The Ultra Importance of Ultralights

摘要

John moody, an engineer from Ohio, launched the ultralight revolution the same year the National Air and Space Museum opened-in 1976. Considered today the father of ultralights, Moody had combined an Icarus Ⅱ hang glider and a two-cycle motor, creating a new kind of flier, which he demonstrated at the Experimental Aircraft Association's fly-in at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. His flights "just set the world on fire," says Russ Lee, curator of aeronautics at the Museum. "To see a guy put a thing on his back and run a few steps and take off was just magical." At the time, flying conventional airplanes built by Cessna, Beech, or Piper was getting to be more and more expensive. "There had been this whole class of people shut out from aviation, people who were handy but just didn't have the big bucks to go out and take lessons in the conventional way, or rent or buy a conventional airplane," says Lee. Like Moody, the aspiring pilots who were looking for a faster, cheaper way to get airborne started with hang gliders.