Badland Part 103 Pilots and Builders Forum

Greetings, colleagues!
I just found out about your forum, although I have been involved in ultralights all my life: first as a designer, then as a leading designer, chief designer and technical director. We were engaged in aircraft single-seat X-30, two-seat X-32 "Bekas" and three-seat X-34, trikes X-35, X-37.
Then I published the magazine "Wings. Light Aviation News" and "Catalogues of Light Aviation of Russia and Ukraine". Thanks to these activities I know a lot about our ultralight aviation.
I live in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. In spite of daily rocket raids we do not stop activity on production of composite and wooden propellers, plastic fairings and glazing for different aircrafts, agricultural equipment for ultralights and drones.

Welcome Vladimir! Nice to hear you're still building in Ukraine. I've actually visited your country back in the early 2000's. Our team was doing some church work. It's been a while since that trip, so I don't recall the name of the town, I sort of remember we were about 30km from Chernobyl. We used to tease Nadia (Pastor Peter's wife) that it was Chernobyl that made her tomatoes grow so large! The people we met are fantastic, and I loved visiting the country. So, what is flying like in the UK? What are the categories of aircraft in Ukraine (like the US has Ultralight, Light Sport, and General Aviation)?

Good to meet you,
Todd

Hello, Todd!
It's heartwarming to hear!
You are in blessed times when we produced for all countries and flew wherever we wanted. It's more complicated now. Some of our production (offshore boats, wind turbine blades were damaged.) Flights are banned. Our light aircraft flew more than anything else in the air-chemical work. This was profitable and provided most of the service market. Now that is gone. There is no export to Russia either. The market has shrunk drastically. But we are not discouraged and do not stop working for a minute, despite regular missile arrivals (30 km to the border). We do not want to hang on the necks of Europeans. We have to earn our own money.
Yes, we have categories up to 115, 450, 750 and 5700 kg. But it does not matter now.

Welcome to the forum Vladimir! It's nice to hear that you are persevering through the current situation and still pursuing your passion. I hope to see and hear a lot more about what you are doing and what you are working on.

Also, I love the float plane! Looks like fun.

meglin wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 7:17 am Hello, Todd!
It's heartwarming to hear!
You are in blessed times when we produced for all countries and flew wherever we wanted. It's more complicated now. Some of our production (offshore boats, wind turbine blades were damaged.) Flights are banned. Our light aircraft flew more than anything else in the air-chemical work. This was profitable and provided most of the service market. Now that is gone. There is no export to Russia either. The market has shrunk drastically. But we are not discouraged and do not stop working for a minute, despite regular missile arrivals (30 km to the border). We do not want to hang on the necks of Europeans. We have to earn our own money.
Yes, we have categories up to 115, 450, 750 and 5700 kg. But it does not matter now.

I also applaud your perseverance and strength to continue working towards a better future. You all are in my prayers and hoping for an end to the senseless act of war brought on by Putin. It appears that many of the Russian people are supporting Ukraine as best they can and in agreement that the war on Ukraine is wrong and Putin should bring it to an end.

I also look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Todd

Thank you for your hospitality! The topics of our interests and work I try to outline on the website. As I mentioned, some of them have waned for objective reasons. But the main areas continue to evolve. Everyone likes our propellers. We started with ordinary propellers for Rotax, but American pilots asked us to make extra strong blades for their Lycoming. Now we also make propellers for gearless motors such as Jabiru, Lycoming/Continental, and all aviation and automotive motors up to 400hp.
As for the floats, we started by copying the French Cosmos. As a result, we came up with our own development based on Short floats. We put them on both airplanes and trikes.
You probably realized that we make a lot of products out of plastic. But we also cast 8" and 10" aluminum rims. We make our own hydraulic brake systems for airplanes, trikes and gyroplanes. Only skis remained - we also made them on an as-needed basis.
We remained in practical isolation for a long time. So to create our own aircraft, we had to do everything ourselves - all the parts, units, and components. That's why everything is so different for us.

Badland-F5 Pilot wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 11:11 am

meglin wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 7:17 am Hello, Todd!
It's heartwarming to hear!
You are in blessed times when we produced for all countries and flew wherever we wanted. It's more complicated now. Some of our production (offshore boats, wind turbine blades were damaged.) Flights are banned. Our light aircraft flew more than anything else in the air-chemical work. This was profitable and provided most of the service market. Now that is gone. There is no export to Russia either. The market has shrunk drastically. But we are not discouraged and do not stop working for a minute, despite regular missile arrivals (30 km to the border). We do not want to hang on the necks of Europeans. We have to earn our own money.
Yes, we have categories up to 115, 450, 750 and 5700 kg. But it does not matter now.

I also applaud your perseverance and strength to continue working towards a better future. You all are in my prayers and hoping for an end to the senseless act of war brought on by Putin. It appears that many of the Russian people are supporting Ukraine as best they can and in agreement that the war on Ukraine is wrong and Putin should bring it to an end.

I also look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Todd

I am Russian by nationality and have been in Ukraine for a long time. Imagine my surprise when I first heard the cannonade, saw the cruise missiles flying overhead, crouched by the Su-34 rumbling in the sky. My relatives live both in Kiev and Moscow. It hurts twice as much. But we have no other choice but to defend ourselves for now. And we work to support our families, counting on this madness to end.

I really can't imagine such a situation. I'm prior military and done war games, but that's certainly not the same. The closest I've ever come to combat was being temporarily stationed in Germany when tensions from East and West Germany were pretty high. I can see how being a native Russian and being in Ukraine would be difficult. I think our governments make more of a mess of things than the people. I see most of us just want to get along and enjoy each other's company.

The strangest thing is that on a domestic level, everyone communicates just fine, they are friends, they visit, they get married, they trade, they cooperate. Millions of people moved back and forth, worked, lived. But as soon as you get to the level of the government, it's paralysis. It is unclear what will happen now, after so much death and destruction.

Similar here in the states. Some of us try to get people to understand that if they don't participate in local government, we'll be ruled by the state and federal government where our voices are almost silent.