Video for people who don't know anything about aircraft, in this case microlights (Spain)

I lived in Spain (Andalusia) for some years, before and during the financial crisis and have been flying there since the late 90s. I think the move to ULs started way before the financial crisis, but was certainly accelerated by it. One – big – reason is that even before AENA decided to jack up the various fees, the weren’t (and aren’t) many airports in Spain. Contrast that with the large number of UL fields. Second of course is the wx: you can – mostly – go anywhere in Spain (perhaps excepting the north coast) in day VFR pretty much year-round. No need for an IR if you just want to fly for fun – which is what 99% of people do. That said, I know a couple of guys who regularly flew to business meetings in Madrid or Barcelona in their ULs.

First of all there are BIG differences between the basic and top end ultralights and this is why most people are still sceptic.
In Belgium, France,… it’s very hard to rent a top end ultralight, this means if you want to fly a nice ultralight you need to buy it.

They are more expensive to buy, but a lot less expensive to fly. To me they are a lot more fun to fly too (depending on your mission of course). The speeds are comparable to other planes, but with half of the fuel consumption so 1/4 of the fuel price. Some people say other planes go faster, but you need to compare apples with apples, a VL3 or WT9 with retractable gear will do 140KT (18-20liter fuel flow). Add a turbo and you can fly next to @Peter.

If you are ok with max 2 persons, and you fly VFR only, there is almost no reason not to fly ultralight.
I agree for now the luggage is very limited, but when 600 will become real, this will not be an issue anymore.

Most “airplane people” in Belgium still not agree, but in the meanwhile we fly circles around pipes, or join up in formation with 14liter / hour fuel flow :)

BTW: This doesn’t mean I agree with the lower level of training that is currently required to fly advanced ultralights compared to ‘airplanes’.

Some pictures from last weekend:

The TB20 is not that quick

Getting back to Spain, if a big USP of the UL scene is to fly from small local strips, are these “€200k” planes ok with that? On a casual look the rectractables look like they need a reasonable surface.

BTW I don’t get “with half of the fuel consumption so 1/4 of the fuel price” unless the fuel is also cheaper per litre i.e. you are burning car petrol, brought from a petrol station in jerrycans. Or of course Jet-A1

Peter wrote:

Getting back to Spain, if a big USP of the UL scene is to fly from small local strips, are these “€200k” planes ok with that? On a casual look they look like they need a reasonable surface.

This is not a problem for these planes, all planes in the picture above are based at a 600m grass strip in Belgium.
Last sunday we flew to Maillen, Orchimont and Cerfontaine in Belgium, all grass strips with a length between 250 and 700m.

About the 200k price tag: I agree this is getting ridiculous, but this is only because the demand is so high, for a VL3/WT9 you need to wait over 12 months and they produce about 4 / month. 5 to 10 years ago you could buy the same plane for 30-50k less (minus some fancy avionics).

Peter wrote:

BTW I don’t get “with half of the fuel consumption so 1/4 of the fuel price” unless the fuel is also cheaper per litre i.e. you are burning car petrol, brought from a petrol station in jerrycans. Or of course Jet-A1

In our local club we indeed use 98 from the local fuel station, we have local storage for this, the current price is 1,58 Euro / liter. On most day trips there is no need for us to fuel somewhere else, most ultralights take between 75 and 120 liters, which means at least 4h – 6,5h range. When we go on a longer trip we need to take Avgas or UL91 (which is most of the time a bit cheaper). On my last trip to italy I could still fuel Mogas on 2 occasions. This Mogas is more expensive than the fuel we have at home, but still a lot cheaper compared to the local Avgas.

For reference; Avgas in Belgium costs around 2,2 Euro for the moment, UL91 2,1 Euro and 98 1,58 Euro.

BTW: I know that not everybody can or should switch to an ultralight, I’m just saying that they are more capable (the high-end) than most people think. It’s a pitty that they don’t have a good reputation, I think mostly because of the lack of training (in the past?).

salvavidal wrote:

but money is main reason, to get PPL license price start with 7000 euros, UL license price start in 1500 euros,

I don’t see how you can learn to fly for 1500 Euro. The base brice for the PPL license contains 45h flight time because it’s mandatory, most UL schools use ridiculous low prices in their marketing because no minimum hours are mandatory, I don’t think there was ever one person that actually got his license for 1500 Euro.

jvdo wrote:

…because no minimum hours are mandatory

Depends on the country as UL regulations are national matters. Sweden requires 20 hours minimum unless you have previous flight experience.

Airborne_Again wrote:

Depends on the country as UL regulations are national matters. Sweden requires 20 hours minimum unless you have previous flight experience.

In Belgium no minimum is required to pass the exam, but you need to fly 30h solo in order to take passengers.

NPPL (microlight) restricted licence is 15 hours in the UK.

Biggest problem I have with the microlight is largely historical. People know of the PPL and nothing else.

I agree with @aart on the basic reasons for the demise.

Having said that there is now some consciousness that this is a problem and some initiatives are timidly starting to take place with impact on Spain’s GA:

-Extension of formerly restricted opening hours at somer AENA airports
-Change in AESA piston engine OH requirements
-Change in EU regs for non-commercial ELA1 & ELA2

All in all too little too late. If there really was a political will to help GA, perhaps the biggest thing that could be done at EU level at this stage would be the elimination of fuel tax for GA. I am certain that the overall (ie beyond aviation) economical impact would be positive. How to politically build a case for that is the real problem, but there are euro-lobbying experts in this forum too.

As to efficiency…I have to brag a bit: our under-$200k part-23 aircraft uses three times as much fuel per hour as a 140ktas -20lph UL (is the latter really true?) , but carries over three times the payload for the same range of the UL, while doing it faster, higher and with more wx flexibility, and still being able to operate from 600m grass strips. If fuel price were the same, total trip fuel costs per kg would be around the same. The penalty is of course that total trip fuel costs are still the same when I just fly my 80kg-self around, so if you don’t fly with family or friends it is not economically justified.

In any case economy is only half of the reason, the other half is the hassle factor of all the items discussed. If there is a third half, it has to be that there has been some self-inflicted damage with the arrogant, hierarchical and anti-social attitudes at some GA organizations (clubs, schools, forums…) that has also been talked about here, that has scared quite a few away, and that for some reason seems to be much less preminent in the UL world.