New LSA from Ukraine?

After looking for a reasonably priced aircraft I came across the T-10
from Ukraine. It seems pretty rugged. I wonder how much trouble it
would be to inport and license as LSA since it meets the LSA criterea.
There is a picture at http://www.firmatmm.ua/~en/ENG/94/ . It has a
stainless steel tube fuselage and a wood wing which seems like an
unusual combination.
Are there any aircraft from Ukraine flying in the US?

On 8 Nov 2005 03:19:44 -0800, "rtmtech" wrote:

After looking for a reasonably priced aircraft I came across the T-10
from Ukraine. It seems pretty rugged. I wonder how much trouble it
would be to inport and license as LSA since it meets the LSA criterea.

It would be a considerable problem for an individual to import *one* aircraft
and license it as an LSA, as he or she would have to do everything required to
certify the aircraft as a production LSA. However, for the next two years, the
FAA will allow owners of "fat" ultralights to license their aircraft as
Experimental LSAs using a fairly simple process. Conceivably, the process could
be used for any aircraft meeting the Light Sport definition, as long as the
plane itself has never been licensed.

Ron Wanttaja

It has a
stainless steel tube fuselage and a wood wing which seems like an
unusual combination.

Not unusual at all; this was common way back when. _Spirit of Saint
Louis_ has such a construction, IIRC.

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
On 8 Nov 2005 03:19:44 -0800, "rtmtech" wrote:


After looking for a reasonably priced aircraft I came across the T-10
from Ukraine. It seems pretty rugged. I wonder how much trouble it
would be to inport and license as LSA since it meets the LSA criterea.


It would be a considerable problem for an individual to import *one* aircraft
and license it as an LSA, as he or she would have to do everything required to
certify the aircraft as a production LSA. However, for the next two years, the
FAA will allow owners of "fat" ultralights to license their aircraft as
Experimental LSAs using a fairly simple process. Conceivably, the process could
be used for any aircraft meeting the Light Sport definition, as long as the
plane itself has never been licensed.

Ron Wanttaja


Hey Ron,
Slightly OT, but I just bought the 3rd edition of your book (Kit
Airplane Construction) yesterday and from what I've read already it's
great. Man, where did you learn all this cool stuff?

Anyway, I have some repairs I need to do to my plane (new control
cables) and I'm going to embark on a kit within the next year or so.
This book will be dog-eared from referring to it, I assure you....

Just wanted to say thanks for a great book...

LS
N646F

On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 17:16:39 GMT, ls wrote:

Hey Ron,
Slightly OT, but I just bought the 3rd edition of your book (Kit
Airplane Construction) yesterday and from what I've read already it's
great. Man, where did you learn all this cool stuff?

Here...there... everywhere. I'm a sponge. The information is out there, the
trick is to gather it, integrate it, and express it to make it understandable.
I've received a lot of good info on RAH, I've got some outstanding experts in my
local EAA chapters, and have the good fortune to work with some professional
aircraft designers who can give me the engineering insight. This is a
"shoulders of giants" situation.

For those who own the first two editions, the changes in the third edition
mostly deal with the changes in the homebuilt industry...the technical
information is (the same, with some additions. About half the case studies were
replaced, some of the results of my homebuilt accident study are summarized,
Light Sport Aircraft are addressed, and some of the uses and benefits of the
Internet are now included. BTW, all the "Case Study" homebuilts from the second
edition are now flying, and some have won several awards.

I made the great-and-glorious mistake of contracting for new editions of *both*
my aviation books this year (I had been holding off until Sport Pilot was
instituted). It's interesting to reflect on the changes that have come in the
publishing industry in the 8-10 years since their last editions.

For one thing, the original publisher was bought out, the editorial offices were
moved, and all the drawings from "Kit Airplane Construction" and *all* the
photos and drawings from "Airplane Ownership" were lost in the process.

Fortunately, I'd done most of the line art myself and still had the native
drawing packages (an early version of Deneba's "Canvas"). I didn't have prints
of the photos, but I'd filed the negatives in a semi-organized fashioned. I was
able to recover most of the photos I wanted to re-use, and with the help of a
scanner with a negative attachment, was able to scan in acceptable copies
without having to go get prints from a photo lab (~150-200 photos!).

For the first time, I submitted both the text and the photos in electronic form.
It was a real boon to organization, since I didn't have to try to maintain
binders for the photos. A photo-album program made it simple to keep each
chapter's photos organized. The publisher required both electronic and hard
copy, but I used the photo-album program to generate "guide sheets" with three
photos per page to show what was on the media. "Kit Airplane Construction"
required four CD-ROMs to hold the entire book, and the smaller "Airplane
Ownership" got by with two.

Since I (eventually) got a high-speed connection at home to enable the
manufacturers to email photos from the book, I was able to use it for
more-efficient use of the Internet for research, as well.

All of the editorial processing has been done by email...the editors went
through the books, then sent me Word files with changes highlighted. I returned
the files with my own comments, then received page proofs in PDF format for
checkover. The newest version of Adobe Acrobat allows comments to be inserted
in the PDFs, and that's how I submitted the proofs back to the editors.

With composite airplanes on the covers of the first two editions, I knew it was
time for an aluminum airplane...and of course, that means "RV." I emailed Ken
Scott at Van's and he submitted some of Ed Hicks' fantastic air-to-air shots of
the company RV-10s. It makes a gorgeous cover.

The second book, "Airplane Ownership," is in the final editing process and
should be out early this year. This book's case studies include several RAH
participants, including Jay and Mary Honeck, Javier Henderson, and Rich
Shankland.

Ron Wanttaja