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Américain francophone içi, soyez le bienvenue mon vieux.

And don’t use polyester foam or resin. See 1970s Hobie Cat hulls. Delam and mostly unrepairable.

The ULF-1 ultralight sailplane calls for structural balsa in several lightly stressed members. Not spar caps or webs mind you, at least nowhere near the root. That is a neat design btw.

Composites can take some radial outward pressure, see the use of countersunk bolts, hi loks, and the noted hollow core Ti rivets. Any countersunk fastener head when tightened is now an annular wedge, so that as the grip is tensioned, the head is pushing radially outward and clamping the stack up...

I’ll reiterate what several others have said. Go look at m-sandlin.info Mike lays all his drawing out on the web for free for you to build if you want. All his stuff with the exception of the Bloop was and is car toppable. I have a Goat 2 empennage i started when I was in college that I’m...

Also depends if the carbon is carrying critical primary structure loads or is mostly cosmetic. All galvanic and structural notes above apply, and if the answer to my question is “it’s an oil dipstick inspection cover” then I would suggest a CFRP looking vinyl wrap on aluminum.

Agree 100% Billski. Not getting many bites on the zenith forum so I thought I’d pitch it here too. The right thing to do is to analyze and act accordingly. I’m not sure why I asked. This is one of those “the plans don’t mention the interference/riding condition and neither does the build plan”...

Without getting into the MRB stress and fatigue margins, anecdotally, is there any harm in trimming off the outermost loops in a 48” long zenith CH750 STOL elevator trim tab hinge? I have to assume this would be better than letting it rub against the radiused corners of the elevator skin cutout...

And yet there is no way for my friends to legally register their 2-place Hawk as an LSA and operate it as sport pilots. This seems like the FAA wants these things gone or maybe they just can’t get out of the way of their own bureaucratic inertia.

Jedi: Correct me if I misunderstood your post: A tandem PG/HG has more wing area and structure to support the instructor and student together, but because it still weighs under 155 lbs per 103 “unpowered vehicles”, this is the reason the exemption is still valid? So since a 103 “powered...

Thank you all, I knew I came to the right crowd. It’s weird that the regulator left no legal path to light sport registration of any kind. By light sport category it meets all requirements, it just wasn’t built under that standard because it didn’t exist at the time of manufacture. One would...

Guys A friend of mine and his wife are inheriting this airplane from her aging father which hasn’t flown in years. They both paraglide and want to operate it part 103. I’ve already told them that part 103 doesn’t apply to 2-seaters, but I was foggy on the details on the whole “Fat ultralight to...

I would also point you to Mike Sandlin’s work if someone else hasn’t already. His Bloop would do it except he lost interest in portability/roadability. His earlier glider designs would fit on a pickup ladder rack.

The most compact powered aircraft ever is a paraglider with a fan on your harness. Unless you’re like me and you like your wing struts/cables to both push AND pull.

Marc It looks great. You are a talented CAD jockey and a thoughtful designer as well. I think everything you’ve done here looks good high level. And it sounds like you are going to do some checks on tube wall thickness/diameter, so that’s goodness. I would expect the failure mode on any of...

The cabanes are mostly in tension (strong) in flight, drag loads push them back for shear and moments too though. I would make a free body diagram of each triangle and just do a 6G load to see if it’s in the ballpark with a couple more inches. Then also do what VB said but only two inches. Keep...

Stop by any time, we have a great craft scene, we could invite Hot Wings and any other Utah HBA lurkers too.

We should all pay Billski tuition for the education he’s doled out to us over the years. I’ll have to pay you in beer though. :) cheers to repeated condensation of complex for the consumption of the lay!

Everything made is for consumption. To quote a well spoken progressive prog rock band lyricist: “all you hear or read or see on TV is a product waiting for your fat-a$$ dirty dollar, so shut up and buy…” Pratt and Whitney, Rolls, Textron, Rotax, put billions into R&D not for some dreamy, poetic...

Your design has some very pleasing lines, I get just the smallest hints of Fw-190/Ta-152, another Bavarian native. Best of luck with your project, sir. I’m brewing some Bavarian style lager here this weekend, so, Prost!