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From: bryan@fluke.UUCP (Bryan Sparrowhawk)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: heresay about ultralights
Message-ID: <812@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 17:42:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax2.812
Posted: Wed Jul 10 17:42:16 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 09:39:46 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
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> From ned@SCIRTP.UUCP (Ned Robie) Wed Jun 26 17:27:14 1985
> Subject: Re: Ultralight advice sought

> I don't know much about ultralights except what I saw in a news program
> about 2 years ago (60 minutes?).  It reported distressing fatality
> statistics (even for "expert" pilots) and went on and on about how
> incredibly unsafe they are.  Then they capped the program off with
> a TV newsreel in which one of the TV reporters got in an ultralight
> (with little if any training), taxied around for a while to get the "feel",
> took off, climbed to a very deadly altitude, then stalled it.  The
> thing just fell... you could see the pilot struggling (in vain)
> and then he just jumped to his death (they showed that too).  I'll
> never forget it.

I am always disappointed when someone swallows the "message" that is
conveyed on one of those "Entertainment disguised as News" programs
such as '60 minutes' and '20/90'.  The comment about watching the guy
falling to his death is no doubt warranted ... I felt the same way when
I watched it ..BUT .. the story that '20/90' conveyed about that
incident AND all of the other aspects of the program were more than
just misleading and inaccurate.

Here is what was, for the most part, not said:

    The guy that fell, was in training.  He was a TV newperson out looking
    for a sensational story.  He (his estate) got a sensational story!

    He was only at the taxi stage of his training.  He did not strap
    himself into the machine.  In his impatience, he left the ground
    without the permission of his instructors.  He caused the machine
    to break up with a maneuver analogous to driving a car into a brick
    wall.  (I have flown the same type of machine at speeds under
    60mph, it is not fragile or unstable in the least  ... oh yes, and
    I "stalled it" and my 'estate' is not writing this article.)  He
    was thrown from the machine because he was not strapped in (it
    didn't matter anyway other than pure testament to his negligence).

    Autopsy indicated a high level of barbiturates (I think that was the
    stuff) in his system.

    To reuse the phrase ... Poetic Justice !  It was a perfect fit ...
    watch a newsperson in the act of sensationalizing .. and watch
    '20/90' commit cannibalism, in true form.

    The other interviews were a video tape analogy to a ransom note cut
    out of newsprint and pasted together to say what the producer
    wanted to portray.  (Does this surprise you?  I hope not!)  All of
    the interviews that communicated death and destruction were slashed
    up tape of people that were Pro ultralight ... the interviewers
    were said to have "asked the same question a hundred different ways
    until the person said enough words that could be rearranged."  This
    includes the guy who was paralyzed from the belt down ... who
    confesses it was a dumb dumb mistake on his part that caused it,
    and if he were in a car making the same magnitude of mistake the
    results would have been similar.


I have been flying ultralights for three years now, and my closest call was
when I nearly collided with a horse when I was driving out to the field to
play with my flying wing!

...sorry to hear that '20/90' did exactly what they wanted, brainwash!


Miscellaneous:
    Nader is no longer credible.  He had a good thing going once and now he
    is trying to get out of hand.  Aviation is now safer than most forms of
    transportation and sports.  Naderized aviation will be extremely
    impractical, expensive and nonexistent.

    The order of importance of instrumentation on ultralights is
	airspeed
	CHT and/or EGT
	tach
	altimeter
	VSI of some sort
    I have at least a crude version of everything except the VSI.

    I also take along a 'chute', Snell rated helmet, proper reflexes,
    and some knowledge of what makes things fly with me!  Someone has
    even recommended taking along a sleeping bag to handle involuntary
    overnight stays!!  I feel naked (kind of) in the Cessna without the
    'chute' ... and on my drive to work, without the helmet!