Precisely!
RD,
As I suggested in my initial post, the reason why we have such a great opportunity at the moment is that there is a raft of new regulations that for once have made things a little easier on the start-up manufacturer.
You are absolutely correct that the machine must be designed to meet the fully certified regulations as I stated above, but initially not manufactured by an 'approved' organisation or tested to the same extremes. In the UK for example (and the rest of the EASA/JAR member countries) this would be done using the BCAR VLH (or similar) kit regulations initially, though the machine would meet EASA-VLR ~ which offers a fully public transport CoA for rotorcraft under 750kg but makes use of the unique simplicity of small helicopters to reduce the certification burden. I have figures direct from the CAA on how much this is likely to cost and it's not unrealistic.
In the US, which lets face it has the biggest kit market, the aircraft are essentially unregulated in the experimental sector so the aircraft could steam straight in there and they are moving to develop the Primary Category Rotorcraft regulations which are based on EASA-VLR for simple and light weight certificated machines…again good news.
With this in mind any design for a potential light rotorcraft must be a sensible configuration and designed in such a way at to provide an easy (or as easy as it can be) ride through these various regulations as it progresses from ‘Superkit’ to ‘Certified’ status over a number of years. My proposal does this.
CRAN