Ultralight Flying in Australia

Australia is a place with mostly hot and dry weather, large desolated areas, and beautiful nature. Add to this the relatively strong economy and good quality of life and you'll end up with a pretty good destination for ultralight flying. Oh yes, and let's not forget the long coastal line, since Australia is in fact a big island.

Regulations

The regulations in Australia are a bit different than these in the USA. An ultralight aircraft is considered a vehicle with empty weight up to 480 kg which is a lot more than Part 103 airplanes in the USA. But here's the catch, you can't fly any of these without license. Australia always requires pilot license even for the category 95.10 which is for experimental homebuilt aircraft. It's best to visit this page.

Australian ultralight aircraft

There are several interesting ultralight aircraft companies that operate in Australia:

Jabiru Aircraft & Engines Australia is one of the modern companies producing several interesting models. None of the currently sold Jabiru modifications are really ultralight however, not to mention flying under Part 103 outside of Australia. These are all serious airplanes.

Foxbat Australia sells the Aeroprakt A22LS Foxbat, Aeroprakt A32 Vixxen, and the A22LS Amphibian. These are all very good airplanes, and the last one is obviously an amphibian.

But enough about companies selling light airplanes or light sport aircraft. Where are the really small and cheap flying machines? Here, at Airborn Australia. This company sells several excellent flex-wing microlights, some ultralight gyrocopters (gotta love the M22 Voyager!), hang gliders, and a couple of interesting vehicles that they call nanolights. They are essentially a kind of powered paragliders.

And let's not forget that one of the most popular and loved companies, Quicksilver Aircraft is strongly present in Australia and New Zealand with the famous GT400, GT500, and Sport 2S. Some of the favorite ultralight airplanes of all the enthusiasts!

Flying schools

In Australia the definition of ultralight is closer to the one in Europe, so if you are looking to learn flying a small flex wing trike, you should search for microlight training. This training will give you a Pilot Certificate with just 20 hours of instruction (5 hours solo flight). At the approximate cost of $180 - $200 per hour, you'll need about $4,000 Australian Dollars for the practical training. Note also that for most students 20 hours are not enough so consider accordingly. Due to lack with personal experience we won't be recommending specific schools here so you'll need to do your research.

While Australia does not offer the option to fly without any license, it's still a very good place to enjoy ultralight / microlight flying. So if you are living there, have good health and some money aside, why wait? Start training and flying this year!

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