sleepy6 wrote:

In article ,
says...

Cloud_dancer wrote:

The FAA has looked the other
way, because generally speaking, it hasn't been an issue. And also
because the FAA's original target weight was 500 lbs, but they got t
alked
down to 254 by some vendors who wanted to capture the market by sett
ing
the limit just above their build weights

I wonder if that is an urban myth started by critics of quicksilver.
Sure
some
people asked for more, but almost the entire industry expected the
limit to be set to 220 lbs. There were planes designed to that limit
and displayed at Sun-N-Fun with that claimed weight. CGS Hawk
was one of them. Almost everybody was surprised when the
limit came out at 254 lbs I remember precisly the moment when I
first heard the news.

--Dan Grunloh

Chuck S has publically posted that we could have had 500 pounds if not
for "Lyle and Larry". Hardly folklore.

I'm sorry but it's still folklore to me.

I believe my good friend Chuck has embellished the point
just a little bit here. If a story is repeated often enough
it begins to sound true. I cannot believe that some crafty
UL manufacturer managed to talk the FAA down from
500 lbs empty weight to the 200 lbs which they eventually
proposed.

The truth is that there was much disagreement about
how much weight should be requested. Many thought
we should start very high as a negotiating point and
Chuck was one of those. He was probably right.

The FAA actually offered 200 lbs and many feared that would
be the limit once FAR103 was issued. In some part
the final increase was due to the John Chotia fatality
in his prototype J-24 which was said to have been
built to the 200lb limit.

The only organization representing UL's at the time was EAA.
They pushed for 220 lbs instead of 200lbs and that was also
the opinion given in editorials in Glider Rider magazine
(which later became "Ultralight Flying")

Another interesting fact came directly Mike Sacrey the
author of FAR103 at the FAA. He was asked years later
about how they came up with the 254 number. It did not
correspond to any international standard and comes
out to be about 115 kilograms.

Mike said they simply surveyed all the product liturature
in 1982 and picked a number which would allow all of the
ultralights at the time to continue to fly under the
new FAR103 rules. They didn't intend to ground anyone.
Unfortunately some manufacturers had under-reported
their empty weights by quite a bit.

The model most affected in 1982 was the Goldwing which
claimed 240lbs but actually weighed closer to 270 lbs.
As a result, it was the only ultralight at the time
which was excluded by FAR103. This was just before
the introduction of the Challenger, CGS Hawk, and
the Mimi-Max.

There was a humourous irony in the Goldwing situation
because of their company slogan, "Alone in it's class".


--Dan Grunloh