The MC-15 comes in weight wise, at just under 250 pounds. The show stated, but I have not confirmed but I trust the source enough and it's unlikely enough to matter at any point in my lifetime that my wife will let me get one, make one, or ever fly one, that the FAA only requires you to get a pilot's license if your aircraft weighs 250 lbs. or above.
But despite the reality of it all, I decided that I would set apart a few thousand brain cells to fantasize about maybe getting one some day when my wife wasn't looking, out of town, and I had someone with an empty garage to hide it in. But those thousand or so brain cells went back up for rent when I realized something...
I'm not a small guy. I mean, I'm not, like, morbidly ginormous, but I'm not skinny. As a matter of fact, my weight bobs up and down just below, never breaking the 250 mark. On the show, I watched this popsicle stick skinny guy exhale before he squeezed his maybe 150 lbs frame into the plane.
And he made that plane look even tinier when he was in it. And as it sped down the runway. and I swear those wings just shrank even more.
But up he went! And he zipped around, looking to all the World like a normal airplane. When he brought it in to land, it was a nice, smooth glide in and touch down (though too slow for the grand flight finale white cloud poof + tire screech).
I was sold. I sat there and rewound the DVR over and over watching this little plane. My son comes in, watches me watching. Finally asks me about the plane, as his interest is kinda peaked, too.
"It's a 200 lbs plane, and since it's less than 250 lbs, you don't need a license to fly it."
My son, just barely smart enough to be a smart alec, replied wryly, "So, it has to weigh less than you, and then anyone can fly it."
So, yes, the FAA has declared that if this plane weighs less than 1 Fritz you don't need a license."
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