2 and/or 4 seat experimental & ultralight

Info from the owner of the kit. Now don’t get me into a knot, Snoopy, I’m back in the world of km/h

He has the CC version. More rounded empennage, and no slats. Fixed pitch prop.

@4800 rpm: 165 km/hr IAS
@5000 rpm: 175 km/hr IAS

I did not ask FF, but at 5000 rpm you’re probably talking 17-19 liters/hr. I suppose that will be around 75% power

He said that he would not go for anything less than the XL version. Smaller cabin on previous version, and different wing design.

The only structural gripe he had was having to change one aluminium tube for a stainless steel one, just forward of the canopy. He’ll send me a pic these days and I’ll PM you.

Friend of mine built the kit, don’t know the exact version. 100 HP. He’s quite happy with her. Rugged, easy to fly. Here we are on a ‘vuelta de españa’ last year, to be repeated next week hopefully. Operates from his own ‘semi-legal’ field here 350m rwy, with trees on both ends. Very doable. Another one was just stationed on ‘my’ field. If you want i can check with both owners on any gotcha’s. Obviously the guy that built one knows quite a bit about her.

How about the MTOM. If currently 472,5 kg, possible to increase?

Here’s a nice pic of his field. The procedure: a low pass to scare the sheep away and then land ASAP. Reminds me to denounce the guy at the CAA. He actually has these animals walking around airside without reflective vests. Tssss…

Rwy is where the Bristell is, covered in nice little white flowers.

and every possible permutation…

Exactly my point.

Good post MH.

I would just add that

Chose what you like, not what any anonymous guy on the internet tells you to fly because he has a deal with his ULM mechanic, but not with his EASA mechanic

tends to cut both ways e.g.

“not what any anonymous guy on the internet tells you to fly because he has a deal with his EASA mechanic, but not with his ULM mechanic”
“not what any anonymous guy on the internet tells you to fly because he has a deal with his EASA mechanic, but not with his FAA A&P/IA mechanic”

and every possible permutation…

Lots of people have friends who help them out, or other nice deals going, but they fail to make this clear in their posts. This could lead someone new to aircraft ownership to make uninformed and expensive decisions. Accordingly, I tend to be careful and quite detailed when posting about N-reg advantages – because they are indeed contingent on various things being in place. It was “partial posting” and my resulting questions which led to a lot of toys getting chucked out of prams here in the past

In aviation, what makes the biggest difference to owner satisfaction is the sort of setup which one can arrange on the ground.

Heaven = own hangar, near the house, DIY maintenance
Hell = no hangar, far to travel, have to use a company for everything and they want to see a Form-X for every screw

mh wrote:

LOL. We already see that this is not the case. The DULV/DAeC went foreward and carft a (not very good, I must say) certification specs and other countries claim to “follow, where they see these specifications would fit”. France is out completely, not even going the full 600kg. The microlight associations have created a monster.

Certifying a ULM for the market requires 28+4 single certification applications with at least one, but in most cases much more than one substantiation checks for Europe allone.

Certifying an LSA for the market requires one single certification application with one substantiation check. You can easily extend to CS23 Amdt5 and (in near future) to the declarative Part-21. Then you have a complete ICAO compatible certification.

It’s a matter of point of view. You can agree not to agree, but still accept differences, or try to reach a common denominator that nobody wants (CS-LSA in a nut shell).

Snoopy wrote:

My impression so far is that UL and experimental is substantially „cheaper“ than certified, over all, not only for maintenance. Maybe that’s wrong!?

It has been posted a lot, but in the end it’s not true. The rule of thumb is “1€/h per installed HP”. That’s with no owner maintenance, empirically determined across ULM, Experimentals and certified aircraft based on just shy of 100h/year.

ULM can be cheap: A C42 for example is built very cheap, so are some other ULM in these price ranges. But Mogas for a Rotax 912 is exactly as expensive as Mogas for an O200. And the D-Motor consumes the exact same amount of fuel as a C90, when both are properly leaned and deliver the same power. A Blackwing is quoted way north of 200k€ purchase price. The (night VFR and next year IFR) certified Sonaca 200 is listed for 170k€. A Rotax 912 consumes just a liter per hour less than a O200 with the same power delivered and while having some other maintenance items, basically you have the same workload (more oil changes here, gear inspections there.)

ULM have been quoted so low fuel consumptions, due to the light weight and low speeds in economy cruise. But if I operate an O200 with just 45%, it, too, just barely consumes fuel. And if I want to race a SportCruiser oder a Bristell or a Viper or a Breezer, they all consume around 21-23 liters at 110 KTAS. The exact same figures than a Bölkow Junior.

So in the end: Chose what you like, not what any anonymous guy on the internet tells you to fly because he has a deal with his ULM mechanic, but not with his EASA mechanic. Some will tell you that self-maintenance will be possible on NReg or ULM, but completely neglect that you can do the same under EASA reg. Some will tell you that you don’t need to exchange engined and parts at TBO, but that is true for all three options. Others will point out, that you can use non certified avionics, but to a certain degree that is true for all three regimes.

In the end, all of that isn’t important. It’s important, that you like your aircraft and that you can do with it, what you intend to do. Everything else is outright silly.

Do you really want to go building a Sonnex, because it makes LeSving happy?
Do we all need to fly a TB20 on Nreg, because that’s what Peter likes most?
Do you want to operate one aircraft in all three regimes, because I chose to do so?

I think not.