Light Sport Aircraft

In article ,
says...

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 06:12:42 GMT, (sleepy6) wrote:

Personally, my only reason to consider ELSA would be to avoid buildin
g
at least 51%. The restrictions and requirements associated with ELSA

would easily outweigh that benefit in my opinion.

The world has become a lot more impatient... in nearly every conventi
onal
hobby, people want to buy more and do less. People buy ready-to-fly R
C models,
no one builds their own stereos, those who build their own computers b
asically
just plug ready-to-run components together. ELSA kits won't appeal to
those who
want to customize their planes, but might be a good cost-savings oppor
tunity for
those who don't want to do a lot of work.

The aspect that intrigues me is the SLSA to ELSA conversion. The FAA
says that
owners of SLSAs will be able to convert their planes to ELSAs. Once i
t's in
ELSA, the plane apparently no longer has to continue to conform to the
consensus
standards (the FAA says one can do the conversion if one doesn't want
to
implement a change required by the manufacturer).

One of the more common homebuilding questions come from guys who want
to take a
stock Cessna, install an auto engine in it, and "license it as a homeb
uilt." As
we've discussed here many times, it's almost impossible to transfer su
ch a plane
to the Experimental Amateur-Built category.

However, it looks to me that such a switchover WILL be possible, withi
n ELSA.
You still won't be able to do it with a Standard category airplane, bu
t you will
be able to buy a flying aircraft (new or used SLSA), put it into the
Experimental category (ELSA), and then perform whatever modifications
you please
with no further limitations by the FAA. You'll even be able to rent i
t out,
until the permission to do so expires in 2010. You'll be able to main
tain the
aircraft yourself, and, with the completion of that 16-hour course, be
able to
sign off the annuals.

I don't know if that was the intent of the developers, it sure looks l
ike it's a
result of the program....

Ron Wanttaja

I haven't researched it since the actual changes in the FARs so you
may be right ... but earlier versions allowed only the ultralight
transfers to be used as trainers and rentals for a limited period of
time. The factory kit ELSA were never allowed as trainers and rentals.

Also the factory kit ELSA and the SLSA that moved down to ELSA were not
allowed anything but factory approved modifications. We never got an
answer about modifications on the transfered ultralights. It was real
confuseing because they refered to transfered ultralights as ELSA also
and we had to see which ELSA we were dealing with as we looked up a
reference to a different section. That may have happened when they
wrote the actual FARs.

I hope your interpretation is right because ELSA kits were too
restricted for the life of the plane in the early discussions.