The Zenair CH601XL SLSA has an O-200.
With 800# empty weight,
one pilot and light fuel, I wonder what it would tow...

At 300# under max gross, it may just get over the trees
towing 800# or less. 2 people in a 1000#+ aircraft,
hmmm...pretty doubtful there.

I have yet to believe an RV-9 under 1000# empty can
be built with any engine bigger than a O-200. An
inquiry to Van's confirmed that there are no plans
to try to make any of the existing RV kits into SLSA
or ELSA eligible aircraft. They are sturdy and capable,
but a few hundred pounds past the 600kg limit. Flaps,
engine weight, engine accessories, battery, and sturdy
landing gear all add up.

I think a good SLSA towplane would need to be made
from the
bottom up as a single seater. I don't see enough demand
for a single-seat SLSA to make this likely. I'm not
sure we will ever see a single seat SLSA airplane at
all...

At 01:00 07 April 2005, Bill Daniels wrote:

'Roy' wrote in message
. com...
Many thanks for all the advice and suggestions so
far.

Non of the suggestions were for other than standard
(old) aircraft
products.

It has been suggested that an RV9 with a big motor
(160-200hp) would
be great to do the job.

Anyone else considered this approach?
We are not a commercial operation and dont have to
pay our pilots.
There is no insurance problem so this solution has
some appeal. ie
new airframe, easy repair & maintenance.

'Experimental - Amateur Built' aircraft will always
have a 'No glider
towing' paragraph in their operation limitations letter.
However, Sport
Light Aircraft under the new regs seem to have a loophole
that allows glider
towing for profit.

Actually the key design parameter isn't the engine
it's the propeller and
after that, the wing. If you start with a prop optimized
for max thrust at
towing speed and then a wing optimized for that speed,
the HP requirements
go way down. This assumes that the prop RPM can be
reduced by belts or
gearing.

Maybe somebody should cook up an SLA design optimized
for towing. This
would be a very efficient and very quiet airplane.

Bill Daniels


Mark J. Boyd