UL/LSA Annex II Advice

Good thing that mh asked that question because your speed requirement limits the choice dramatically if we are talking UL.

You’d be looking at RG aircraft. And 150 KTAS is a stretch, even at MCP, 130 doable. Beware of advertised figures and speed record claims

New, well equipped ones are going to cost between 150 and 200k though (ex VAT). Operational cost: fuel 20 ltr/hr (given that you’ll speed her up, else 16 lt/hr), insurance say 2% of hull value, maintenance/reserves say 20 euro/hr, hangarage similar to certified of course. Oil: too little to make the needle move. Ballpark: all-in (not counting capital cost and depreciation) you’re looking at 80-100 euro/hr if you fly 100 hrs a year.

Tandem seaters: Shark, Tarragon, TL Stream and Blackshape prime. For the latter there is a small used market appearing. All 4 should qualify for the new rules of 600 kg MTOM etc, depending on which country you register it in/fly to. 500 m runway is doable, but in order to have some margin (wet grass) I would not go below.

Side-by-side examples: Risen, VL3, Blackwing, WT9 Dynamic, Pipistrel Virus, Bristell RG (maybe). 500 m rwy more than adequate.

Indeed go to Aero 2019. The cockpit dimensions vary quite a bit. And so do the looks of course.

As to your mentioned disadvantage of not being able to go to all airports you need to balance that by being able to go to a lot more UL fields!
I would say here in Spain it opened up my possibilities by a factor 5 or so.

Snoopy wrote:

Do you have an example for a IFR tmg with brs?

No, I have never seen one What I was thinking is that TMGs have much relaxed maintenance regime compared with a “normal” aircraft, and to my knowledge there exists no regulations preventing anyone to mount the appropriate avionics and fly IFR. You can in principle in a glider (fly in clouds). I could be wrong of course, and IFR (long distance style) in a slow TMG, why?

aart wrote:

You’d be looking at RG aircraft. And 150 KTAS is a stretch, even at MCP, 130 doable. Beware of advertised figures and speed record claims

You must take into account the new Rotax 915. 135 HP all the way up to 20k? This means with 600 MTOW you get more power from 8k and up than a standard O360. In one of those new sleek things, this will be a big boost of power compared with the 912iS/ULS, a factor 2 or more depending on the alt. Faster cruising speeds than all the RVs would be possible. We are talking Lancair performance here.

135 HP all the way up to 20k?

You need an IR and full IFR capability to use even half of that – outside very limited scenarios.

We are talking Lancair performance here.

Depends on which one Unfortunately the indications are that few are making use of it, presumably for reasons already discussed.

I forgot what I actually was thinking about. If you look at how all “new” stuff slowly takes over from the old stuff to start with. It doesn’t seem to get anywhere by the looks of it. Then suddenly over night it is everywhere. Mobile phones. It took years and years, then within a year or two in the mid/late 1990s, everyone had one. PCs, the same (taking over for typewriters to start with, then fax, then game consoles, then number crunching etc), laptops, pads. We see the same with electric cars and even electric bicycles. The cloud taking over for personal storage.

They all have one common denominator. They manage to do 95% of the things you need it for, better than the old technology. The last 95% either gets done after a while, or it gets irrelevant, taken over by some other technology. Fax taken over by e-mail, even though PCs was used for almost 20 years before e-mail became widespread.

I see much the same thing with microlights. They can do 95% of what all PPL pilots do today. What they cannot do is more than 2 people, acro, Night/IFR. The thing is, they are the 5% “odd balls”. With 600 kg MTOW and the Rotax 915, there is nothing else that will be able to touch the overall performance either (2 people VFR, cruise performance, short field performance, endurance). And who knows, aerobatics is purely a question of training, the Blackwing is already more than capable. IFR is also just simple training (even though some would like it to mean muuuch more … ) Electric planes are coming also. With all the new technology it would be extremely silly to constrain them to VFR day only, even for the lightest of GA. Things are changing now. The new LSA rules in the US, 600 kg microlight, the 915, all the ULPower engines will finally also come into it’s own (200 HP flat six, at 100kg, only 10-15 kg more than the 915).

Peter wrote:

You need an IR and full IFR capability to use even half of that – outside very limited scenarios.

But not where I live and 1000 NM+ in all directions. Let’s say I cruise at 8-9k feet with all 135 horses available. It is still better than a O360. Weather will be a limiting of course, but it always is. Compared with a 912iS/ULS it is still like night and day no matter the alt.

I meant the upper half.

Peter wrote:

Depends on which one Unfortunately the indications are that few are making use of it, presumably for reasons already discussed.

Lancairs are fast, no matter the alt. Almost all are non turbo 320-360 (classic two seater). At 8k they outperforms just about anything that isn’t TP. A 915 will be able to have the same performance in a lighter plane.

LeSving wrote:

You must take into account the new Rotax 915. 135 HP all the way up to 20k? This means with 600 MTOW you get more power from 8k and up than a standard O360. In one of those new sleek things, this will be a big boost of power compared with the 912iS/ULS, a factor 2 or more depending on the alt. Faster cruising speeds than all the RVs would be possible. We are talking Lancair performance here.

True. Bristell is and surely others are trying the 915 and it shows a nice speed increase, at the expense of a serious increase in fuel flow:

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/rotax-915

But there is no free lunch. The engine is heavier and bulkier because of larger radiators and the turbo. So the tandem-seaters I mentioned may not have room under these sleek cowlings, apart from the negatives of the extra weight up front.

Can’t find them this way, i’m blond.