Lago Ultralights And Lago Georender 3 Scenery

By Andrew Herd (24 January 2003)

f you fly, sooner or later you will end up having the following discussion with an ultralight pilot:

GA guy/gal: Do you really fly in that?

Ultra guy/gal: Do you really fly in that?

GA: Is it safe?

Ultra: Did you have to rob a bank to pay for it?

These exchanges tend to continue for some time, until both parties relapse into mutual incomprehension. Occasionally the meetings degenerate into insults, but by and large the GA fraternity gets on fine with ultralight pilots. They just don't believe they are quite right in the head.

If you live outside the US, you will probably call ultralights by a different name. In Britain, we call them 'microlights', but internationally they are defined as flying machines which weigh less than 450 kg (992 pounds) and have either a wing loading of less than 25 kg per square meter (roughly 55 pounds) or a stalling speed not exceeding 35 knots. Within this definition, there is plenty of scope for maneuver, as Lago's new package demonstrates - these things come in all shapes and sizes. While almost anyone would recognise a trike like the one above as an ultralight, the definition includes everything from flying parachutes whose pilots fly by strapping an engine onto their backsides - I exaggerate only slightly - to planes only marginally smaller than a Cessna 152.

The attractions of flying ultralights are that you can get a license with far less hassle and expense; they cost far less to purchase than anything which carries of CofA; they cost hardly anything to run; you can do your own maintenance; you can trailer most of them around; and the only creatures you have to share your view with are eagles. I say this because a friend of mine once soared some wave with an eagle in his ultralight. The bird kept looking at him as if it couldn't quite work out how he stayed up there.

Before you rush out and get one, the disadvantages of ultralights are that there is a perpetual danger of your ass freezing off; if you drop a sectional you ain't ever gonna find it again, assuming it doesn't get sucked into the prop and down the plane; their crosswind limit usually isn't very high; the engines are somewhat unreliable; and no-one will insure you. Another point worth bearing in mind is that you will have to talk to other ultralighters, most of whom are, by definition, in need of psychiatric help, so whatever you do, don't make any loud noises near them (-:

But ultralights are fun... that's why they are so popular and if anyone wants to know why GA is in slow decline, all they have to do is count the number of ultralights they see around and go figure. This class of plane has, without anyone realising it, finally made the dream of wings a reality for people who don't own oil wells, and tens of thousands of them take to the air every weekend. While I must abide by my PPL's secret oath to treat ultralight pilots as akin to airborne pirates, I can see their point.

In fact, if you are sitting reading this piece while you wonder whether to buy Lago's add-on or not, why don't you visit Amazon and buy a copy of Anthony Woodward's book Propellerhead? Not only is it about flying ultralights - the subplot is that Woodward took up flying to make himself more attractive to women - it is one of the best books about flying I have read and it is also extremely funny. Woodward writes about a microlight called a Thruster, which was originally designed so that Australian farmers could herd sheep using klaxons fitted to the undercarriage. I kind of wonder why Lago haven't included a sheep herding module in the pack, but I suppose it's because they haven't included a Thruster. Shame though, the Thruster is a tail dragger and that is the one thing that is missing here. Maybe in an update? I could get my head around the idea of buzzing sheep in the outback.

Anyway, when you have read Woodward's book, if he hasn't either left you numb with fear or bemused at how the English managed to get so far as a nation, then I reckon that you should get yourself down to some serious research using Google and work out where the nearest ultralight club is to you - and then get down there, because you can almost certainly afford to get airborne in one, even if it is only as a trial flight. And then you will know what birds talk about.

I guess I had better get on with the review. First of all, I have taken to reviewing Lago's packages in pairs out of sheer self-defence. There are so many of them that I can't think of any other way of keeping up with the flood of stuff coming through. The appropriate partner for the ultralights is surely the Georender 3 scenery, which features Diamond Point airpark, near Sequim, Washington. Richard Goldstein had the major development responsibility for this attractive little field, and it is on exactly the right scale to show the ultralights off at their best. Both packages are available by download from Lago's website, the Ultralights weighing in at 22 Mb for version 1.01 and 1.8 Mb for the patch to 1.02, at the attractive price of only 15 euros - there is a more or less one for one dollar to euro conversion. Georender 3 is a little smaller at 19.6 Mb and I reviewed version 1.10 - the scenery costs 20 euros.

If you have never heard of an airpark, they are a uniquely American creation; a place where you keep your plane under your house and the neighbors actually like the idea of you flying overhead. The runway at Diamond Point is plenty long enough at 2300 feet, but only 26 foot wide if you count the gravel shoulders, which should concentrate the mind. There are trees at one end and wires at the other (where have we seen that before, he thinks, racking his brains?) and the whole thing is perched scenically on the edge of a cliff, so don't undershoot. It looks attractive enough in FS2002; though in reality I assume it would have difficult eddies off those trees and shear and even wave off the cliffs when the wind was the wrong way, so be glad FS doesn't simulate every problem that ultralight pilots encounter. Although crosswind approaches in either direction are a complete nightmare, Diamond Point shows off the advantages of ultralights in this situation, given that going around is no problem, because you can outclimb just about anything with wings.

The scenery is certainly very pleasing, in scope probably midway between Richard's early stuff and Emma Field. It looks as real as an FS scenery can, thanks to carefully edited hi-res textures and individually planted trees, but I also a few problems with early versions, not least the way planes tended to sink into the ground in some places. These are fixed in version 1.10, but it still has some texture blurring on the runway, so I guess there might be another patch to come. Lago have a tradition of not leaving a product alone until they have got the bugs out and their point releases often contain extra features, which is a bonus. While it is almost too much to expect an FS package to be completely bug-free on release, first time buyers of this developer's products could be forgiven for wondering if they are acting as unpaid beta-testers, though to be fair, Lago always iron the wrinkles out in the end. I just wish they didn't rush stuff out the door quite so quick in the first place.

Bugettes aside, Diamond Point is up to Lago's usual standard and not only do some of the hangar doors open so that you can put your plane inside, but you also get to listen to sounds from Lago's Active Scenery, watch the (very occasional) plane take off and fly around and I am told that vehicles sometimes visit. If you own any other sceneries from the Georender series, Diamond Point is within striking distance of Flying M and Ranger Creek, so you owe it to yourself to pay a visit.

The ultralights package is a bargain for all that it includes ten variants of six different planes in a slew of different liveries. This sounds like a lot, and it is, but remember that these aren't the most sophisticated flying machines you are ever going to see, given that most of them use the natural horizon instead of an artificial one. Ultralights are the ultimate VFR aircraft and they tend to be flown without much reference to the instruments the majority of the time. The whole point of flying an ultralight is to feel the wind in your hair and even the most Cessna-like of them all, the Cheetah, lacks doors of any description. Lean over and you can fall out. In this respect it bears a deal of similarity to Woodward's Thruster, to which it bears a generic resemblance.

Looking at the panels with a critical eye, some of them could have been better. I've included screen shots so you can make up your own mind, but the developers could have paid slightly closer attention to some of the bitmap editing. Although I would reiterate that the pack is excellent value for money, it wouldn't have taken much more effort to make some of the 2D panels - like the Cheetah one shown in the screen shot above left - considerably better than they are. Click on the image and take a look at the enlarged pic and you can decide for yourself.

The Cheetah VC is a bit peculiar on my system, because it boasts what looks like a giant fly swat revolving slowly around up front, which I guess must be the propeller. The card I use is a 128 Mb GeForce 4, which is clearly something to do with it, as a shot sent to me by Lago doesn't show the fly swat - my guess is that it fell off, that being the kind of thing that happens all the time on ultralights. Although this is clearly a driver issue, on the whole, I'm not exactly blown away by the VC on the Cheetah: the cockpit lines and struts are blockier than average, the instruments have noticeable pixellation around them and when it comes to the pilot and passenger, I don't think that VC technology is quite up to doing human beings yet (-: All the planes appear to have the same pilot, by the way, and no prizes for guessing who it is, though I think he needs to polish his sneakers.

So, moving rapidly on, one of my favorites is the Power Flash trike, shown here about half way down the runway and already a hundred feet up. Although as Lago point out, the FS2002 flight model isn't optimised for low speed flight - I thought this was really polite of them, the truth is it sucks - all the ultralights fly really well. I have to add a word of caution here, because I am not an ultralight pilot and my experience is limited to a couple for brief flights, but you will get the general idea of how these birds feel, in as much as Flight Simulator will allow it. Even the weightshift is done well, for example there is no way you are going to sideslip it and it has awful crosswind performance; but using it is a little like flying an FS helicopter, imagination is needed, given that the control system is like nothing you are likely to have clamped onto your desk. I wouldn't advise selecting any of these planes for a long flight, given that the fastest of them does 80 knots flat out, but nevertheless, they are great fun for sight seeing. One peculiarity of the Cheetah is that it pitches nose down when you extend the flaps, slightly odd for a high wing plane, but I am told this is the correct behavior.

Visually, the Power Flash is one of the best sims in the package and although my video card tended to show the lines as dashes, the canopy is beautifully modelled and the trike assembly itself bears close examination. Lago have built some neat animation into this one - if you start from standing, the canopy rises after 3 seconds and 'fills' with an audible snap. Sadly FS2002 doesn't allow a really sophisticated animation showing the canopy tensing as it fills with air, but maybe in FS2004, as they say. If you hit the G key you can get in and out of the harness, though I don't really recommend it if you don't have your feet on the ground.

All but two of the ultralights are powered, leaving only the Wills Wing Falcon and the Voyager 160 without any obvious method of propulsion. These two are effectively gliders, for the purposes of FS2002, and Lago has put some thought into how to make them usable. Their first suggestion is to use slew mode to get them up to altitude, with 'aircraft stress causes damage' turned off, or there is a danger they will self-destruct when you hit the Y key a second time. If you can find a convenient cliff - the one at Diamond Point isn't quite high enough - you can take advantage of Lago's built in 'Jump' module (ctrl-shift-J) to bound into the air like a gazelle. Emma field users can use the winch and with damage off, I reckon it might be fun to try an air tow.

If you are prepared to roll up your sleeves, the jump module has editable parameters and while the default 'up' value is 50 cm, I don't see why the sky shouldn't be the limit, though don't try it without checking whether your insurance is good first. Mathijs Kok at Lago tells me that the module doesn't care which aircraft is loaded, so you can bunny hop 747s if it pleases you, though you may have trouble landing them at Diamond Point.

To begin with I had terrible trouble flying the Wills - the nose seemed glued to the sun, though it flew perfectly OK - then I discovered that the pilot could be gotten to lie flat if I hit the G key. That dropped the nose level and afterwards everything reverted to normal, but be warned that it is possible to fly this one in what appears to be a fully stalled attitude. Personally, it doesn't bother me, because it is a neat visual model and if you take a look at the enlargement of the thumbnail alongside you will see that the wing is actually translucent; the buildings show through underneath.

The trikes and wings more or less all share the same generic panel. The working components of it are shown in the shot three up on the right; just a little stack of instruments comprising a vertical speed indicator, an altimeter and an airspeed indicator. There isn't much more to say about them, beyond the fact that they seem to work. If you aspire to a radio, there is a hand-held one, which Lago suggest tuning before flight - just don't drop it, because it belongs to Fritz at Emma Field and he is the guy who beats up 172s. You have been warned - and whatever you do, stay out of controlled airspace. If you find a 767 behind you, you won't outrun it.

The developers haven't forgotten about float plane fanatics and not only the Cosmos Bidulm but the Quiksilver MX Sprint are available on pontoons. These two are probably the most fun sims in the entire pack and I had a whale of a time hunting for really small lakes. Try landing them in a barrel with a thirty knot headwind and see how you do, but watch out for the Sprint's engine, which has a tendency to cut at low revs. This brings me to the sound sets, which are authentically Rotaxy, several of the birds being fitted with this classic engine. Admittedly it isn't difficult to convey the sound of a Rotax, basically a high pitched noise which makes you wonder when the hedge trimmer is going to turn up, but one thing about the package is that the engines all start far too easily.

Ultralight pilots love to tinker around with their powerplants and given that most of them are two-strokes, they aren't always that easy to turn over. We once managed to complete a half hour flight while another pilot was trying to start an ultralight called a Minimax - as we left he was pulling the start cord (yep, that's how it's done) and calling 'Clear prop!' religiously every single time. By the time we got back he was sweating some and pulling in grim silence, the only other sound we could hear being the grinding of teeth. By the time we got our plane put away he had turned to curses, and then he suddenly got out the cockpit and started taking the engine to pieces. That's what I like about ultralight pilots, you just can't keep 'em down. Anyway, though the sound sets inevitably aren't very sophisticated, they are fine and with the unpowered wings, the only sound you need is the wind.

Georender 3 isn't a difficult package to review. While it initially had its share of bugs, now they are fixed it is an extremely neat little airfield - and it would be even more attractive offered at a discount with Emma Field, because the proximity of the two makes them a natural pair. I enjoyed using Diamond Point, the field being very different to anything else available for Flight Simulator and it is a great base for exploring up and down that part of the coast.

Ultralights not only represents good value for money but it is great fun to use - when I was taking the screen shots I continually found myself playing around with the machines when I should have been concentrating. An important thing to take into account is that there isn't much competition, something I always bear in mind when evaluating a package. Sure, there are other ultralights available - at least one of Lago's other sceneries includes one, and another developer is currently offering a pack featuring three variants of a single ultralight - but Lago gives you ten variants of six different machines.

As long as you treat Ultralights as something you are going to have fun with and don't get too serious about it - I have no doubt that someone will surely email me and tell me that the number of lines on the Flash is wrong or that the Cheetah really does have a fly swat instead of a propeller - then the package is definitely worth considering. I reckon you can count on them turning up reasonably frequently in my scenery screen shots from now on; there being no better way to travel if you want to take the scenic route. The latest update adds a variometer and smoke effects, so you can barnstorm Diamond Point and then glide silently up to touch wingtips with the eagles.

Meanwhile, get 'Propellerhead'.

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