Answers Given

In the October '02 issue of Ultralight Flying! magazine in "Industry Watch," news about the Nebulus ­ an emergency flotation system for powered parachutes ­ was released.*

Since then, discussions about the best way to "crash-land" into water have circulated in the ultralight community with some resulting possible bad advice. Nebulus manufacturer JTW Associates has released the following info.

"There has been some discussion in the ultralight community regarding water crash landings of powered parachutes," says JTW Associates contact John Weinel. "Recently it was written that a pilot should unbuckle prior to hitting the water so that he or she could dive forward into the water upon impact. In our ongoing crash-testing of the Nebulus flotation device, we found that in each case the powered parachute flipped over immediately upon impact in a spectacular crash. Any pilot not harnessed would have been thrown into the front of the craft and injured or killed.

"Some have also theorized that it is proper procedure to leave the lap belt buckled and undo the shoulder harness [prior to crashing]. We believe this would be equally dangerous, as the crash would propel the pilot's head forward.

"In our crash-testing the powered parachute traveled forward in the water only 5 feet after the rear wheels impacted, and the inertia of the crashing aircraft immediately flipped it over upside down in the water.

"The Nebulus device is designed to be inflated while the powered parachute is still in the air at an altitude of 500 to 1,000 feet. The device slowly inflates a lifting bag capable of supplying temporary emergency flotation for the submerged aircraft, which remains tethered to the lifting bag. The lifting bag holds 9 cubic feet of inflated CO2, and has little effect on flight."

*See "Industry Watch: Buckeye Powered Parachute Test-Crashed into Water," October '02 Ultralight Flying! magazine

The PHASST ­ designed to carry a paratrooper or skydiver flying in a prone, head forward position ­ has been described as something you wear rather than something you ride. It is contoured to fit the pilot, with the pilot's arms and legs fitting into recesses in the fuselage.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's James Bond on a Kinetic Aerospace PHASST ­ the Programmable High Altitude Single Soldier Transport. PHASST designer Jack McCornack, whose other design credits include the Pterodactyl line of ultralights and numerous powered parachutes, confirmed that the aircraft in the new James Bond movie advertisements and movie trailer were indeed PHASSTs.

"We've been sworn to secrecy since we landed the contract," says McCornack. "That's what we do at Kinetic Aerospace, we do secret stuff. However, with PHASSTs showing up on television, I'd say the cat's out of the bag. So yeah, they're ours."

A story on the PHASST appeared in the September '01 issue of Ultralight Flying! magazine,* but little has been leaked since then. "We even took the photos off the kineticaero space.com Website," McCornack says, "but they'll go back up once the movie is out."

As this issue went to press, Die Another Day, the 20th James Bond film, was slated to be in theaters on November 22. McCornack, who pens the popular "Skywriter" column in Ultralight Flying!, assures us we will have the full story immediately after the release date.

Flight Safety Information Dispensed

A new dot com company is on its way to the Internet. Called UFlySafe, this Website plans to distribute ultralight safety information in video and text format to the general public for free.

"If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then maybe video is worth 1,000 pictures," says Barbara Chambers, in charge of UFlySafe business operations and marketing. "We don't just write about flight safety, we actually show you."

UFlySafe was born from a perceived lack of free quality flight safety information for ultralight pilots. "There is a lot of great information out there, and we want to pull all that info together in one place," explains Chambers. "Websites are the best way to get all the flight safety issues in one place and out to the public for free." She notes that the UFlySafe staff includes an ultralight flight instructor and an ultralight mechanic. "That's a great combination of knowledge and experience. It's like having your very own flight instructor and mechanic looking over your shoulder, helping you along. You should be able to go back and forth, from your ultralight to the videos on your computer, or to the text files provided, and back to your ultralight."

It is recommended that users have high-speed Internet access such as cable or DSL when visiting the Website. "We recommend this so the user can view the video files in a reasonable length of time," explains Chambers. "Most people have cable TV or a telephone line in their homes already, and it's now very easy to add high-speed cable or DSL Internet access to their existing service. If you are using a regular telephone line connection, you can still print the text files, but the video files will take too long to download."

If you can download the files, you can build your own fight safety digital library consisting of downloaded video and printed text. "There would be HTML text files that accompany each video clip," says Chambers. "After the text files are printed, they could be placed in a 3-ring binder ­ a feature I really like. With all that information right at your fingertips, whenever pilots need information on a particular subject, they can go to their hard-copy resource quickly."

For those pilots who don't have computers, the company will be offering CD-ROMS or DVDs for sale.

A Challenge Met

Assembling things that require "only basic hand tools" can end up being daunting tasks. Just ask the parent trying to assemble a bicycle or a dollhouse, or ask the first-time aircraft builder.

Now take away the use of one hand and see how hard the most rudimentary movements become. Buttoning a shirt, preparing a pot of coffee, or tightening a screw can turn into marathon situations. But it's "no big deal" for the person with an open mind and the will to do things differently.

"It was a challenge, to be honest with you," confesses George Haley. "I initially suffered from delusions of grandeur, and thought, Well it's going to be no big deal, I can do this." "This" was assembling a single-seat Phantom ultralight with the added challenge of having only one hand.

"For about 2 years I looked at different planes and settled on [the Phantom]," says Haley. "I wanted an ultralight with cross-country capability, yet I want to go low and slow if I wanted to. I wanted a company that had been in business for a while so if I needed some assistance or a part, it would be there. And I wanted a company where if I picked up the phone ­ as I did 100 times ­ they would not say, 'Oh, it's you again. What do you want'?"

"I purchased the Phantom at a fly-in and a couple of months later they delivered it. I leased a hangar, unpacked the boxes, laid everything out on the floor, and thought, What did I get myself into? My kids said, 'Oh Dad, you can't do this'. And of course I said, 'This is no big deal, this is easy stuff'."

The first thing Haley had to do was design some special tools. He purchased 15 different vice grips and modified them so they were offset so he could clamp each bolt. "Where it might take you a minute to put a bolt in, sometimes it took me 10 minutes," says Haley. "But through rigging and all types of weird ways, I did it. I can't think of anything on [the plane] that I actually couldn't do. Sometimes I would be in the hangar at 2 in the morning looking at the thing and wonder, How the heck am I going to do this? Sometimes it was like building a whole stack of stuff and putting weights in certain areas to hold things in place.

"Of course the 150-hour [assembly] time didn't apply to me. I started assembling [the Phantom] in March 2000 and I basically completed it around December 2001. I'm guessing that I put close to between 800 and 900 hours into this. And I had the advantage too that I could pick up the phone and call the company for technical advice. But the real challenge was devising ways of accomplishing what normally would have been a simple task. So that was the time-consuming aspect of it. Amazingly one went with 2 went with 3 went with 4. And before I knew it I had what looked like a frame to an airplane. And things kept getting attached to it and then there it was."

A state police officer in Colorado for a number of years, Haley lost his left hand when he was shot with a shotgun. "The amazing thing that came out of that whole incident was before I thought if you lost one of your hands, what would you do? The most fascinating thing to me was that I could do anything; I could do everything. I just have to do it differently. Like putting a nut on a bolt meant that I had to devise a way to clamp that bolt to whatever it was going to adhere itself to then put the nut on. Then maybe put a second clamp on the head of it so I could tighten it down so there were counter forces going both ways."

Then came the throttle. Haley laughs when he says he designed 600 different ones, but he had a problem: he couldn't pull the throttle back. "Normally a throttle moves forward and back," he explains. "Well I could move it forward but I couldn't pull it back. So I thought I would turn the throttle quadrant sideways then I could lift it up and down by sticking what's left of my arm in there and move it up and down. But the small, quite complex thing that I had to solve was how to bring that throttle cable in at a 90° angle. On a normal throttle it comes straight in but if you turn the throttle quadrant sideways then you have to bring that cable in at a 90° angle.

"I thought of everything from wearing a special jacket with a cable attached to the jacket to where I could just move my elbow back and it would retract it, to quite complex contraptions that I would go to a machine shop and ask them, 'How would you do this'? And they'd say, 'We can do it this way' and devise something, and then that wouldn't work.

"Then I went to the engineering department at Michigan State University and let the grad students dink around with the problem. They could come up with mechanisms, but they really couldn't be converted to my use."

Finally Haley devised a way to manipulate the throttle. "Picture a potato chip tube cut straight down the middle," says Haley. "I could lay my arm in it and it would be attached to the throttle handle and then I had stops at both ends of that tube so if I pushed my arm forward it moved it forward, and if I pulled it back my elbow pushed it back. That seemed to work the best."

Haley is updating that with ball-bearing rails "like a drawer that rides on a rail. I've already designed it and am in the process of building it."

No other modifications were needed for Haley to be able to fly his Phantom. "My other hand works good, my feet work good, that throttle was the only thing that I used my left hand for," Haley says.

At 53, Haley works out of the court system as an investigator in Ingham County, Michigan. Married "to a very supportive wife" and the father of three college-age children, Haley still finds time to help raise funds for his club's sponsored scholarships awarded each year at the local community college, and of course to fly. "I really enjoy the camaraderie of being around the different guys at Mason airport where I'm hangared," says Haley. "I have about 20 hours on the Phantom now.

"I wish I had done something extraordinary, but I did it under a different set of circumstances and did it a different way. I'd like to really emphasize that anything can be done. You may have to stand on your head to do it, but go stand on your head. And get it done. It was just a different way of going about doing something," Haley insists modestly.

­Sharon Wilcox

Airframes Unlimited and Powered Parachute Plans

Airframes Unlimited manufactures both single-seat and 2-seat powered parachutes for budget-minded ultralighters. "Our lowest-priced single-seat powered parachute is $6,995," the company notes. "And our lowest-priced 2-seater (pictured) is $9,595." Both models come completely assembled and ready to fly (or you can buy the plans and do everything yourself).

Ultralighting started at the inexpensive end of aviation, and for some budget-minded ultralight pilots, their ultralighting has stayed there. It's the primary reason they fly ultralights ­ the rest of aviation is just too expensive. And even ultralighting can be costly, if you must have the latest and greatest.

There are, however, still some ultralight companies that see a significant market at the very inexpensive end of aviation. For powered parachute aficionados, Airframes Unlimited and sister company Powered Parachute Plans ­ both owned by Don and Clint Stutts of Athens, Texas (just south of Dallas) ­ are examples of companies targeting budget-minded ultralighters. "Our companies' goal is to make powered parachuting more affordable to the average working man," says Don Stutts. "We are living in an era where $15,000 to $20,000 powered parachutes are common. Powered parachutes in this price range are completely out of reach of an average working man, even with creative financing."

"Our lowest-priced single-seat powered parachute is $6,995," Airframes Unlimited notes. "And our lowest-priced 2-seater is $9,595." Both models come completely assembled and ready to fly, according to the company. Airframes Unlimited offers powered parachute models from a Part 103-compliant single-seater to a 2-seater featuring side-by-side seating and rudder pedals.

Or you can buy the plans from Powered Parachute Plans and build your powered parachute from scratch, obtaining the materials and doing the parts manufacturing and assembly yourself. Constructing an aircraft from plans may save you the most money, but it can require much more time (sometimes hundreds of hours more time) and effort.

Airframes Unlimited claims "hundreds of our powered parachutes are flying around the world, and have been for years."

Note: "Powered Parachute Plans does all business by e-mail, with no phone contact at all," Don Stutts says. "We answer every e-mail received, every day. No one has to wait for a reply from us." Stutts indicates that Airframes Unlimited does use a telephone to assist serious customers. "We learned the hard way that there are a million 'wanna-bes' out there who will keep you on the phone until you go broke, and never spend a dime with you," Don Stutts says. "Our phone time is valuable and reserved for [assisting] serious customers only." Time is money, as the saying goes, and a company efficient with its time may save money and thereby be able to offer lower prices to its customers.

Neither company has a fax number.

- Buzz Chalmers

New Apex Hubs Now, New Blades Later

Powerfin's new Apex series propeller hubs are manufactured on a Haas VF-4 CNC vertical milling station (shown here), using the same method "used by many aerospace companies to make stator vanes for jet engines and tail rotors for helicopters," Powerfin says. Apex hubs are available in 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-blade configurations.

Composite prop maker Powerfin has developed new Apex series propeller hubs. The new hubs were designed and developed using Solidworks and Mastercam CAD/CAM software, according to Powerfin, and are manufactured "on a brand-new Haas VF-4 CNC vertical milling station," Powerfin notes.

"I bought the machine to finish a 3-year research project, developing a very consistent method of producing blades that is currently being used by many aerospace companies to make stator vanes for jet engines and tail rotors for helicopters," explains Powerfin president Stuart Gort. "Apex hubs result from that research. We can sell them now because the Powerfin propeller blades we currently make can fit the new hubs with only a slight field modification [required]."

Apex hubs are available in 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-blade configurations, and offer "unparalled quality, balance and appearance" the company says. "Gort is now finalizing his work on a new molding process," the company adds, "and hopes to release the first new blade planform before 2003."

Prices for Powerfin's Apex propeller hubs are: 2-blade, $150; 3-blade, $175; 4-blade, $200; and 5-blade, $225. Powerfin hub assemblies include the mounting hardware for the Rotax A, B, C or E gearbox, or the Hirth gearbox, according to Powerfin.