By Emme Hornung
This piece originally ran in the May 2026 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
The AirVenture Lindy Awards honor aircraft craftsmanship, recognizing proud builders and owners of the “best of the best” aircraft. Lindy Awards or plaques cover six categories: homebuilts, vintage aircraft, warbirds, rotorcraft, seaplanes, and ultralights/light-sport aircraft.
At EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2025, 11 Gold Lindys were awarded to Grand Champions, yet none of them went to an ultralight. In fact, in the ultralight/light-sport aircraft category, a Part 103 ultralight vehicle has not been crowned Grand Champion since 2015.
Now, that’s not to diminish the ultralight owners who have been awarded with a well-deserved Honorable Mention or the infrequent Silver Lindy-winning Reserve Grand Champion. However, if you look back at all ultralight awards since the turn of the century, only seven Grand Champions have been selected: Steve Cole’s Hummel Ultracruiser (2015), Randall Fishman’s ElectraFlyer (2007), Michael Riggs’ Seagull Escape Pod (2006), Ed Fisher’s Raceair Zipster (2004), Warren Baier’s Raceair Skylite (2002), Rollie Hatfield’s Ridge Runner (2001), and Donald Cooney’s Concept Prowler trike (2000, 2003).
So, what do these Grand Champs have in common, and why has only one been crowned in nearly two decades? Moreso, why have there been years where not a single ultralight award is presented? There’s no one better equipped to answer these questions than Paul Buss, EAA 369766, the chief judge of the ultralight/light-sport aircraft award category.
How It Works
Paul, a Sky Raider and Avid Flyer builder, has been leading a team of four to five judges since 2008.
“I don’t do any judging,” he said. “I watch over the judges to make sure they’re doing their job according to the judging standards manual. Every judge has knowledge and expertise in a certain area of building, and I think I’ve chosen judges to get enough diversification in the group. We work as a team.”
The judges follow EAA’s official judging standards manual (read it yourself via the link at EAA.org/Extras) to keep things consistent and impartial.
“Every component of the airplane gets scored, and that score goes into the computer, and then the computer calculates a total score,” Paul said. “We sit down after — we usually judge over three days, and each morning we have a session to talk about the scores. The judges have an opportunity to go out and give each aircraft a second look if they missed something.”
For the ultralight category, there are currently four awards available: Grand Champion, Reserve Grand Champion, Honorable Mention, and Antique Ultralight Champion. If there is no ultralight on the field that qualifies, then no award need be presented — and there’s one factor that Paul noted disqualifies ultralights from judging more than any other.
“The judging manual says it cannot be built by a factory or be hired to be built — and there’s rarely an ultralight that someone builds from scratch,” he said. “They’re bought and assembled. And sometimes they don’t even assemble; they buy and fly. Somebody who has assembled their ultralight, the judges will consider them for an award, but to win [gold], you have to go over and above the standards. So, if somebody puts together an ultralight just like the factory demonstrator, that doesn’t necessarily make it a Gold Lindy winner.”
So, we’ve established that the most basic requirement to qualify is to at least assemble your ultralight, but you must go above and beyond in innovation and originality (better yet, scratchbuild) to shoot for gold. These are awards for craftsmanship at the epicenter of homebuilding, after all.
How to Stand Out
We can all agree that a good ultralight — great, even — is one that can get you off the ground and flying. But a gold standard ultralight will require a bit more thoughtful attention while on the ground.
Let’s take a closer look at Randall Fishman’s Grand Champion ElectraFlyer trike. He not only designed and built it himself, but also hit it out of the park by being the first electric ultralight to fly at AirVenture, solidly checking off the originality and innovation requirement. That’s not to say you need to be a “first” to win gold these days.
“[Randall] really went way over and above detailing it,” Paul said. “It was way above everything else on the field. When you’re doing a kitbuilt or even scratchbuilt, you still have to go over and above, but you’re not competing with the factory-built machines.”
A couple Reserve Grand Champions have popped up more recently; Andrew Snedden’s Snedden M7 (2009) and John Steere’s Bodacious (2012). Like the Grand Champs, both of these were highly original. The Snedden M7 was another self-designed ultralight, and Bodacious, based on Legal Eagle plans, was highly modified to accommodate folding wings.
Paul also suggests that owners interested in having their ultralight judged should bring documentation and photos illustrating the building process to show how they put it together. Telling your story will provide judges with more information to base their decisions on and prove that you did the work yourself. And make sure to register at the Fun Fly Zone and not Homebuilders Headquarters to be considered for an ultralight award!
“All of our judges want to judge airplanes, and we don’t get anywhere near the airplanes down on our end like the rest of the field,” Paul said. “So, we want to encourage people to have their airplanes judged, but so many of them don’t qualify. [Homebuilding] is what it’s all about. We try to promote the ultralight sport as much as we can, and we’d love to give awards because that would promote it.”
The beauty of Part 103 is that it requires few things of a powered ultralight: an empty weight of 254 pounds, a maximum fuel capacity of 5 U.S. gallons, a maximum speed of 55 knots, and a maximum power-off stall speed of 24 knots. This leaves the appearance of an ultralight up to the builder’s interpretation — and a level of respect for physics, of course.
Ultralight aviation is all about the simple, no-frill pleasures of feeling the wind in your hair, but sometimes the pride of building something and having your efforts be recognized by your peers makes it that much sweeter.
The ultralight community for years has been looking for ways to reinvigorate the sport, and what better way than some friendly competition at our annual family reunion? Come to Oshkosh, take advantage of the unique nature of Part 103, and show us what you and your homebuilding spirit have got!
