Thoughts on Sling HW
 

The South African built Sling High Wing 145kt 4 seat single that uses a Rotax 915 and burns 28lt/hr was due to launch at OSH.

What do people think of the 470kg useful load - fill all seats and tanks / STOL / tourer / operating cost package proposition for our Oz environment?

slingaircraft.com/aircraft/sling-hw

Thoughts?

CG

My thoughts coming from a composite 4 seat aircraft owner.

- Payload is impressive, a lot more than an SR20

- 145 knots TAS; would like to see what it realistically does down low with a load

- I’m not sold on the composite fuselage centre section. They did it to make it look good, but it’s got a metal rear fuselage slapped on the back

- Crash protection in their all metal models was woeful so I hope this one doesn’t crush like a can of coke too

- Those airmaster blades look scarily thin for a 4-seater!

It looks like it could be a good thing, however I’m a little scared to see the price tag!

Surely those numbers are do able with all the advancement in technology. My 1958 Cessna 172 can legally lift 400kg with a 145hp engine driving a fixed pitch prop burning better than 30 litres an hour and doing 100 KTAS. If it can't, its a sad state of affairs that it can't improve performance over 60 years!

For the reported cost is going to be (Around $141K USD), I'd stick with the RV-10. Granted it's a bit bigger, and thirstier, but you could happily install an EFI-equipped IO-390 or IO-360 and get similar performance, but with Vans' legendary background, & support.

From all accounts, the test numbers are within a poofteenth of the real world figures recorded by the low wing version, the TSi, of which there are quite a few flying already. I see they have developed a taildragger in tandem with the tricycle, rather tasty looking, even if it makes no pretence of being a STOL bird.

I'd guess that both in their home market and in the US, the ability to develop full power well into the teens is a bigger selling point than here. For most people, a big advantage over the RV, would be the relative ease of getting a factory built version delivered to your hangar.

I am puzzled. With the comparison to a RV10 I assumed we were talking about a kitset aircraft for which the price was US$150,000. Now there is reference to a factory built version being an easy purchase. It is obviously too heavy to fit within LSA certification and it does not make reference to Part 23 Certification, so how can it be supplied as a factory built aircraft to Australian customers?

It could be purchased as an experimental aircraft and put onto the VH register and maintained by a LAME. That’s why you see so many “demonstrator” aircraft coming from some factories.

There was one of the smaller ultralight factories doing this in Australia, before LSA came along.

Got it in one; as I understand it, it's the same as buying a 2nd hand -10 or Lancair in flying condition from overseas, just that here you get to specify your equipment and colour scheme, and the factory do the bolting together bit.

Still puzzled. "Experimental" for an RV10 or Lancair means that the owner has been involved in building 51% of the aircraft. For this the builder of a VH "Experimental" aircraft gets to maintain their aircraft. If some one buys a second hand Lancair or RV10 from overseas they cannot do the maintenance, however the aircraft is still home built Experimental.

Full marks to Sling for bringing out 4-seat aircraft but how can a factory sell a new 4-seat aircraft that is not Part 23 certified as home built experimental?

It looks to be only available via kit or their build-assist program.

They can sell demo aircraft into Australia in limited numbers as experimental and the owners will not be able to owner maintain.

That being said, if the owner has built an aircraft that is “essentially similar” to the Sling in construction, they could legally maintain it as long as it is not owned by a syndicate. The combo carbon and metal construction means an essentially similar aircraft may not exist in practical terms.

As above, you can indeed do this.

Any RV builder in Australia can effectively purchase an RV10 and maintain it, as long as they have done the SAAA maintenance course.

CASA’s definition of “essentially similar” points out that an aircraft with hydraulic flaps versus electric flaps is not essentially similar, so arguably an RV10 with CSU is not essentially similar to an RV6 with fixed pitch prop. That being said, it is generally accepted that if you didn’t build the component, then you can’t maintain it, so in the above CASA, it may be legitimate for a LAME to perform any required works on the CSU.

The composite centre section involves lots of double curvature (door apertures etc.), and if made in metal, a lot of separate pieces. By making it in composite, the fibres in the layup will put the strength exactly where it needs to be from a crashworthiness point of view, i.e. producing a strong safety cell, assuming they modelled it properly. The tailcone on the other hand, is a simple single curvature structure, easily and cheaply made in metal. The rounded corners and taper give it stiffness, plus it would be a lot of area to make in composite, when it doesn't need to be. In the event of a very heavy landing in which something has to break, the tailcone maybe designed to fail first; acting as the cheap and easily replaceable fuse in the system, thus preserving the more expensive composite parts and avoiding an expensive composite repair.

Ah... Yeah, Yeah, NO

Which part, there are so many levels of verbiage to pick apart there?

Thanks for the contributions. It looks like the 50+ order book means a 2 year wait to get a kit. No delay with it’s brother the low wing Sling Tsi.

CG

I have the low wing Sling TSi and absolutely love it. Nearly pulled the trigger on an RV-10, but the time and cost to build exceeded the Sling TSi by a wide margin. (I did build assist, and priced them both out at multiple build-centers.)