July 2022

A good turnout for the July meeting. It was nice to have a meeting without wind for a change. Wings are next and should take 250 hours to build on this Affordaplane.

James Bergman brought his completed Affordaplane fuselage to the meeting. His next step is building the wings and he’s estimating that it will take 250 hours. The plans are cheap $19.99 for the e-file and very detailed. The plans are easy to follow and one guy has over 40 videos detailing the process.

The Affordaplane is a Part 103 Ultralight Vehicle. You don’t need a medical to fly it and as long as it is under 254 lbs empty weight it does not need a registration. Note that it is not an aircraft so it is not subject to any of the rules in Part 91. It is subject to the same VFR cloud clearances a Part 91 aircraft and may only be operated between morning twilight and evening twilight. “No person may operate an ultralight vehicle over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons.” “All operations in Class A, Class B, Class C, and Class D airspace or Class E airspace designated for an airport must receive prior ATC authorization as required in § 103.17 of this part.” ADSB and transponders are not required, even when flying in areas where they would be required in Part 19 aircraft.

Dr Ken Starr is a newly minted AME located in Arroyo Grande who joined us at the meeting. We had an interesting discussion about medicals and BasicMed. I’ll email a list of local AMEs to everyone. I put up a post about medicals on the Touring Machine website.