On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 20:05:44 GMT, ET wrote:

But hey, if Quicksilver decides not to put together Consensus standards
SLSA's well, there is your opportunity eh? You can do a little
paperwork, assemble them, sell them as SLSA's with Quicksilver as your
materials supplier and life goes on.

Well...I wouldn't use the term "a little paperwork."

While you no longer have to submit the data to the FAA for approval, you are
still required to perform a good amount of structural analysis and testing.
This data is supposed to be on-file at your factory; if the FAA does a spot
check and you don't have it, they'll pull the airworthiness certificates for
every plane you've ever sold. You'd have to reverse-engineer the Quicksilver.

Also, as part of the certification process, you have to generate a manufacturing
plan with quality control, publish full maintenance manuals, and establish a
system to monitor the fleet's airworthiness.

The program is designed for small companies, but not one- or two-man operations.

My feel is that as the deadline nears, there are probably going to be companies
that produce minimalist LSAs for ultralight training. The simpler the aircraft
is, the less the amount of paperwork.

Ron Wanttaja