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Ercoupers, I thought I'd pass this information on to all fellow Ercoupers. I haven't seen anything mentioned about this new FAA Classification in our conversations so I thought I'd put it out there. The beauty of this new SP/LSA Classification, many older pilots that hold a drivers (car) license and are healthy enough to pass the drivers license test may be able to continue to fly an Ercoupe without the medical requirements of a typical Pilot's License. I'm a member of EAA and they are pushing support for this new Classification. So I emailed them asking if Ercoupes would qualify for this. Below is the answer I got from EAA. It still has not been finalized but as you can see we may get the Ercoupe as part of it too. I'm just a new owner of Ercoupe N94004 a '46 415C and I'm not old enough to worry about medical and age issues yet. But it sure would be good to know that I and others could continue to fly our Ercoupe longer than other higher performance aircraft. Sure there are limitations but staying in the air has to be a benefit. You may all know about this but I hadn't seen anything on it specific to Ercoupes. It would be good to let the FAA and EAA know that you would support this change and look forward to including the Ercoupe in the Classification. There's also a website for this that may help you understand the advantages for this new Classification. It will be good for General Aviation as a whole. The EAA has and website petition that they would welcome you as a supporter of this. Their website is www.eaa.org Richard McClure The answer to your question depends on what the Sport Pilot final rule calls out regarding the definition of a light-sport aircraft (LSA). If the LSA definition stays as it was called out in the proposal (NPRM), then the Ercoupe 415C will not qualify, as it's gross weight is above the 1232 lb limit and it's landing-configuration stall speed is above the 39 knot limit. However, we suspect that the final rule will include some adjustments to the LSA definition. We feel that the gross weight limit may be raised to something in the neighborhood of 1300 lbs (possibly as high as 1320), and we feel that the stall speed limit may be raised slightly as well. If this is indeed the case, then the Ercoupe 415C will qualify for operation by sport pilots. I suggest you keep watching the sport pilot web site at www.sportpilot.org for info and updates. Once the sport pilot final rule is made public, we will post specific info at that sight as quickly as we can. Joe Norris EAA Aviation Services EAA Aviation Center, Oshkosh, WI 888-322-4636, extension 6806 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers-tech/
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