Welcome to my Ultralight Hangar!

Just what the heck is an ultralight?

You may be asking yourself, "What the Heck is an ultralight, or a Max-103?"
Well...put simply, it is an ultralight aircraft constructed from wood and cloth. It is a rather neat little airplane. It looks like a real airplane, not one of the spidery tube and cloth structures you may have seen. Not that cloth and tube planes are bad, just that I prefer a little enclosure...to each his own.
Check out the Max-103 picture. Not mine, but mine will look similar.
* max 103 *

ISON Aircraft provided a nice video, and after watching it I ordered a vertical fin kit, with provided enough glue and wood parts to make the vertical fin. I was hooked, and ordered the tail section kit.

Why Build an Ultralight?

Fun! That's the best reason. Along with no pilot's license to be revoked by the FAA, low cost to operate  (most are cheaper to run that the family car!), easier to maintain and service, and they don't cost as much as the house. Ultralights are great ways for people to get into flying if they just want to have lots of fun. No license does not mean no training! Every year, yahoos get into ultralights and mangle up good planes for no reason. Some will pull it off, and some won't. You might get into a car for the first time and drive fine, but you might also drive into a bridge abutment. Planes are similar. With proper training, flying is a very safe activity. Check out accident stats below if you are scared. They are somewhat old, but they are the latest I could find.

Plane Safe flying

I wrote an  Access 98-based Airplane Construction Database. Keep track of construction logs, parts needed and parts bought from several different companies. It will help you figure out the cost to build, or find out where all the money went when you're done. May also be useful in providing FAA with those "detailed construction records". Help file included. Best of all its free, not shareware that you have to crack later. 560KB. Needs windows 95 or later, and Microsoft Access 98 or later. Download here . I only ask that if you update it and include some more options, please send me a copy of it.  

With that, check out my airplane shop! Construction is proceeding slowly, but steadily. For those of you accustomed to seeing the picture table, the pictures have been moved to their appropriate places in the construction journals. Some links are not active yet! I may not have gotten that far in construction or planning. THE PLANS LINK IS NOW ACTIVE!

Also check out my custom cheap-o Wing Stands You may have to shrink the blue prints down some to view, but I already shrank them as much as I could from the original scan. I got the plans from looking at the expensive version Aircraft Spruce sells. From the dimensions in the catalog, I figured out you can build the same stands with 5 two-by-fours, sixteen bucks worth of castors, three dollars worth of nylon lawn chair webbing, and the leftover tabletop piece after you pull apart your workbench (build the wings last and you can use the table pieces to build the whole thing!). Build these and save yourself a hundred bucks if you want. E-mail me for more info if you wish. As soon as I build mine, I will put up more photos and construction details.

I have been asked several times in what order did I build the parts. On my old page it was easier to figure out. The direct links below lead to the same places as on the picture above. The order was: 

Vertical Fin,
Empennage (tail area),
Wing Ribs,
Landing Gear,
Wings,
Fuselage,
Motor Area,
Panel. 
PLANS

There is a separate page for each item. . . 

HOUR COUNTER::: I have spent ··· ··· Hours building stuff.

PLEASE! Use my to mail me your thoughts or complaints on this page, links, or ultralights in general.