Who needs training? Just buy a microlight and take off, what could go wrong?

[gordonquinn]

Stumbled on this on youtube, what a bunch of total :mad:.

Microlight trike Crash!!! - YouTube (http://youtu.be/sUvZeWmFyHU)

By the look of things, they had no real flying experience and no idea how to fly the thing, they just bought a microlight and thought this will be funny ....

I swear they probably have no idea how lucky they were it didnt take off properly, the guy surely would have died.

[Pace]

They should have bought a Cirrus with the chute you dont need training in those either:E (only a windup)

Saw this clip before

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

So the story goes chap lands at exeter caa happen to be on the apron and note the lovely tail wheeler that has just parked.

Being hospitable they wander over and express their admiration of the beautiful machine, clearly well kept and pristine.

Inevitably they get chatting to the pilot and eventually happen to ask where he learnt to fly.

We be teach me self he sayz

You do have a licence, dont you

Ess i do, i ave a licence to drive the tractor, so i figure if its good enuf for that its good enuf for this

And where do you have it maintained

Well ess i do that as well, ess do the tractor you see

And why are you here

Well that great dobeck farm boy of mine he forgot to fill up the cans so before i could check the cows i had to fill her up here ye see.

10 years of aerial cow checking never an accident entirely self taught.

True story i gather.

[mad_jock]

You can laugh but as a ATPL holder with a SEP rating there is nothing stopping me legaly jumping in a weight shift microlight and having a go.

In fact I even know someone that did that with a EBay special.

Took him 3 approaches and a new pair of pants to get it back on the ground.

[Noah Zark.]

If my (fading) memory serves me correctly, when hangliders/microlight aircraft first came into being, it was not a requisite to have a licence, the authorities being very brave and tried to let things run for a while to see how it worked out.
However circumstances (namely the rapidly increasing accident rate) soon brought about the legislation we now all enjoy!

[chevvron]

That was definitely the case in the USA and may still be. The thinking was, fly at your own risk but you better have good insurance 'cos if you crash and cause a lot of damage, you're gonna need it.

[Dg800]

If my (fading) memory serves me correctly, when hangliders/microlight aircraft first came into being, it was not a requisite to have a licence, the authorities being very brave and tried to let things run for a while to see how it worked out.

When hang-gliders (first powerless, then powered trikes) first came into being they simply didn't exist and kept "not existing" for a while, as far as the regulations were concerned. They weren't certified aircraft, so the applicable legislation did not apply to them, but there were as yet no sets of rules specific for "non-certified aircraft". This included of course the flight crew licensing aspects. This state of affairs didn't last very long in most European countries. :=

Ciao,

Dg8000

[cockney steve]

further to dg800

the early Rogallo hang-gliders were invented in USA an English aeromodeller of my aquaintance experimented with some large bamboo poles and Ex-War-Department fabric. His eventual practical design was sold in kit-form through adverts in "Exchange and Mart" - best described as a paper predecessor to "fleabay".
Some time down the line, the business became "Skyhook" and produced many aircraft.

The owner was Len Gabriels,- A keen dinghy sailor and great orator, he once gave a lecture explaining just how much an inch of bilge water would degrade a dinghy's performance.

and, yes, he said the regulators were so hidebound that the innovators could run rings around them. Tales of early powered hang-glider experiments were enthralling. great bloke,deserved his success. and most of it self-taught from public library.

[Fuji Abound]

I thought it was Hiway Hang Gliders based in Sussex and then moved to Wales or a similar name with a few others in the early days in an around Brighton.

Does my memory deceive me?

[ShyTorque]

In the early to mid 1970s there were no UK regulations or formal tuition for hang gliders. On new year's day 1975 I stood on a steep hill in the Peak district, having been offered a go on a Rogallo belonging to someone we'd met up there a few weeks before. A friend desperately wanted to go first. So I stood back and let him. I held the front rigging while he got himself strapped in and ready. Fifteen seconds after launch, he was entangled in the wreckage of the glider at the bottom of the hill. :ooh:

Put me off the idea, really.

[PompeyPaul]

Did the Exeter cow guy get knicked?

[RTN11]

This has been on the boards before, and linked to this one:

Stupid man attempts to fly a helicopter with no experience - YouTube

[Sleeping]

Remind me, who was it that taught, and licensed the Wright brothers to fly?

Maybe, just maybe, we are a little over regulated perchance?

[abgd]

I think I'm right in saying that it's still perfectly legal to strap on a hang-glider and jump off a cliff with no training. On of my hang-gliding buddies had a high-performance glider that had previously been in a fatal accident where a man with no training attached a power harness and took off straight into some power lines.

I have a vague memory of a newspaper story about a spitfire pilot who made off with his son's flexwing, and came back safe and sound. c. 1990

The Wright brothers were eminently sensible, read books, talked to people, made tethered flights, and I'm sure would have taken training had it been on offer. I always think it remarkable that only one of them died in a plane crash.

[what next]

I always think it remarkable that only one of them died in a plane crash.

None of them died in a plane crash! Wilbur: typhoid fever, Orville: heart attack

[Fuji Abound]

Did the Exeter cow guy get knicked?

Apparently not, so I am told. I suspect there were certain technical aspects to the case that made a prosecution umh difficult.

[astir 8]

Although neither Orville nor Wilbur died in accidents, I seem to remember reading that when they went commercial with their flying machines they hired a group of "salesmen" who were presumably trained to fly (by the Wrights, who else?). Virtually all were killed.:sad:

err.............

[peterh337]

Exeter cow?

[Dg800]

Read post number 3.

[peterh337]

If e.g. the CAA could not find witnesses to his flying then they could not get him.

IANAL but I would think that a casual remark to a CAA employee that you did something would be vulnerable to a later retraction.

I mean, it's not as if 100% of what people say in aviation is copper bottomed truth :E:E:E

If I wrote on here that I flew under Tower Bridge last night, they would not be able to get me for it.

[Dg800]

Exactly. People do take blame even for heinous crimes such as murder even though they have not actually committed them, for all sorts of reasons. Independent verification such as witness testimony or forensic evidence is always required, convicting only on the basis of an unverifiable confession is pretty hard.
On the other hand, if he had been so stupid as to take off again in front of the CAA inspector then he would have been most definitely screwed. I suspect he was not as dumb as the story makes him sound... :ok:

Ciao,

Dg800

[RTN11]

Remind me, who was it that taught, and licensed the Wright brothers to fly?

True, but they did meticulous calculations, tests, and theoretical work before they went anywhere near the beach to actually test fly the thing.

Since then many test pilots have risked, and lost their lives building the knowledge we now have.

There is no need these days to take stupid risks which could easily of killed one of those lads, if they'd even read a book or asked someone for advice they could've had a lot more fun and actually gone flying.

[cockney steve]

FUJI,

Back in the day, the CAA were well and truly caught with their pants round their ankles. Despite any protestations to the contrary,they were REactive (slowly) not PROactive (nowt changes)

A large number of "baby-boom" kids were into aeromodelling,yours truly included.
Len Gabriels was just such a man and assembled his original prototype "hang-glider" in a school gymnasium during meetings ofthe local aeromodelling club. there"was" a website with a photo of him launching a single-channel R/C model...he was a rich kid back then!

No doubt he wasn't the only englishman tosee/hear about the Rogallo experiments in the States, so your info. may well be correct.

We take it forgranted nowadays,that dissemination of thoughts, ideas and information with a wide audience,is virtually instantaneous, courtesy of the Interweb.

Back then, a reporter/journo. would first have to hear the rumour...then track down the truth and submit his piece.....with a bit of luck an article would make "aeromodeller"in 6-9 weeks...then,replies to the article would take the same again....contacting the subject- person, via the publisher, could be done "quickly" if you were well-off enough to have a telephone, but you'd still have to go via the magazine,as it would have been extreme bad manners to give out another's telephone number or address,without prior approval.

So, quite likely a lot of people started around the same time in this new sport
Eventually, authority caught up, regulation followed and a lot of the fly-by-nights went off to pastures new.

I have a great affinity with those who cite the Wrights and their suck it and see approach..yes I think over-regulation is stifling innovation.

The good thing about training, is it saves the tyro from making all the mistakes that their predecessors made....what it should do is dramatically shorten the learning-curve ...you are effectively buying experience.

Shy, that made I larf!...perhaps it WAS Len! his first one. iirc, involved the"pilot" and 2 "wing-men" All galloped down the hillside until the "sail" lifted enough to support itself....unfortunately, the Aviator didn't have enough stamina/a steep enough "runway" to make a proper flight in/on/under the Mk.1
but the potential was there and he went back to the drawing-board.

[Dawdler]

Going back to the original youtube, I note that the aircraft concerned had it's registration cancelled by the CAA over twenty years ago. It didn't (initially) look as though it had spent that time in the back of the barn, so perhaps it has been flying in the interim.

[ShyTorque]

Shy, that made I larf!...perhaps it WAS Len! his first one. iirc, involved the"pilot" and 2 "wing-men" All galloped down the hillside until the "sail" lifted enough to support itself....unfortunately, the Aviator didn't have enough stamina/a steep enough "runway" to make a proper flight in/on/under the Mk.1
but the potential was there and he went back to the drawing-board.

This accident was caused when my friend Dicky ran down the hill and somehow got himself a negative angle of attack on the sail. The faster he ran, the heavier the load he was supporting and the more it forced him faster down the hill. A vicious circle.

When the hill levelled out, Dicky didn't. The nose dug in hard and over he went. He suffered some injuries, but none too serious. However, The glider was badly bent and I thought at first he was probably dead! :eek:

[FerrypilotDK]

I remember translating the instruction manual for a neighbours who had built one. I explained all the cautions and suggested that he paint a circle on the ground and tell everyone to remain outside while he started.

As hewas getting the wing rotated (by hand) his brother thought "I will help out!"

I had SPECIFICALLY warned against this, as while the pilot is getting to the point of rotating the wing, to 1 push per second at the hub, the tips are blasting past at a couple hundred km/h.......so his brother cut his hand off!

Due to the accident, the neighbour sold to a SAS captain......I offered to talk to him before his first flight and was rebuffed with the "I have 5000 hours in a MD 80, what can YOU tell ME?"

Needless to say, he over-rotated, was blasting into the air, panic and pushed the controls hard forward, sending the gyro into a lake. Luckily, as it saved his life, if not his pride......