Originally Posted: 2008-02-02 08:12 (no longer live)
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Flying Carpet


To make a long story short, I inherited this from my dad when my folks retired, cleaned out the house and moved south. He was in the oil business for 45 years and traveled all over the world building oil refineries - India, China, Lima, Brazil, Yugoslavia, even got called out to Nigeria once during their civil war. There was no telling where he'd go or what he'd drag home.

One of my problems is that I'm almost a hundred pounds heavier than my dad. This carpet won't lift my weight.

Mainly, I just want it out of the house. I don't have any use for it; it's taking up space; I spend a lot of time away from home and I wouldn't want to see any of the neighborhood children fall from a high altitude or run headlong into a tree and be injured.

Strictly speaking, no pilot's license is required because it falls under Part 103 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (14CFR103, ultralights) - it weighs less than 254 pounds, top speed is less than 55 miles per hour and all that. Even though pilot training isn't required, you might still want to learn a little bit about how airspace is allocated and carry an air traffic control radio. We lived pretty close to Chicago's Midway airport and it's almost a miracle my dad never got run over by a DC-9 or sucked into a jet engine.

Anyway, it's a vibrant shade of blue with a sort of Maltese Cross pattern woven in, quite sturdy (for a rug) and about four feet by six. It was professionally cleaned a couple of years ago and it's been stowed in a corner ever since.

No test flights, no demonstrations. It won't lift my weight, I've never seen anybody fly it safely, I'm not a flight instructor, I don't know how to evaluate whether a potential buyer knows what he's doing or not and I don't want to see someone crash in front of my house. If you weigh less than 180 pounds and know what you're doing, great, take it home and enjoy it. If not, maybe you should just put it on the floor in front of your hearth and enjoy it that way.

What you see is what you get. Cash & carry only.



post id: 560384537