 1: I would see in a boy scout magazines or an
Speaker 1: old comic books where you have stuff like build your
Speaker 1: own plane. It was right next to buy this whoopee
Speaker 1: cushion and yeah, but you know what, I'd love I
Speaker 1: I am the same way and Kurt, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you have the same experience enough, but looking through
Speaker 1: those old magazines when you're a kid, and all of
Speaker 1: those ads were so intriguing, like you build a hovercraft
Speaker 1: using vacuum engines. You know, come on, who doesn't want
Speaker 1: to do that? But I never did it. I never
Speaker 1: built it. But it was always like, Okay, well, the
Speaker 1: plans are nine dollars or I think at the time,
Speaker 1: they're probably a dollar ninety nine or something or less,
Speaker 1: but still get your imagination going. For sure, they really do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if he didn't ever partake in the activity of making
Speaker 1: whatever they were describing, still thought, hey, how many plans?
Speaker 1: How many kids though paid five or ten bucks and
Speaker 1: thought they were getting the actual aircraft in the mail? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know there was there was a version
Speaker 1: of this and this is just kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit off topic, I guess, but same magazines. I don't
Speaker 1: remember which ones they were, This Boy's Life or whatever,
Speaker 1: but in the back there was always ads for um,
Speaker 1: you know, you could this is one that would arrive
Speaker 1: in the mail. You'd have to assemble it. But it
Speaker 1: was like a twelve foot nuclear submarine and you know,
Speaker 1: that would arrive and it was cardboard of course, and
Speaker 1: you build it in your house and the submarine but
Speaker 1: it claimed to have you know, missiles that would launch.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm torpedoes rather that would launch, and you know,
Speaker 1: periscope design and all of sudden, I wonder what that
Speaker 1: looked like if you actually ordered one. I never did,
Speaker 1: but it was you know, they were always like ten
Speaker 1: dollars for a twelve foot sub, but you never saw
Speaker 1: the pictures of any of those things in the water.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I could go for a twelve ft sub
Speaker 1: right now, you torture me. I could also. You know,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been a long time since I've been
Speaker 1: to a party that had one of those giant party subs,
Speaker 1: you know, like that you cut off you know, you think,
Speaker 1: all right, there's you know, twenty people here, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need more than the six ft sub because you know,
Speaker 1: you can eat you know, yeah, I could eat a
Speaker 1: foot long sub but at lunch, right, that's not a problem.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't work that way. You get, you know,
Speaker 1: like two inches of the thing, and you're stuffed because
Speaker 1: it's all bread. I that is a error in the
Speaker 1: design of subs. The bread content is often just far
Speaker 1: beyond what it needs to be. So you're thinking twenty
Speaker 1: people at a at a party, you make the sub
Speaker 1: like you would normally make a foot long sub, only
Speaker 1: you make it like twenty ft long, and everybody gets
Speaker 1: a foot of that sub. Yeah, I'm glad you're with
Speaker 1: me on the mathew. I think that's a good, good idea.
Speaker 1: Of course, getting at home is the problem. Oh yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: you want a third party venue for for any sub
Speaker 1: get together a third party venue? Wait? Have you really?
Speaker 1: I just I'm dying of curiosity. Have you been to
Speaker 1: a party where there was a giant sub? Yeah? In fact,
Speaker 1: I've had to order one, Yeah, for a party in
Speaker 1: the past. In the past, you know, like having a
Speaker 1: Super Bowl party or something like that. You know where
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna have some people over and you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna have um uh, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the main course. Really, I mean you're able to put
Speaker 1: something out like that and then just get away with
Speaker 1: you know, a few pips. And it's expensive. The sub
Speaker 1: is expensive and you have to order them well ahead
Speaker 1: of time and you have to decide kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go with you know, the standard. You know,
Speaker 1: here's an Italian party sub. You know you don't you
Speaker 1: don't really get too fancy with screen for the meatball
Speaker 1: parm No, you know, I don't even know if they
Speaker 1: do something like that for a big sub like I
Speaker 1: mean maybe somewhere would, but um, it's it's quite a uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's a showy type of food
Speaker 1: to have at your party. What a power move, and
Speaker 1: I think it is. Yeah, I am so impressed with
Speaker 1: you right now. It's been a while, it's been a
Speaker 1: long long time. Been No, I'm not joking, I sincerely
Speaker 1: I'm impressed. I thought that only happened in movies. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen offices, you know, have have you know,
Speaker 1: purchased things like that you know, for UM corporate events
Speaker 1: or our office. It's a little bit bitter today. I
Speaker 1: just think it's cool. But okay, maybe there maybe that
Speaker 1: that conversation took a left hand turn. There didn't somewhere.
Speaker 1: I'm not bitter. I just think I think that a
Speaker 1: giant sub is such a cool move. It's fun, it's fun.
Speaker 1: It's fun to get one. But the problem is then
Speaker 1: you've invariably at the end of the party, got you know,
Speaker 1: three ft or four ft of sub left over, and
Speaker 1: it just takes you forever to get through that. You're
Speaker 1: never gonna finish it. You're gonna happen to toss some
Speaker 1: of it, you know, bring it into the office. I
Speaker 1: do want to mention going back to E A A. Uh,
Speaker 1: They're they're fantastic ultra light organization and I got a
Speaker 1: lot of information from them in preparation for this episode.
Speaker 1: They they will break down the legality of ultra lights.
Speaker 1: They'll also get this. Folks offer you free introductory flights.
Speaker 1: They do not come with a party sub, but they
Speaker 1: do get you in the air. Uh. And they you know,
Speaker 1: they teach, They teach young pilots, They teach pilots of
Speaker 1: all ages. They have aviation scholarships, they have a sport
Speaker 1: pilot academy. Um, they're out of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a that's a that's a place where they
Speaker 1: have an enormous um yearly air show where people fly
Speaker 1: in and I know it's what it's one of the
Speaker 1: most busy times of the year for them, of course,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a huge, huge event. Hundreds of planes arrived,
Speaker 1: if not thousands. I don't know. It's a as a
Speaker 1: giant show. I wish I had more information about it
Speaker 1: in front of you right now, but I remember Oshkosh
Speaker 1: being a huge center for uh, you know, like a
Speaker 1: big yearly aviation show that people just kind of go
Speaker 1: crazy over. Lots of lots of things on display there
Speaker 1: at that time of year. You know, whether it's experimental things,
Speaker 1: it's you know, just um, you know, the the routine
Speaker 1: flyovers that you see at most air shows. I love
Speaker 1: air shows are supersede jets. You see military aircraft, you
Speaker 1: see civilian aircraft, you see all kinds of things, you know,
Speaker 1: ground displays, all kinds of stuff like that. It's it's
Speaker 1: just a it's a neat place. I don't know why
Speaker 1: it's escaping me. What what are those amazing jets called
Speaker 1: Blue Angels, Yeah, the Blue Angels, and there's the Thunderbirds.
Speaker 1: The Blue Angels, I think are the Navy and the
Speaker 1: Thunderbirds of the Air Force. Right. I believe that's the
Speaker 1: two big, um, you know factions here in the United
Speaker 1: States that that we see at a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of air shows. I know that there are others
Speaker 1: around the world, you know that travel as well. I
Speaker 1: think the British Air Force has uh their own set
Speaker 1: as well to travel and you know, perform um very
Speaker 1: accomplished pilots of course, and and man they skilled. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this earlier in our previous episode on
Speaker 1: Famous Stuntman and the famous events, uh like the jumping
Speaker 1: of the of the school bus and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I did not know this, but the United Kingdom had
Speaker 1: their own like Royal Motorcycle stunt team. Really yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that they would do these precision performances. Is interesting. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. And I think they shut down the operation now,
Speaker 1: but you can you can check it out. I think
Speaker 1: they were called the Signals Royal something. So these are
Speaker 1: like precision riders, right, These are not necessarily jumpers, but
Speaker 1: they're the ones that do like the slow speed um
Speaker 1: precision maneuvers where it's like a lot of like you know,
Speaker 1: two lines that kind of weave themselves in and out
Speaker 1: of each other, like hop on other people's bikes stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, man for Queen and Country. You know,
Speaker 1: that's really cool. And I picture them being on like
Speaker 1: giant heavy bikes. Is that the way it was? Because
Speaker 1: usually usually those are like the big wide But I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know motorcycles well enough to know the
Speaker 1: make and model and everything, but I would assume these
Speaker 1: aren't like the super light small bikes. I can't remember,
Speaker 1: you know, I was. I was lazy as soon as
Speaker 1: I figured out that they weren't doing it anymore, yea,
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, alright, let's let's prepare for the
Speaker 1: show with something that actually is still happening. I just
Speaker 1: feel like in the past have seen something similar, and
Speaker 1: it's always like those big but like the big fat
Speaker 1: bikes that have like saddle bags and they have like
Speaker 1: a front fender with lots of them around it, and
Speaker 1: they've got like a big wide saddle type seat you
Speaker 1: know that you can stand on and of course, I
Speaker 1: think that that plays into a lot of the tricks
Speaker 1: and things that they can do. You can know where
Speaker 1: they're they're standing and saluting as they're all writing or
Speaker 1: you know whatever. You know what it was. You know
Speaker 1: what those bikes were. Where are they gonna make so
Speaker 1: much sense? Triumph? Oh? Of course of course they are.
Speaker 1: Of course, the traft bikes. It's like it's like James
Speaker 1: Bond driving in Aston Martin. It's a done deal. Of
Speaker 1: course they were, by the way, the Royal Signals motorcycle
Speaker 1: display team, the Royal Signals. I look it up. So
Speaker 1: one thing that we we do want to emphasize for
Speaker 1: anybody considering building and flying your own ultra light. First off, yes,
Speaker 1: absolutely do it. I vote you do it if you
Speaker 1: have time space. I know, I know you and I
Speaker 1: were going to disagree on this one. Scott and and Curt.
Speaker 1: You're our tiebreaker and I want you to know I
Speaker 1: respect you even if you make the wrong choice. But
Speaker 1: did you like that? Do like I'm swaying, I gonna
Speaker 1: still have decide with Scott on that. It's just I
Speaker 1: can't I can't imagine the first time you ever go
Speaker 1: up in one of these is basically it's your first experience.
Speaker 1: It would be so strange. Someone had to be first.
Speaker 1: The right brothers technically fluid ultra light. Yeah, the first,
Speaker 1: the first time that man ever managed to fly. Hey man,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm nervous the first time I take out, like
Speaker 1: you know, like a lawnmower that I buy from the store.
Speaker 1: You know that's the thing, Like you don't know, and
Speaker 1: I'm on the I'm on the grass. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: on the I'm on the lawn, you know, like worried
Speaker 1: that something's not gonna work right. I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine being two dred feet in the air and worrying
Speaker 1: that something's not gonna go right. You know that's the problem,
Speaker 1: I think, yea, and yeah, it would just feel so
Speaker 1: unnatural after you lift off, you know, you're you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to happen. Yeah, and I'm but it's
Speaker 1: just not right. I would go down, really, I would
Speaker 1: go down really quickly. Definitely. The first few times. It
Speaker 1: would be less of a flight, more of like an
Speaker 1: extended like a job. Yeah, like how the incredible hole
Speaker 1: it doesn't actually fly and just kind of jem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I guess you know, that's probably how a
Speaker 1: lot of people approach this is that, you know, like
Speaker 1: you kind of putting your your toe in the water,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're just getting you know, seeing how
Speaker 1: this thing operates a little bit. You don't just take
Speaker 1: off and expect to soar, you know, five feet in
Speaker 1: the air and uh and you don't have a great
Speaker 1: day circle in the lake and then come home and
Speaker 1: land perfectly. It's not like that. I think you probably
Speaker 1: have to practice and practice and practice, you know, like
Speaker 1: like you said, Ben, like maybe up in the air,
Speaker 1: a little bit landed, see how it goes, maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit higher next time, a little farther next time,
Speaker 1: that type of thing, you know, might have to ease
Speaker 1: into it. My thing would just be figuring out how
Speaker 1: to stick that landing man. That's I think that's where
Speaker 1: a lot of people mess up. Yeah, of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean probably. I mean just I've gut feeling it's
Speaker 1: probably easy to get in the air in these things.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's relatively simple. Landing is always the
Speaker 1: hard part, right, even in commercial aircraft that you guys
Speaker 1: know him on the road a lot and I have
Speaker 1: become acquainted to the different landing styles that different pilots have,
Speaker 1: and one of the of course, you notice it more
Speaker 1: when you're towards the back of the aircraft. But I
Speaker 1: was talking with someone who is a professional pilot and
Speaker 1: he was telling me, uh, he was telling me that
Speaker 1: our species ability to create autonomous vehicles, at least for
Speaker 1: aircraft is pretty impressive. And you know, like take off
Speaker 1: and maintenance of flight and altitude, a lot of that
Speaker 1: can be handled by computer. The thing that people still
Speaker 1: have to do all the time is land the plane,
Speaker 1: and that's often the most rough part of the flight.
Speaker 1: You know, if you fly a lot, you realize that
Speaker 1: as a lot of those landings are are white knuckle
Speaker 1: for everybody on board because it feels a little choppy,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. Sometimes you feel like you dip down real
Speaker 1: fast and and there's a lot of correction being made. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've experienced some good ones, some bad ones. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not it's it's probably one of my least
Speaker 1: favorite parts of the of the flight. I always make
Speaker 1: sure to to thank the pilot if there was especially smooth,
Speaker 1: rawesome land I'm kidding, I think the pilot all the time.
Speaker 1: I do too, Yeah, I think it's just the right
Speaker 1: thing to do. Yeah, that's a good's good practice, just
Speaker 1: to you know, hey, I appreciate it. You gotta safe
Speaker 1: and that goes that goes far. People like to hear that.
Speaker 1: One other thing to consider. If you are an ultra light,
Speaker 1: the captain of your own fate in the sky here
Speaker 1: in the United States, you need to know that you
Speaker 1: can only fly at certain times of day, right, no
Speaker 1: night flights. I don't know how they prosecute that. I
Speaker 1: looked at the Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean
Speaker 1: that's they say, no night flights. Right, Okay, we know
Speaker 1: there's probably people that are flying at night there. There
Speaker 1: probably are. Well, see, this is what it wasn't clear
Speaker 1: on the way that they have the twilight periods is interesting.
Speaker 1: So you can fly thirty minutes before were official sunrise
Speaker 1: on a given day, and you can fly thirty minutes
Speaker 1: after official sunset. And there's an exception for Alaska. Uh
Speaker 1: oh oh, I know why, because the land of the
Speaker 1: midnight sun. Um, they're gonna have really obtuse daylight hours
Speaker 1: and evening hours at different times of the year. That's
Speaker 1: why I would think. So they have a thing called
Speaker 1: civil twilight in Alaska civil twilight, which is defined in
Speaker 1: the Air Almanac. From what I can understand, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like this is when we agree to behave as
Speaker 1: though it is night. That seems a little silly, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: But I guess I mean you did have to. I
Speaker 1: mean you have to and it's important for for flight,
Speaker 1: especially because you can see how a tiny vehicle like
Speaker 1: this in the wrong place could be It could be
Speaker 1: dangerous at night. Well I can. I can understand also,
Speaker 1: like in a place like Alaska, a place that places
Speaker 1: that are are remote, I would say in some cases
Speaker 1: desolate that you know, a small plane like this would
Speaker 1: be extremely handy. Tone you know that you're able to
Speaker 1: get long distances quickly without much you know, worrying about
Speaker 1: you know, road conditions, whether it's snow or whether it's
Speaker 1: across the water. Some of these are able to land
Speaker 1: on water even you know they have pontoons and UM
Speaker 1: are not certified, but they they are allowed to land
Speaker 1: on water and take off from water. Which is that
Speaker 1: it seems like that would require more power and would
Speaker 1: be more difficult I would think for an ultra light UM.
Speaker 1: But anyways, there's there's a lot of instances I think
Speaker 1: where it would be very very helpful to own something
Speaker 1: like this, and probably a because they're not well I
Speaker 1: know this, because they're not registered. They're not documented as
Speaker 1: being an aircraft that is, you know, I guess in
Speaker 1: in operation right here at this moment, you wouldn't know
Speaker 1: the percentage of airplanes that are in the air versus
Speaker 1: the percentage of airplanes that are registered in the air.
Speaker 1: So there might be a higher percentage of of you know,
Speaker 1: these unrestricted planes they're flying that then the government knows
Speaker 1: than anybody knows really, because people just have them in
Speaker 1: a garage they have been a shed somewhere. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, you might have many, many of these operating
Speaker 1: and only a few registered planes operating, but you might
Speaker 1: have a lot of air traffic in the area. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you remember I want to put you on the
Speaker 1: spot here, Scott, but do you remember the story told
Speaker 1: me about the homemade helicopter guy? Yeah, oh yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: And we talked about that in air too. I think
Speaker 1: tough to forget. The other guy was like he was
Speaker 1: he was breaking the law. Apparently I didn't know that
Speaker 1: he was wasn't allowed to do this, right, right, So
Speaker 1: that's where I'm going. Oh well, go ahead, go ahead,
Speaker 1: I mean, i'll tell you just real quickly. Though. The
Speaker 1: guy I saw him regularly at one summer, or maybe
Speaker 1: over a couple of summers, I can't remember which now,
Speaker 1: but um, this guy in a it was clearly a
Speaker 1: homemade helicopter was flying around my area and it just
Speaker 1: see him, you know, in a distance, over the trees
Speaker 1: or whatever. But one day I'm at an intersection, a
Speaker 1: busy four way intersection, and the guy is hovering and
Speaker 1: circling over the intersection very very low, I mean really low,
Speaker 1: and and then left, and I just wanted to get
Speaker 1: the hell out of there. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: underneath this thing because it almost looked like he was
Speaker 1: looking for a place to land or you know, he's
Speaker 1: had a trouble, or he might just drop something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't know what's going on with it. And that's
Speaker 1: I guess that's another danger that I didn't even think of.
Speaker 1: You know, like you could have somebody up to no good,
Speaker 1: you know, something with somebody with you know, some type
Speaker 1: of nefarious thoughts or ideas, you know, it was incorporating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but you know it's it's really, but but it
Speaker 1: was it just seemed really dangerous that he was doing this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're right, Scott, is illegal. Ultra live vehicles in
Speaker 1: the US cannot be flown over any congested area of
Speaker 1: a city or town, and they cannot be flown over
Speaker 1: an open air assembly of persons. So okay, for that
Speaker 1: air show, I'm thinking with the ultra lights, they're probably
Speaker 1: then again we haven't been. I'd love for us to go,
Speaker 1: but they're probably flying at a distance in the foreground,
Speaker 1: you know, or or just simply on display or just
Speaker 1: on display. Maybe maybe I mean I but I don't
Speaker 1: think they're coming too close to the grandstands or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Um. But yeah, that makes sense because you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want somebody in an ultra light deciding, Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't get tickets to that, you know, Georgia State
Speaker 1: University ballgame. Maybe I'll just go a buzz the stadium
Speaker 1: and see what's happening, you know, catch the catch the
Speaker 1: halftime show from the air. I am so sure someone
Speaker 1: tried to do that. That's probably like the only ultra
Speaker 1: light crime that has been prosecuted is a terrible fight.
Speaker 1: You know. Actually, you know what now that we were
Speaker 1: talking about this, wasn't there a guy that parachuted in
Speaker 1: to a prize fight that was an open It was
Speaker 1: an open air prize fight. I think it was in
Speaker 1: I want to say it was in Vegas. Um tried
Speaker 1: to land in the ring. He had he had one
Speaker 1: of those backpack giant uh you know, I forget what
Speaker 1: we call it, the pair of power parachute maybe or
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call that type of ultra late
Speaker 1: he landed. It was a prize fight. It was a big,
Speaker 1: big fight. And there you know, there's videos of of
Speaker 1: this happening. You don't in the clip I saw anyway,
Speaker 1: you only kind of see the edge of him entering
Speaker 1: and you hear the crowd go crazy. They're on him,
Speaker 1: and I mean they beat the crap out of this
Speaker 1: guy when he landed. I mean, people were upset because
Speaker 1: it's dangerous. I mean, it was really They called him
Speaker 1: the fan Man during the Holy Field fight, that's the
Speaker 1: one fan Man and fan Man made an appearance somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I don't know where it was
Speaker 1: or what happened, but Fan Man was around. I mean,
Speaker 1: but he ended up getting just pummeled by the crowd
Speaker 1: at this at this fight. You know he thought I
Speaker 1: suppose he thought it was a great Um. I don't
Speaker 1: know if his marketing or what it was, but I mean,
Speaker 1: if he's trying to promote his own brand. I can't
Speaker 1: remember the whole story behind it. But if you look
Speaker 1: up the fan man and and this this fight, this
Speaker 1: entrance into the fight where he lands in the ring, well,
Speaker 1: the flight is happening, It's it's insane. The the the
Speaker 1: commentators go a little crazy, and you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: course documentation of you know that you could see him
Speaker 1: being beaten up by the crowd, and you know they're
Speaker 1: taking care of business. I guess there as a you know,
Speaker 1: as they pull him into the audience. But man, what
Speaker 1: a strange thing to happen. I have a question. This
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a turn. Sure do you think, uh,
Speaker 1: do you think ultralight vehicles could be successfully used for
Speaker 1: illicit purposes like smuggling? Do I think? Um? You know
Speaker 1: what's funny. I it seems like a good way to
Speaker 1: do it, but that their inability to carry much weight
Speaker 1: is probably what would hold them back from that. I
Speaker 1: mean as small amounts, Sure, small amounts of whatever type
Speaker 1: of drug or material they're trying to carry. Sure, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but I think if you're going to try to carry
Speaker 1: any kind of substantial load of drugs or you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever the material is, I think you'd have to have
Speaker 1: a heavier, bigger aircraft. And and they typically do fly
Speaker 1: those aircraft just lower right, so they're out of radar,
Speaker 1: and um, they get caught anyway, they get tracked coming out. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that's getting me because the airspace is
Speaker 1: pretty pretty heavily monitored on the border, and I was
Speaker 1: looking into this. When I looked into it, I just
Speaker 1: found examples of things that had crashed or things have
Speaker 1: been caught. Because you know, it goes without saying these
Speaker 1: guys are breaking all of those rules we just mentioned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't care about the rules. No, they're flying at night.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's too heavy, Yeah right, yeah, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're right, put a bigger put a bigger engine on
Speaker 1: an ultra light, and you know who's to say that
Speaker 1: you can't carry more weight. The weird thing is that
Speaker 1: apparently Border Control has found fairly often, not even frequently,
Speaker 1: they found like abandoned ultralight aircraft in some remote area
Speaker 1: near the border. It seems like the ones that I
Speaker 1: merely get caught are carrying marijuana, cocaine or methamphetamine. Now
Speaker 1: that cartels are involved. You know, the cartels built submarines.
Speaker 1: They were the guys reading Boys Life magazine and actually
Speaker 1: buying the plans for these and they just found just
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just happening in this week. A
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, they found the longest underground tunnel
Speaker 1: between Tijuana and and San Diego. I know, we're taking
Speaker 1: another turn here in San Diego. Ye, I'm sorry, yeah, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nearly a mile that's my mistaken. That's the nearest
Speaker 1: town to San Diego. And umm, I think of the
Speaker 1: right right town San Diego and Tijuana. That's the border
Speaker 1: town's right on on the Mexican border. This my this, this, uh,
Speaker 1: this tunnel is nearly a mile long. It's like feet
Speaker 1: long and has a railway system and has pressure you know,
Speaker 1: like forced air induction you know for fresh air as
Speaker 1: um you know, uh, electric lines for for lights. It
Speaker 1: had all kinds of things, I mean it and they
Speaker 1: just found it shut it down, of course, I mean,
Speaker 1: but that's the longest one to date that they found
Speaker 1: an underground tunnel. But that's that's the opposite end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. I guess their underground instead of overrund. But
Speaker 1: but I wonder if any of those ulter lights end
Speaker 1: up in government auctions, I mean, as dangerous as that
Speaker 1: might be, or if they just destroy them, you know,
Speaker 1: just crush them, because I think a lot of them
Speaker 1: are purpose built or heavily modified to carry those packages.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, so these are illegal ultra lights. Anyways,
Speaker 1: they're not truly an alter light. They're probably just like
Speaker 1: borderline regular aircraft that should be registered right right, or
Speaker 1: but cheap enough to abandon. Yeah, that's the thing. It's
Speaker 1: just the cost of doing business, I think. But but
Speaker 1: I'm just noting that these these things are very useful.
Speaker 1: So you're an isolated areas like Alaska, you're drug kingpin,
Speaker 1: I guess, or you're or you're a kid who wants
Speaker 1: to learn more about aviation and has some very trusting,
Speaker 1: permissive parents, but you don't have the money to get
Speaker 1: the pilot. So it's good for drug kingpins or children,
Speaker 1: that's what you're saying. I met a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: is you know, when you look at these categories that way. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's okay, that's the opposite ends of the spectrum. And uh,
Speaker 1: of course there's everything in between, of course, like delivering serum. Hey,
Speaker 1: you don't have to have a dog sled. You can
Speaker 1: just do it with the ultra lights. Right, perfect caravan
Speaker 1: of ultra lights across Alaska. Now that sounds like just
Speaker 1: about as dangerous as a dog sledge. Rep really, and
Speaker 1: we do want to recommend the e A A uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's a storied organization, dates back to nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: three there, as you said, Scott and Oshkosh, Wisconsin. If
Speaker 1: you are curious about ultra lights, learning more, building your
Speaker 1: own than this is a great place to start. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a few other things that I want to
Speaker 1: mention before we before we wrap here, because I did
Speaker 1: want to get eventually to you know why. I don't
Speaker 1: think this is a fantastic idea. But one thing I'll
Speaker 1: just get at this out of the way right now
Speaker 1: is um, I had a great uncle that perished in
Speaker 1: one of these at first flight. First flight. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: holding my hands right here. The accident report from the
Speaker 1: NTSP from his flight. It was in two thousand five,
Speaker 1: so it's a long time ago, UM older gentleman, but
Speaker 1: he was interested in aviation, and of course this is
Speaker 1: this is terrible. He had my aunt there with him
Speaker 1: on the air strip and like he took off and
Speaker 1: they had done some high speed I've read the whole
Speaker 1: report just the other day for the first time, and uh,
Speaker 1: he had. I wasn't terribly close to him. I knew
Speaker 1: who he was. But he's from this area. He's up
Speaker 1: in the UM I think it's called Dickinson County, up
Speaker 1: in uh Tennessee. It's right right near Chattanooga, so up
Speaker 1: in that area again two thousand five, long time ago.
Speaker 1: But he had built a craft, an ultar light craft himself,
Speaker 1: and it was a COLB COLB k O LB Mark
Speaker 1: three and it was an experimental aircraft. They're all, I
Speaker 1: think at the times experimental. They still sell the model.
Speaker 1: I looked on the website to to find that, and
Speaker 1: it's got a little bit of a kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit of body work to it. It looks almost
Speaker 1: like a little Cessna or something like that. But it's
Speaker 1: like the cheap, cheap version of that. UM he had built,
Speaker 1: built this one on his own and first flight took
Speaker 1: off and like just immediately hooks to the right, hits
Speaker 1: a tree, goes into power line. There's like this big fiery,
Speaker 1: burning crash, you know, and and his wife is standing
Speaker 1: right there watching like this is the case with a
Speaker 1: lot of these amateur aviation fans, folks that want to
Speaker 1: do this. You know, it's a big deal. When you're
Speaker 1: going out there for your first light. You want your
Speaker 1: family to watch, right. That's but something bad like that
Speaker 1: can happen. Cannon does happen. Um, not just um, not
Speaker 1: just you know, the this own my own little semi
Speaker 1: personal experience at the time. I mean, I knew when
Speaker 1: it happened. Again, I wasn't very close with the guy
Speaker 1: at all, so I didn't know him very well outside
Speaker 1: of you know, a few family reunion contacts and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um. But there are other people that,
Speaker 1: you know, other that all of us might know that
Speaker 1: fly altar lights as well. Um, there are celebrities, a
Speaker 1: lot of celebrity pilots out there, and we know that
Speaker 1: you know a lot of them fly fixed wing aircraft
Speaker 1: that are regular registered aircraft. Is you know a huge
Speaker 1: long list of people. There's Harrison Ford, There's you know,
Speaker 1: Bob Lutz, if you're an automotive fan, you know. He
Speaker 1: flies all kinds of aircraft as well. I think the
Speaker 1: Angelina Julie and Brad Pitt, they both were accomplished pilots
Speaker 1: or are accomplished pilots. There's a lot of people, of course,
Speaker 1: Bob Denver, he was one that flew unfortunately flew and
Speaker 1: experimental aircraft, I believe, and that was his John John Denver, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but that was I think they
Speaker 1: might even have deemed that a possible suicide. Maybe I've
Speaker 1: seen at least I've seen that UM that's kind of
Speaker 1: up in the air. There was like some I was
Speaker 1: reading about it yesterday, a little bit of conspiracy, I guess,
Speaker 1: you know whether or not that was. There was also
Speaker 1: like a question of how the aircraft was modified. He
Speaker 1: had changed or the previous owner had changed the location
Speaker 1: of a UM either a fuel tank switch or something
Speaker 1: like that that we're supposed to be. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be like down between the pilot's legs, like
Speaker 1: between his knees when you're flying, and they had the
Speaker 1: owner before that had moved it to above his left
Speaker 1: shoulder I think, or something like that. So there's a
Speaker 1: question about all that. But that was not an ultra light.
Speaker 1: But people who do fly ultra lights. Um, Enrique Iglesias
Speaker 1: flies an ultra light. In fact, that's how he learned
Speaker 1: to fly. I thought you were going to say, in
Speaker 1: the fact, that's why he's famous. No no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Uh in great Enrique, I have a hard time with
Speaker 1: that name. Enrique Iglesias. Uh. He actually flew in ultra
Speaker 1: a two seater craft, which I okay, he had to
Speaker 1: have been outside the US when this was going on, right,
Speaker 1: I would, I would think. But this is the thing,
Speaker 1: is that he learned to fly cruising between his home
Speaker 1: in Miami and Key Largo, Florida. So he's flying all
Speaker 1: the way across the state of Florida in this ultra
Speaker 1: light that he had built himself or ever had purchased.
Speaker 1: I guess that's where he learned to fly. Even John Travolta,
Speaker 1: who was another one that flies a lot of big planes,
Speaker 1: we think of him as like, you know, a jet pilot.
Speaker 1: He flies, helicopters, he flies. You know. Of course he's
Speaker 1: got his own uh seven oh seven of Boeing that
Speaker 1: he he parks at his own house. We've all seen
Speaker 1: the photos of that right with he lives in that
Speaker 1: community where he has, you know, a mansion that you
Speaker 1: can park your own jet in your own hangar right
Speaker 1: there on the on the airstrip. Everybody got their own runway.
Speaker 1: But he also owns two ulter lights, which I thought
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting. So outside of outside of those,
Speaker 1: I couldn't find any other celebrities they're flying in alter lights.
Speaker 1: But um, one thing that I did want to mention
Speaker 1: here is something that I'd kind of forgotten about. Back
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, also same year that my uncle
Speaker 1: Um had his accident. John Walton, who was the billionaire
Speaker 1: son of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, he also
Speaker 1: died in an altar light crash, which is strange. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a fifty eight years old at the time this is.
Speaker 1: This happened in June of two thousand five, and he
Speaker 1: was in a CGS Hawk air a ultra light when
Speaker 1: he went down and he crashed I guess shortly after
Speaker 1: taking off from Jackson Whole Airport. The same type of
Speaker 1: thing happened. It was he was the only one in
Speaker 1: the accident, of course, a single seater. But um tragedy
Speaker 1: there of course, I mean he probably would be running
Speaker 1: the walmart. You know, fortunate at this point you have
Speaker 1: the empire at this point it had that not happened.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's I mean, it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: double edged sword, isn't it really? I mean it sounds
Speaker 1: so appealing. It sounds like so much fun to be
Speaker 1: able to build your own craft and to be able
Speaker 1: to you know, do this all on your own and
Speaker 1: be proud of it. And you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: that intrigue of you know, when you build like um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like a go cart or something like that,
Speaker 1: or even even like that lawnmore than I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: You build something yourself and you're proud of it. But man,
Speaker 1: you've got to have a lot of faith in your
Speaker 1: own work to take that up in the air, if
Speaker 1: it's if it's unchecked by anybody that really knows what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and you were relatively unskilled or even completely unskilled,
Speaker 1: to have the faith in that thing to take you
Speaker 1: up to a distance that you would not normally want
Speaker 1: to jump from. You know, that's that's the thing. Like
Speaker 1: you if you don't want to fall that far, don't
Speaker 1: fly at that high. You know, that's that's I've heard
Speaker 1: that from many people about ultra lights. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: be aware that you're going sixty miles an hour in
Speaker 1: the sky. Yeah. There's also another good point. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't even factor the speed and I just always
Speaker 1: think of the height. But you're also going sixty miles
Speaker 1: an hour at you know, your two feet in the air.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing. And you know you're you're over
Speaker 1: you know woods, you're over It doesn't matter what you're
Speaker 1: over at that point. Really, I mean, you're over water.
Speaker 1: You're in trouble. Right. But to to Kurt's point, Uh,
Speaker 1: just because you you know, we were talking about that
Speaker 1: first moment when you take off. Just because you are
Speaker 1: not legally required to have a license doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: shouldn't get some training. You can find tons of certified
Speaker 1: ultra light flight instructors. Uh. You even if you were
Speaker 1: already uh pilot in the world of general aviation, it's
Speaker 1: worth your time, you know, get ten twenty hours of
Speaker 1: instruction and you will be in a much safer, much
Speaker 1: more enjoyable place. That's a very good piece of advice
Speaker 1: because I mean, why not get yourself, you know, certified
Speaker 1: in other types of aircrafts. You get the feel of
Speaker 1: the general you know, idea of what flights all about.
Speaker 1: You'll know you know what to watch for, what to
Speaker 1: be worried about, what to not be worried about. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's that's a I mean, that's a big part
Speaker 1: of this whole thing, I guess is that once you
Speaker 1: have that insider's knowledge about what's what's really a danger,
Speaker 1: what's not really a danger, and what you should be
Speaker 1: you know, have your your eyes open for and your
Speaker 1: ears open for when you're in this type of craft.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's a whole different ball of wax and
Speaker 1: an altar lights. So yeah, I get some certification instruction
Speaker 1: ahead of time if you want to do it right
Speaker 1: and uh and and do have somebody check it out,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna build one of these, have
Speaker 1: somebody that knows what they're doing look at it to
Speaker 1: make sure that you know, you've got the right type
Speaker 1: of fasteners on that thing, You've got the right type
Speaker 1: of guy wires that are going from you know, the
Speaker 1: yoke to all the control surfaces on the plane, and
Speaker 1: that everything is operating in the correct way and that
Speaker 1: you're using the right types of lubrication, and you're using
Speaker 1: the right types of wheels for that landing here, because
Speaker 1: that's critical as well. Oh my gosh, just there's there's
Speaker 1: so much, you know, again, I just get I keep
Speaker 1: coming back to this, but like I've had cars that
Speaker 1: cars I'm on the ground that just conk out on
Speaker 1: me at the most inopportune times, And the same thing
Speaker 1: with you know, other small things like lawnmowers that just
Speaker 1: suddenly stopped working. And that's terrifying to me that that
Speaker 1: could happen to you when you're in the air, and
Speaker 1: this leads to a fall. I mean, it really does
Speaker 1: lead to a point where Kurt and I were discussing
Speaker 1: this before, that you might have a low altitude parachute
Speaker 1: that you can, you know, attempt to throw out. You
Speaker 1: know that you can, you can bail on the plane,
Speaker 1: but there's that a few you know, even a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds cost you a lot of altitude, and you
Speaker 1: don't have the opportunity then to make that decision. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't even have the opportunity to throw out their parachute.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work at that low of an altitude. So
Speaker 1: you have to make these decisions quick and you have
Speaker 1: to decide, Okay, where's that plane going to end up
Speaker 1: when I you know, end on it. You know, that's
Speaker 1: another factor, you know, do you stay with the crafty?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's generally the the thought is
Speaker 1: that you stay with the craft as long as you can,
Speaker 1: and you make every attempt to make sure that it's
Speaker 1: not going to end up somewhere that it shouldn't if
Speaker 1: you do have to bail but then again you've lost out.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just this, there's so many thoughts that
Speaker 1: have to go into the the bailout procedure that I
Speaker 1: don't know if many people even get the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do that before they go down. Yeah, it's it's terrifying.
Speaker 1: A lot of this is terrifying to me, but it's
Speaker 1: also sort of intriguing. I sort of want to do it.
Speaker 1: I sort of want, you know, the thrill, the feel
Speaker 1: of it. I'd love to be in a craft that
Speaker 1: I built and and feel that moment when it takes
Speaker 1: off from the ground. That's got to be so satisfying.
Speaker 1: As far as training goes, it looks like they do
Speaker 1: have two seater ultra lights style planes trainers. I think
Speaker 1: so so. I guess they wouldn't be classified as an
Speaker 1: ultra light since it's a passenger. But it's the same
Speaker 1: type of plane. It's just like a side by side
Speaker 1: to its teaching a kid to drive. Probably it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, so you can get that sensation of lifting
Speaker 1: off and landing and so you control it. I guess
Speaker 1: it must be a registered craft. Probably, yeah, and they
Speaker 1: probably have different insurance requirements and things like that. Pilot
Speaker 1: is registered and rated properly. Well, I feel a little
Speaker 1: better about that then. I don't know, man, in the
Speaker 1: course of this, especially when we took the turn and
Speaker 1: we're talking about the different dangers, they're largely unregulated, and
Speaker 1: I get it. I like that there's not a ton
Speaker 1: of regulations, but it does lead to these dangerous situations.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You guys are kind of persuading me.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll just maybe I'll just continue trying to get
Speaker 1: on the Goodyear blimp. Because airships indirigibals, that's where it's at.
Speaker 1: You know, they're high enough that you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about a lot of things ultra lights have to
Speaker 1: worry about. What about your wings suit? The wingsuit is
Speaker 1: still in place. It's still very much in play. I
Speaker 1: just have to work out some details, mainly budgeting and
Speaker 1: trying to convince our boss to spring for a wingsuit.
Speaker 1: Would they work from the top of this building or
Speaker 1: would you have to go higher? I think you would
Speaker 1: have to go higher. Okay, our building now I'm not
Speaker 1: an expert, but our building here is about ten stories.
Speaker 1: But you just give it a shot. I just go
Speaker 1: for it. Right. Well, you probably need a little space
Speaker 1: to at least run out a landing, you know, you
Speaker 1: want an open field or something. I don't. There's not
Speaker 1: a good landing zone around here. This feels like it
Speaker 1: might be my last episode trying to I don't. I
Speaker 1: love the idea of a wingsuit, but I haven't. I
Speaker 1: haven't tried. You know, years and years ago, and I
Speaker 1: think you know this story, Scott. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you do, Kurt. But years and years ago, Uh, we
Speaker 1: had this conversation with Red Bull and they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's work together somehow. And we said, okay, what kind
Speaker 1: of stuff do you want to do? And the people
Speaker 1: were talking into We're like, we'll check this out. This
Speaker 1: is sort of the kind of stuff we do. And
Speaker 1: it's the cliff diving wingsuit thing, which is incredibly dangerous,
Speaker 1: sane amount of skill. But I love the videos from
Speaker 1: this point of the amazing point of view videos where
Speaker 1: they're just soaring through the woods like an opening but
Speaker 1: right down the face of a mountain, and it's fantastic. Yes,
Speaker 1: so maybe we could do ten stories. But I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I don't know. I think maybe
Speaker 1: I'm I'm an airship Okay, but what are you gonna do.
Speaker 1: You're gonna jump off the building. You're gonna glide over
Speaker 1: to home depot, you know, and just walk there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm no, I'm gonna like it. I'm like that prize
Speaker 1: fight guy. You know, it's about the entrance. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: just get a key made. Seriously, you gotta you gotta
Speaker 1: look up fan. Man. That is such it's man, It's
Speaker 1: it's just so bizarre. It's such a strange occurrence. You know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those live television moments. I think too
Speaker 1: that you know, or just you can't capture that any
Speaker 1: other way than just he had to have been watching
Speaker 1: at the time because of the of when it happened.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was really I don't I don't
Speaker 1: think we were in the on demand era of television,
Speaker 1: is what I mean. You know, he had to have
Speaker 1: seen it or just catch the clip elsewhere. But now,
Speaker 1: of course we can watch it on YouTube or wherever
Speaker 1: you know, and and go back and see it and
Speaker 1: relive it. But um, it's one of the things that
Speaker 1: if you missed it, the night had happened. I think
Speaker 1: he just missed it. Yes, But hopefully everybody who is
Speaker 1: flying and ultra light craft are interested in building one,
Speaker 1: will have a safe and fun adventure. We would love
Speaker 1: to see photographs of your ultra light would love to
Speaker 1: hear your ultra lights stories, would love to hear any
Speaker 1: tips and tricks you might have for your fellow listeners,
Speaker 1: especially if they're getting into ultra lights. I will keep
Speaker 1: everybody in the loop regarding this wingsuit situation. I do also,
Speaker 1: by the way, speaking of these different kind of endeavors.
Speaker 1: Uh I do understand that NASA A does not have
Speaker 1: a quote unquote spare space suit laying around and be
Speaker 1: they do not sell them to civilian no matter how
Speaker 1: many times you call, no matter who you call, how
Speaker 1: how many letters you said, uh so. But but it
Speaker 1: is possible to get into the good Year Blimp theoretically,
Speaker 1: you know, I think are too for our weird aviation adventure.
Speaker 1: I think are too strongest things are either building an
Speaker 1: ultra light and drawing straws to see who has to
Speaker 1: fly it, or trying to get into the Good Year Blimp.
Speaker 1: Does it have to be the good Year Blimp? Because
Speaker 1: I recently saw the MetLife blimp here in town. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it's here for, but it was after
Speaker 1: we had recorded one Day a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: You know that's great. Yeah, any blimp, any blimp, any blimp,
Speaker 1: any blimp? Okay, well, Curt, do you in for the
Speaker 1: blimp ride? Yeah? Yes, not for drawing straws ultra light proposals.
Speaker 1: I don't think we'd have to draw straws. I think
Speaker 1: you would be the one I would probably, I think,
Speaker 1: are you out? I'm out? Yeah, I will, I'll watch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I don't think it would be me. You'll clap
Speaker 1: at the crash? Yeah, that would not clap at the crash? Terrible,
Speaker 1: what a terrible thing to say. No, I would, I would.
Speaker 1: I would mourn your passing. But I've been like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to draw off a little bit and they go
Speaker 1: back on the ground. I'm sorry, I just pictured a
Speaker 1: different outcome from this whole thing. Sorry, Now, we really
Speaker 1: shouldn't joke about this stuff. I mean, seriously, it's it's
Speaker 1: a serious game, but you know, it also could be
Speaker 1: It could be a lot of fun. It really could.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to discourage anybody from building one.
Speaker 1: If you want to try it, try it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if if you're into that kind of thing, do it.
Speaker 1: It looks like a blast, It's it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that looks like so much fun. But I just
Speaker 1: don't know if I could do it myself right now,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty years ago, I would try it. Just the
Speaker 1: last thing, I'm going to save it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: First off, also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. So
Speaker 1: on the last thing I'm going to say is Scott Kurt,
Speaker 1: there is an ultra light manufacturer in Marietta, Georgia, right
Speaker 1: up the way from us. That's that's a short drive
Speaker 1: from here, the Vintage Ultra Light and Light Plane Association
Speaker 1: of Marietta, George I had no idea. Let's check that out.
Speaker 1: I wonder, you know, I wonder if we've seen any
Speaker 1: other aircraft overhead I mean, it seems like they would
Speaker 1: be doing test flights near this area you would think
Speaker 1: as possible vintage aircraft too. That's interesting. I wonder if
Speaker 1: they're I wonder if that's a separate category. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they, you know, also do biplanes and things like that,
Speaker 1: because I have seen biplanes in the area. I know
Speaker 1: that you can, you know, purchase rides in a biplane
Speaker 1: if you want to, you know, for an evening again,
Speaker 1: like a sunset trip. And I've also seen them telling
Speaker 1: advertising around, so you know, they they definitely our attention grabbers.
Speaker 1: They were, uh, they specifically focused on what's called the
Speaker 1: Vintage Ultra Light SR one hornet, and it's it's one
Speaker 1: of those places where they send you the plans to
Speaker 1: construct it. Okay, so maybe I'll build a Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: build a hornet. That'd be called build it here in
Speaker 1: the office. I think we could get a they're kind
Speaker 1: of small enough, and I don't know if they're modular,
Speaker 1: you know, if you could do that and then you know,
Speaker 1: cart the whole thing out. The plans are thirty five bucks,
Speaker 1: which is super affordable. That's really not bad at all.
Speaker 1: Want to get the plan, I gotta get out of here.
Speaker 1: Well that you have to get your groh erro. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: hero oh man. There so many things. Six foot party
Speaker 1: sub dared a dream right yeah, flighted on an ultra
Speaker 1: light because you have to carry it this this way.
Speaker 1: You couldn't carry it long way. You'd have to cry
Speaker 1: it in the air. Dannamic feel like you don't want
Speaker 1: that thing to catch win. That is funny. That's say
Speaker 1: you gotta carry it like a torpedom Yeah, maybe they
Speaker 1: make a special box. It's a funny idea. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not your aero dynamic. If you have a small car,
Speaker 1: you have to put it on the roof or something.
Speaker 1: I guess you would, wouldn't you. Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: probably make a container. I'm sure they do red flag
Speaker 1: in the back because no one runs into it. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: this is a plan, all right. That's what we do here.
Speaker 1: We make plans. Yeah, where I d you, guys. Car
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