Ultralites

    Ultralites are low-cost, personal, single user, aircraft.

    All of the characters would have used the ultralites at one time or another, but Vu Dhu Yen was the first to mention it. They were essential for the Family to travel in the Andes. 

She had enjoyed the ultralite flights over the fields in the mornings, when Oyun had visited her a few months ago. That was part of her inspiration for the scene, but it was also influenced by the discussions of hyperspace she had had with Oyun after dinner that evening. (pg 164)

Manuel wanted to set up ultralite tours over the Nazca line drawings. Although Stephen’s banking business was built up from his work with multi-million dollar international corporations, he really enjoyed getting back to basics and developing small businesses. To Stephen, this was better than a video game. Manuel’s idea was to have flocks of ultralites, controlled by the lead pilot, fly over the images, while the VCLs displayed realtime commentary to the tourists. The hostel would have it’s own airstrip accessible to small planes and a foot trail back through the mountains to Cuzco. They would serve excellent food, provide comfortable accommodations, and have a local geometry center to teach the mathematics associated with the designs. (pg 170-171)

The cartons with Vince’s gyrobikes and the ultralites were easy to handle, and he just took them as Freddie slid them out the back of the truck. Then he pushed them up the steps of the jet to Jefferson. It took two of them to haul the solar panels up the steps, and they took a short break before moving the weapons on board. (pg 182)

    Helios, solar powered air craft. Pretty cool! Pretty big!

    Sunseeker, a solar powered sail plane. Great video interview! I wish I had seen this before I wrote the book. But Sunseeker is expensive, and my ultralites are like the gyrobikes, affordable for masses of the poor. Besides, in the interview the inventor says that the Sunseeker can catch fire if it gets wet!

    The Sunseeker video mentions solar powered model planes, and the fact that they can fly faster than the gas powered ones, and even faster than the jets. More on this later ...

    Betrand Picard's solar-powered flight around the world.

    Parajet is about as close as I've seen to what I imagined back when The Fifth Prophet was written. The two main differences are that they are not powered by hyperthreads (yet), and they use parachutes rather than hang-gliding wings to stay aloft. This site is really cool, not that I'd ever go up in one of these things!