Southeast Soaring

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There used to be a group named Southeast Soaring that was refurbishing
Blanik 2-place gliders. Does anyone know what has happened to this
group? Are they still in business? Anyone have any feedback on them?
Anyone buy one of the planes?

Thanks,

[F.L. Whiteley]

wrote:

> There used to be a group named Southeast Soaring that was refurbishing
> Blanik 2-place gliders. Does anyone know what has happened to this
> group? Are they still in business? Anyone have any feedback on them?
> Anyone buy one of the planes?
>
> Thanks,

Termikas USA was the company. www.termikas.com looks like a shop in
Lithuania.

I think this was the Florida entity importing 'reconditioned' gliders from
Lithuania. IIRC, LET was refusing them export C of A's as they lacked
factory overhauls, so they were limited to experimental airworthiness.
Don't know if that was ever sorted out. My personal opinion was that the
asking price was way high given the limitation and sketchy paper trail, so
we didn't pursue the issue further and bought on L-23 from the factory.

http://tinyurl.com/agfyu

Frank Whiteley

[Chris]

On Tue, 17 May 2005 22:45:42 -0600, "F.L. Whiteley" >
>I think this was the Florida entity importing 'reconditioned' gliders from
>Lithuania. IIRC, LET was refusing them export C of A's as they lacked
>factory overhauls, so they were limited to experimental airworthiness.

Going by the spiel on the termikas site, you could understand LET not
handing out a CoA if it would hurt their sales.
Going by the 2004 sales figures, they must live on air cause 2 gliders
produced isn't a record number by all means!

Interesting to note that the US wont register them, whereas they will
let almost anything with a rubber band engine fly around happily.

I don't know the category set up in the US, so maybe it is quite
reasonable of the FAA, though surely if they let their own examiners
through the aircraft and inspect every rivet, they could assess the
airworthiness themselves. Heck, get Termikas to proof load one and
give the findings to the FAA. (Thats if they believe they will sell
enough aircraft to justify that cost)

Chris

[F.L. Whiteley]

Chris wrote:

> On Tue, 17 May 2005 22:45:42 -0600, "F.L. Whiteley" >
>>I think this was the Florida entity importing 'reconditioned' gliders from
>>Lithuania. IIRC, LET was refusing them export C of A's as they lacked
>>factory overhauls, so they were limited to experimental airworthiness.
>
> Going by the spiel on the termikas site, you could understand LET not
> handing out a CoA if it would hurt their sales.
> Going by the 2004 sales figures, they must live on air cause 2 gliders
> produced isn't a record number by all means!
>
> Interesting to note that the US wont register them, whereas they will
> let almost anything with a rubber band engine fly around happily.
>
> I don't know the category set up in the US, so maybe it is quite
> reasonable of the FAA, though surely if they let their own examiners
> through the aircraft and inspect every rivet, they could assess the
> airworthiness themselves. Heck, get Termikas to proof load one and
> give the findings to the FAA. (Thats if they believe they will sell
> enough aircraft to justify that cost)
>
> Chris
They could be registered experimental in the US. That's okay for clubs and
private owners, but cannot be used for commercial operations except under
very limited rules. At that, the price was higher than the market would
allow.

Frank Whiteley