Dennis Carley and Rick Hayes set out on Monday to construct an Aerolite 103 Ultralight aircraft in one week. As it turns out, it only took them 5 days and 28 man hours to complete the task. Construction went smoothly in front of an audience in the Ultralight Forums tent. The only glitch came when they discovered that the flap cables had been left out of the box when they packed for Oshkosh weeks ago. Luckily, the UPS brown van showed up to save the day.
The completed aircraft, destined for a customer in Washington state, sports an all black and dark gray sail cloth color scheme, looking for all the world like a black ops craft for some clandestine intelligence agency. The aircraft is truly complete, with full covering, engine, instruments and the correct pressure in the tires.
High winds prevented taxi operations all day Saturday. However, the intrepid crew was going to attempt to taxi if the winds died down Saturday night. As you may recall, flight operations are prohibited at the Ultralight field for any aircraft with less than 5 hours of flight time.
