PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - EASA death knell for UK gliding - what next?
Old 29th Mar 2004, 12:29
  #32 (permalink)  
Genghis the Engineer
Moderator
 
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 14,241
Received 52 Likes on 28 Posts
It's not going to be a universal panacea, but, assuming that the numbers in that website are right...

T21B has an empty weight of 272kg, and an MTOW of 476kg.

To meet the microlight definition, that MTOW would have to come down to 450kg, which means a useable payload of 178. Subtract your 103kg (can you go high enough in a T21 to use a chute?) and we get a remainder of 75kg. Allow 9kg for their chute and clothing and you are restricted to pax under 10½ stone nude weight, which isn't too bad.

(The MTOW of a 2-seater flown solo is still 450kg by the way).


I have to agree, at 272kg empty weight, the Skylark 4 looks like a lost case, but the Skylark 2 at 109kg empty is probably viable.


Looking up the ASK-13 on the same website it shows an empty weight of 290kg as you say, and an MTOW of 480kg. Restrict that to 450kg and you have 80 kg per seat available - that's probably a problem with the basic regulations, since microlight rules normally require at-least 86kg capacity per seat. Also the microlight definition needs a stall speed under 35 knots, which the ASK-13 doesn't seem to meet.


Probably not a universal panacea then, but if it keeps a fair number of aircraft out of EASA's clutches, it may be worth the effort of working out which ones and asking the right questions.

G
Genghis the Engineer is offline