Category Archives: homebuilt

Adopting An Orphaned Ultralight

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Owning and flying your own small airplane offers a nearly unmatched level of freedom and autonomy. Traveling “as the crow flies” without having to deal with traffic on the ground immediately shrinks your world, and makes possible all sorts of trips and adventures. Unfortunately the crippling downsides of plane ownership (storage and maintenance costs, knowledge that you might die in a fiery crash, etc), keeps most of us planted squarely on terra firma.

But not [ITman496]. His dream of owning an ultralight has recently come true, and he’s decided to share his experience with the world. He’s got a long …read more

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Building An Ultralight In A Basement is Just So Beautiful to See

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[Peter] is at it again. Not content with being one of the best RC confabulators on YouTube, and certainly not content with the first airplane he built in his basement, [Peter Sripol] is building another airplane in his basement.

The first airplane he built was documented on YouTube over a month and a half. It was an all-electric biplane, built from insulation foam covered in fiberglass, and powered by a pair of ludicrously oversized motors usually meant for large-scale RC aircraft. This was built under Part 103 regulations — an ultralight — which means there were in effect no regulations. …read more

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How To Build An Airplane In A Month And A Half

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For the last few weeks, RC pilot extraordinaire [Peter Sripol] has been working on his biggest project to date. It’s effectively a manned RC plane, now legally a Part 103 ultralight. Now all that work is finally bearing fruit. [Peter] is flying this plane on some short hops down a grass runway. He’s flying it, and proving that you can build a plane in a basement, in under two months, constructed almost entirely out of insulation foam.

[Peter] has been documenting this build on his YouTube channel, and although the materials for this plane are mostly sourced from either Home …read more

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Building An Ultralight Out Of Foam In A Basement

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[Peter Sripol] is something of a legend in the DIY RC aircraft crowd. He’s friends with Flite Test, and there he built an enormous RC cargo plane that could easily carry a small child aloft. Now, [Peter] is aiming a bit higher. He’s building an ultralight — a manned ultralight — in his basement. It’s made out of insulation foam.

Yes, this ultralight is constructed out of insulation foam, but you can think of that as just a skin. The real structure here comes from a wooden frame that will be fiberglassed. The design of this aircraft is an electric, …read more

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