The plane itself is made of armored plastic in a combination of epoxy resin enforced with honeycomb, glass, carbon and Kevlar fibers. Featuring the same wing- and tail section aerodynamics as the Sinus and Taurus, Apis-Bee had a great gliding performance.Īll plastic parts are made in AFK, GFK and CFK technology while all main parts are LN certified. Web sites: The United States Ultralight Association features an instructor database the Experimental Aircraft Association‘s Sport Pilot page provides the latest news on the FAA initiative.Pipistrel APIS Apis/Bee is a single-seat middle-wing ultralight self-launching glider with T-shaped tail. Get a License: 20 hours of instruction (if the FAA passes the Sport Pilot initiative). “It’ll bring a lot more people who never thought they could be pilots into the sport,” says Joe Norris, senior aviation information specialist for the Experimental Aircraft Association, which supports the legislation.Ĭount me among them. Two notable benefits: The ability to carry passengers (currently, only instructors can do so) and get insurance.
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It will allow anyone with a driver’s license and 20 hours of instruction in sport aircraft (powered airborne vehicles weighing less than 1,232 pounds) to obtain a federal airman’s license. “It will glide safely to the ground even if the engine fails.”Īfter three hours I’m hooked, and even more excited by the prospect of the FAA’s Sport Pilot initiative. “But you don’t need it otherwise,” he says, reminding me that trikes evolved from hang gliders. To gain altitude, Beckenbach hits the gas to accelerate the prop.
Pulling the bar back levels the wing and accelerates the trike to 55 mph. Pushing the bar forward tips the wing up, causing it to catch more air and slow us down. Pushing the wing bar to the right and shifting our weight to the left, we execute a left turn. For them, the weight-shifting operation of trikes is entirely counterintuitive. Beckenbach says that his worst students are those with stick-and-rudder experience (in which left means left, and right actually means right). With the prop screaming behind us, he jams the accelerator pedal, and we roar down the grass runway: 20 mph, 30 mph, 40 mph–We’re flying! I strap into the backseat and secure my helmet Beckenbach tucks his feet into the tiny nose cone and pulls the cord to the propeller. No sooner do I arrive at the Finger Lakes Aerosport Park in Macedon, New York, than he escorts me to my ride: A Gibbogear BB trike with a Rotax 503 engine. My instructor, Martin Beckenbach, doesn’t waste any time. With just 20 hours of flight training, I might become an FAA certified pilot. All the more so now that the FAA is considering legislation that would regulate them and offer licenses to their operators for the first time. Minimalist in nature, and easy to fly, these go-cart-style aircraft are fast becoming the Everyman’s avenue into motorized flight. Whatever the reason, I can’t believe this bare-bones contraption stays aloft, or that I’m the one flying it.īut that’s the beauty of a trike. Or maybe it’s simply the glaring lack of aeronautical controls in what passes for the cockpit. Maybe it’s that not a pane of glass or sheaf of steel separates us from the sky beyond. Maybe it’s that the minuscule plane I’m flying is almost entirely obscured by just two sets of legs (mine and my instructor’s). Without so much as a pane of glass separating pilot from sky, trikes offer an extraordinarily palpable sense of speed.
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