Are you afraid to achieve your dream to fly? Most of us are prevented of flying on their own for various reasons - lack of time, bad weather conditions etc or most often the reason is money. The financial problem is now solved to some extent by the ultralight airplanes, but a new concern might be stopping you from flying - their safety.
How safe are the ultralight airplanes? The short answer is safe enough. The long answer requires you to consider some important factors.
Nowadays the safety of the ultralight, microlight and homebuilt/experimental aircrafts really equals that of the certified light airplanes. Then why asking about safety at all?Mostly people are afraid to fly ultralight aircrafts because in the past they used to have very poor reputation (which actually came mostly from rumor). The ultralight aviation was not regulated at all which was allowing many unexperienced pilots to fly on aircrafts with questionable safety.
Today most countries regulate the ultralight aircrafts to some extent and the pilots have either get a license or agree with some restrictions like avoiding populated urban areas, night or bad weather conditions. This really improved the safety of ultralight flying a lot.
Today only the Experimental Aircraft Association keeps some statistics on the ultralight accidents. It reports 101 accidents with 20 fatalities over a 3.
5-year period - considering there are thousands of ultralight flights with thousands of planes, the figures are not so scary at all.
And most accidents are results of human mistakes. I know you don't want to be one of them. There are many things that YOU can do if you want to fly safer:
Get better training. It makes sense to spend more money on instructed flights than risking your life. Don't hurry to make your first solo flight and even on it, have your instructor presented in the airplane.
Ensure your aircraft is safe. This is a common sense, but still needs to be emphasized on. Check the wings, the propeller, the fuel, everything. Then double check.
Don't fly in bad weather conditions. Makes sense, doesn't it? Better to miss a planned fly rather than killing yourself or breaking your aircraft in the storm.
Get an emergency parashute system. It costs about $2,000 and I know sometimes that could be 50% of the price of your ultralight airplane. But these $2,000 are not even 1% of the cost of your life, so just spend them without postponing.
Use a helmet. You can get a motorcycle one, it won't cost you a lot. The helmet saves you not only in case of accident, but also from hitting a bird or a bee in case you fly open-air vehicle.
Use common sense. Leave the great cascades to the professionals, don't fly close to buildings or rocks... just don't do anything that does not make sense.
The pilot is by far the most important factor in most ultralight aircraft accidents. Follow the steps above, fly reasonable and you'll have no problems at all. Then you'll be able stop reading articles like this one and enjoy your ultralight flights.
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