Choosing a plane.

While life can throw some curveballs, you’ve got to narrow down the field and just start walking in some direction. For this journey, the first real step begins with buying a plane. But which plane to buy? For this, I’ve come up with a framework for thinking about it:

1. must be an ultralight or microlight. This is so I can afford it, and a traveler network can support it as well. Probably about 240 of these.
2. must be a 2 seater. This is so I can teach others or at least open up a small flight tourism business. Probably about 120 of these.
3. must be a popular plane. This is to ensure that there is a healthy aftermarket, and insurance that it is a proven plane. According to the American buyers guide, there are about six that fall in the double digits in terms of percentage of the market. They are:

· airborne: edge x

· sabre trike: sabre

· Rans: S-12 xl airaile

· quicksilver ent: mxl sport II

· flightstar: flightstar II

· quad city ultralights: challenger II

4. Probably a Trike. Because of their rugged ability to land in short airstrips, yahoo open cockpit, and cheap pricepoint, Trikes seem better than fixed wing aircraft. The downside is that they may be uncomfortable in cold, rainy and long flights, and they don’t look like a “real” plane. All that said, I’m going to have to go with this for starters. If I don’t go this route, I’ll probably never go down in size. This narrows the field down to:

· Airborne edge

· Sabre

· Aerotrike

So the 3 trikes that I’m investigating are the Airborne Edge, Aerotrike Cobra, and the Sabre Trike. But how to choose? Maybe financing or availability of a good used one? There you have it, now all I should do is find out what a good price for these things are, find one with less than 100 hours on it fully kitted out, and get a loan for it.

After looking around, it appears that there are way more airborne edges for sale then the saber or aerotrikes around. I’m going to start looking every week for these 3 ultralights. Next up, I need to see if I can get financing and if I can fly it in Bali….