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Your own helicopter for under US$20,000from Aero Gizmo (274 articles)
September 21, 2005 Flying is not a sport generally associated with those people who are light of wallet – which makes the Mosquito Ultralight helicopter something of a rarity. The entire kit for the Mosquito can be purchased for US$20,000 and if you think the minimalist Mosquito leaves you a bit vulnerable, there’s the fully enclosed Mosquito XE and XEL which can be purchased for US$23,000 apeice. Building the kits will cost you about 200 to 300 hours to build or you can have the plane built for you for a flat US$4000. Getting airborn for under US$20,000 in your own, new helicopter is quite a feat – we’re not aware of any other helicopter in this price category and on top of that, both Mosquito variants offer very low maintenance and operating costs.
The Mosquito’s designer John Uptigrove is a mech engineer by trade and like a lot of people alwaysdreamed of being able to fly. “By creating an ultralight helicopter it offers that ability without all the cost and hassle of dealing with air regs,” says Uptigrove. To date, Uptigrove’s Innovator Technologies has sold 37 mosquito kits (two in Japan, two in Canada, one in Spain, one in France, one in Belgium and the remainder in the US) and a dozen have been built to airworthiness by their purchasers at the time of going to press. The open frame Mosquito first became available in 2002 and the XE model was brought on in 2004.
All of the mosquitoes sold so far have been built in kit form, though the company has just begun offering a factory build program and the first factory-finished Mosquito is being finished as you read this. |
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發表於 2006年12月15日 10:27 AM
