{"id":5027,"date":"1999-12-28T10:11:17","date_gmt":"1999-12-28T16:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/?p=5027"},"modified":"2023-12-25T10:12:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T16:12:20","slug":"faq-training_","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/?p=5027","title":{"rendered":"FAQ – Training_"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
Question:\u00a0<\/span>Where can I get training “around here” to fly an ultralight?<\/span><\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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Answer:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Training is critical if you expect to\u00a0safely<\/u> fly an ultralight. \u00a0Unfortunately, the new (as of 2010) FAA rules have done away with legal ultralight (UL) training aircraft.
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Not since January 31, 2010 have there been any legal<\/u> 2-seat ultralight trainers out there.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On or before that date, instructors that owned a UL trainer had a choice: either convert the UL trainer to an experimental LSA, or continue to use it as a UL trainer until 2010 (at which point it becames useless).<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Consequently, to be trained to fly ultralights, your only real choice is to take lessons in a Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) as a student Sport Pilot (SP).<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n

The minimum hours that most competent UL training required was 10 hours.\u00a0 Sport Pilot (SP) training takes a minimum of 20 hours, so to get a full SP license would be roughly twice what you were going to spend on UL training.\u00a0 And, renting an LSA during training will probably cost more than what a UL instructor would charge for using his UL trainer, so, maybe the cost is 2.5 times more. But even if the financial requirements were the same, there\u2019s another problem.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The FAA rule, by essentially eliminating 2-seat UL trainers, has also eliminated most of the trainers that would provide you with training in an aircraft with the same flight envelope and characteristics that you\u2019ll find with most ultralights.\u00a0 In other words, you can get trained in an LSA, but the chances are that LSA won\u2019t fly anything like a Quicksilver, Challenger or Phantom.\u00a0 And this is the biggest hole in the new FAA rules.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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So, what can you do?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Good or bad, here are the most realistic choices:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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1) Get your student Sport Pilot (SP) certificate<\/u>; it\u2019s free at your local FSDO (a FSDO stands for: Flight Standards District Office, which is a locally affiliated field office of the US FAA.)<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n2) Find a local SP instructor (see links below, and try Google for all the local flight schools)<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n3) Inform the instructor your primary interest is in flying ultralights and ask if they have a UL-style trainer. \u00a0(They will try<\/u> to talk you into a Sport Pilot training program\u2026 and that\u2019s okay if that\u2019s what you want, but if you only want UL-style training, then insist on it.)<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n4) If they don\u2019t want to train you, or if they don’t have a UL-style LSA, then you can continue to ask around at other schools, troll the Internet UL email lists\/forums\/Facebook for possibilities, or, most likely, just accept the training as they offer it.<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n5) If you get trained in a slippery LSA then keep in mind that, upon completing that training, you will need to find someone who owns a 2-seat experimental LSA (i.e., an ex-2-seat UL trainer) with flight characteristics similar to the UL you\u2019re interested in, and try to get them to let you go fly with them.\u00a0 Maybe they\u2019ll even let you take over the controls a bit.\u00a0 (I say “need”… no, you don’t need<\/i> to do this step, but it’s highly recommended.\u00a0 A lot of pilots trained in more slippery aircraft will jump into an ultralight and, on their first landing, will stall too high and crash the UL.\u00a0 Many ULs are very draggy.)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t even have to finish the SP course\u2026 just take the ground school, then take enough hours until you solo.\u00a0 At that point, you will have had at least as much training as you would in the UL schools of the good-ol\u2019-days.\u00a0 Extra training is never a bad thing, and you\u2019ll be more than half-way to a Sport Pilot certificate\u2026 \u00a0and I would encourage you to finish.\u00a0 After all, while it\u2019s legal to fly a UL without training, it\u2019s a bad idea.\u00a0 Plus, you\u2019ll learn about airspaces, \u00a0what you can and cannot do, and a lot of other good information.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth it!\u00a0 It’s also a really good idea to become very<\/i> familiar with FAR 103 — the ultralight air vehicle rules.\u00a0 (They may not cover them in SP training.)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This process isn\u2019t the quickest, but it\u2019s probably the safest approach for learning to fly a UL in today\u2019s regulatory environment.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Two good sources for instructors are the EAA and USUA websites:<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

EAA Find An UL Instructor<\/a>
\n<\/b>
\n<\/b><\/span>http:\/\/www.usua.org\/SportPilot\/FAA.html<\/span><\/a><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

… or simply do a Google search on “LSA training near me” or “LSA instructors near me”.<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question:\u00a0Where can I get training “around here” to fly an ultralight? Answer:\u00a0\u00a0 Training is critical if you expect to\u00a0safely fly an ultralight. \u00a0Unfortunately, the new (as of 2010) FAA rules have done away with legal ultralight (UL) training aircraft. Not since January 31, 2010 have there been any legal 2-seat ultralight trainers out there. On … Continue reading FAQ – Training_<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faq"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5028,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027\/revisions\/5028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.texas-flyer.com\/newblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}