But seriously - new engine

Bryan Martin wrote:
It took over ten years to get LSA approved. How long do you think it would
take to get changes made to 103 especially since the FAA has emphatically
claimed that 103 would not be changed? Most likely not until long after the
deadline has passed. If you own a fat ultralight, you had better take the
2007 deadline seriously or you may be sorry you didn't.



A little birdie whispered in my ear that the weight limit for
FAR 103 will be raised to 330 lbs in about a year.

--

FF

In article .com,
says...


Bryan Martin wrote:
It took over ten years to get LSA approved. How long do you think it
would
take to get changes made to 103 especially since the FAA has emphati
cally
claimed that 103 would not be changed? Most likely not until long af
ter the
deadline has passed. If you own a fat ultralight, you had better tak
e the
2007 deadline seriously or you may be sorry you didn't.



A little birdie whispered in my ear that the weight limit for
FAR 103 will be raised to 330 lbs in about a year.

--

FF

Or more Your prediction is as good as those predicting disaster
The ultralight lists have been through all this literally years ago and
RAW is just now getting into it.

Yes SP is great for older pilots and others with medical problems.

No it's not really attractive to newbies. When they compare costs and
limitations they choose PP.

Study it and/or actually go through the process and you will see why.
Many in the UL community were all for it until it came time to lay
their money down. Suddenly they decided to go PP.

The planes are there if the FBO was interested. The instructors were
there if the FBO was interested. Some of the FAA classes were canceled
because they couldn't find enough people to take them. There is a
reason for that

wrote)
A little birdie whispered in my ear that the weight limit for
FAR 103 will be raised to 330 lbs in about a year.


400 lb single seater would be better - which would include 'safety
equipment' weight. Floats would get extra lbs.

....and 10 gallons of fuel.
......and no upper end speed limit.

If they're going to fix 103, let's fix it right.


Montblack

Montblack wrote:
wrote)
A little birdie whispered in my ear that the weight limit for
FAR 103 will be raised to 330 lbs in about a year.


400 lb single seater would be better - which would include 'safety
equipment' weight. Floats would get extra lbs.

...and 10 gallons of fuel.
.....and no upper end speed limit.

If they're going to fix 103, let's fix it right.

The FAR 103 limits are set to minimize risk to bystanders
in an UL accident.

The limit on fuel, arbitrary though it may be is very
unlikely to be changed as increasing it obviously increases
the potential severity of a fire resulting from a crash.

The upper speed and weight limits, together, limit the
energy in a crash and of the two the speed limit is the
more important. However, though I haven't seen statistics
on it, UL accidents involving a collison at maximum
horizontal speed seem uncommon. The more typical
accident is a forced landing (near stall speed) due
to engine failure. Accidents resulting from structural
failure will typically result in the aircraft falling
from the sky at most at terminal velocity in free fall,
not a kamikazee type dive to impact. So even though
raising the speed limit would make ULS inherently more
risky to the public one would expect only a minimal
opportunity for that risk to be realized.

Of the FAR 103 restrictions the one I would most like to
see relaxed is the upper speed limit. That could give
ULs some limited practicality for cross country flight.
Consider the moni motorglider, barely over the FAR
103 weight limit but with a cruising speed up to 120 mph.

Now, the moni has its problems but it showed that a plane
within the weight limits of FAR 103 could have real cross
country speed.

Without an upper limit on speed, you could have UL pylon
races. What a blast! Actually, you could have a rule
limiting prop pitch since a rule limiting speed per se
would not be practical.

--

FF

330 would do very nicely, thank you very much!
Electric start and brakes even!

What did the little birdie say might be the motivation for this
gracious action on behalf of the Friendly Aviation Agency?

Do the fat ultralights represent that much of an economic
or political impact on our economy?

Hey, they are about the only thing that _is_ manufactured here
anymore...

Richard