Micro-fight

“It’s not a real plane though is it?” mused my friend, the ‘proper pilot’.

“What do you mean?” I asked with a perturbed look on my face.

“Well it just looks like a bunch of cocktail sticks and tissue paper to me really.”

My face gave away all the reply he needed.

To be fair, later on that day and after his first flight in the C42, his perception had changed (for the better) remarkably.

This dichotomy in the relationship that exists between microlight pilots and, well, much of the rest of the piloting world is not something new to me. In fact, the situation I describe above is not uncommon for many a microlight pilot as we are, as a group, often regarded with disdain in many parts of the flying world. You’ve only got to look at Facebook or Twitter for evidence of this, especially if, God forgive, two pilots are involved in an incident or close call at an airfield. I bet you can guess who automatically gets presumed guilty by the typical keyboard warrior?

Maybe I’m naïve, but I still can’t quite put my finger on why though. Especially since many of my friends are pilots of both microlights and traditional GA aircraft (or even both) and we get along just fine.

I mean, just because I operate an aircraft that is 2-cylinder, 2-stroke and lighter than many sports motorbikes, does it make me less of a pilot than someone who operates a C152? Sure, the PPL holder will have had a little more initial training to be able to operate systems we don’t commonly use on microlights – such as radio navigation, or instrument flying, but does it mean they are a better pilot?

I prefer to think of it this way. They are simply a pilot qualified on a different type of aircraft that can fly under a different set of rules.

Sure 40 years ago it was a completely different scene to today, but with the pilot licensing and permit process now well honed after many years I still don’t understand why this attitude persists or needs to.

Here’s another of my favourites.

“What? You’re going flying in that? It’s just a kite with a lawnmower engine.”

Well no, actually its not.

It’s got a very well refined reliable 4-stroke petrol engine displacing about 1.2 litres, and producing around 100 horsepower, or the same as your average family hatchback these days. Hardly a lawnmower engine.

And as for a kite? The wing (yes wing, not kite) works on the same principles as Concorde’s delta wing or for that matter, the bloody Space Shuttle. You know, the most complex machine man has ever built.

Winding back to where I started, nobody would argue that the Wright Flyer isn’t an aeroplane. Or the Sopwith Pup built during the Great War; this superb aeroplane didn’t much exceed the current CAA definition of a microlight. How about the Bristol Scout or pretty much any single engine aircraft built before about 1915 for that matter as a large number were around microlight power/weight as currently defined by the CAA.

I’ve never yet heard anyone say “Sopwith Pup? That’s not a proper aeroplane…”

Another oft heard complaint is that microlights are excessively noisy.

Unsurprisingly I dispute that too.

Sure, some of the early machines sounded like a swarm of angry wasps approaching, but these are the exceptions nowadays, not the rule. In the same way that there are many noisy ‘real’ aeroplanes.

In fact, what you have in a modern microlight (see the featured photo at the top of this post) is an aeroplane that is almost certainly younger than you are; can out perform, out climb and definitely out smile a typical PA28 or C152. It will burn significantly less fuel, whilst many are also transponder equipped and pretty much all now have a radio fitted. Not to mention the hot ships… equipped with full EFIS panels and fitted with ballistic recovery systems, you know, rocket powered parachutes.

Hardly a kite with a lawnmower engine.

And as for my cocktail sticks and tissue paper, or Harriet as I prefer to call her? She flies beautifully and I love her.

To be honest I don’t really know where the ‘proper plane – proper pilot’ stuff comes from, as far as I’m concerned if you’re a pilot, you’re a pilot. You’ve achieved something amazing and we are all part of the same flying family.

Happy flying.