Hey Everyone,
This past weekend I took my first Ultralight flight! What a huge difference between GA/Commerical aircraft... Let me start from the moment of crawling onboard.
First, most know I am wheelchair bound, but for those that don't; well, let me express how much fun life can be in a chair. I mean that in a good way because you just learn to do things differently. Anyway, so after figuring a way for me too get in the Ultralight, it was pretty much straight forward from there.
We, the pilot and I, rolled out onto Rwy 25 at Y72 Bloyer Field, Tomah, WI in a dual seater, fast wing Ultralight, and then with a short takeoff to 400ft we flew over downtown Tomah. From there we flew out over my house where Karen/Simlady heard us above and took a pic or two. By the way, it was a short notice flight, so even she was not fully aware of my intentions.
Afterwards, we circled around within a 10mi zone, as we have an Army and an Air Force restriction zone on both sides of our area. Albeit, we stayed in close and low, we got up to 3000ft and felt the cold temps coming down between 7pm-9:15pm CST. We then landed on Rwy 18 Y72, a grass runway prone to deer herds.
I cannot express enough how amazing it is that the Ultralight is so opened up. You look just next to your legs and there is nothing but air and the ground below. Except for the blind spot of the wing overhead you pretty much see everything. So much, that it is very easy to get disoriented during banking turns, and with no wing strut or windscreens between the horizon and you, the ability to have a frame of reference is totally gone. As we descended in a high bank spiral turn, I started looking left to the high wing, which I only saw the wing and sky, and then as I looked right I had no idea where I was. In other words, I should've kept looking right on a fixed ground point, because without me asking the pilot, I could have been over Alaska by now. The view below was unknown too me, even though 2 mins before I knew exactly where I was.
Finally, we landed with not even a bump on touchdown. The pilot says he took it easy on me, but I did not see difficultly at all on his part because he spent a lot of air time showing me ForeFlight flight tracking on his iPhone while flying hands free; well, it was that way for him because he let me take the controls...wing bar. Upon crawling back into my wheelchair I kept thinking about leaving the sim and RC worlds to buy an Ultralight.
However, I came to my senses remembering that even though there is a lot of fun to be had, as well as even getting a total hand control Ultralight (no pedals) is pretty easier, my sim is much more safer! When you're told to remove any loose articles of clothing or pocket items, so they don't go into the prop 24 inches behind you, the joy and safety of flight simulation comes back really quick. Especially, knowing that you have the ever faithful "RESTART" button in the sim. Besides, the Ultralight in FSX is really neat and I already paid for it...lol.
Best Regards,
John
Great story and happy you can tick that off the "Bucket List".
What a fantastic story. Thanks for sharing :)
Karl
Ultralights are great fun! Personally I hope to purchase one.