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E-Turbo for an E-UL (a legal 100mph Part 103 UL is possible!)

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Grimace

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2009
Messages
319
Location
Chicago, IL
...so long as it only reaches that speed while climbing and gets the power chopped back when in dead-level flight).

This is referencing an ultralight glider. In a nutshell, any powered UL glider is an "ultralight" and gets lumped in with the 254lb folks). I spent some time rereading Part 103 looking for ideas and came up with this-

Let's assume I had a 40kw e-motor which was capable of blasting past the 55kt limit. So I set the controller to limit power to 25kw in order to stay under the *maintaining level flight* requirement of part 103. Assume this would not be override-able in flight.

But what if I also had a "turbo" button that would allow me access to full power, but only under the following circumstances: Either when AOA is over 5 degrees, or for 2 minutes after a weight-on-wheels switch opens,

This would make it impossible to maintain level flight above 55kts, but it would also allow you to climb like a mf'r and get off the ground in a shorter distance. The FAR does say that artificial means of controlling level speed are ok and it's not really a work-around if it's only allowing access to more power in climb situations.

Hypothetically, sure, I could have a level speed of 55 but be capable of 100kts at a 3° AOA with a 50fpm climb rate. but I'm not even talking about working around the system, I just want to maximize performance within the rules. What do you think?
 
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