At 11:32 AM 9/09/2009, you wrote:
>>I think EASA has gone past the stage of
hammering nails in gliding's coffin. They're
throwing the dirt on it in the grave.
Maybe and maybe not. The increasing cost of compliance with EASA
legislation for German glider manufacturers may open the door a little
wider to sailplane manufacturers from other countries. In the same
way, the equally silly litigation legislation and other factors opened
the door to LSA aircraft from Eastern Europe etc. and made a lot of
changes to the good.
Aircraft like the Nimeta are brilliant, but out of reach for the most
of us. I saw a second hand, self launching Silent glider in Europe a
year ago for 30,000 or so. Much more in the ballpark for the average
flyer.
A lot of fuss is made about the Antares and DG electric self
launchers, but you have been able to buy an electric self-launcher
from a handful of ultralight sailplane manufacturers for 3 or 4 years
now. So a shakeup of German sailplane manufacturers may not be all bad
:-)
DMcD
Talk about missing the point.
The vast majority of the world glider market is
in Europe. Any manufacturers outside Europe will
need to comply with the same EASA regs if they
want to sell into Europe. Any European glider
pilots who own one of those gliders will still be
dependent on somebody in the future holding the
type certificate *and* having that recognised by
EASA or their gliders will be grounded. For an
example of what happens look at the recent
history of the type certificate for the Eclipse very light jet.
See the problem now?
The LSA aircraft from Eastern Europe were mostly
designed to the European ultralight standards and
have had weight upgrades since. They were mostly
being flown overweight anyway. Nothing to do with
litigation legislation. More to do with the dead
hand of communist repression being lifted and
aviation engineers finally getting to do what
they wanted to do. Besides they needed to earn a
living instead of pretending to work and the government pretending to pay them.
I saw a very nice self launching Silent 2 Targa
at the Wide bay Airshow a couple of months ago.
It had been grounded for 12 months as the GFA
hadn't got around to issuing any kind of
airworthiness certificate. A$112,000 sitting useless for 12 months.
Before getting too entusiastic about electric
self launch ultralights, check the calendar life
of the high performance batteries. They get a
fair hammering in this use too. A few weeks ago I
had cause to talk to some people who knew all
about high performance lithium batteries and no I can't say who and where.
As for shaking up the German manufacturers,
glider pilots everywhere had better hope the
manufacturers of their gliders survive otherwise
there will be bureaucratic difficulties with continued operation of them.
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - manufacturers of quality soaring instruments since 1978
phone Int'l + 61 746 355784
fax Int'l + 61 746 358796
cellphone Int'l + 61 428 355784
email: [email protected]
website: www.borgeltinstruments.com
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