Mogas?
Flutter is related to the actual airflow velocity i.e. TAS, so if you do a fast dive from some altitude you will be closer to flutter than if you did the same IAS dive from lower down.
I had a very impressive demo of that in the TBM flight in 2010.
No idea whether this is the reason, because the TAS gain at 10k is only about 15%.
IMO I don’t think the certification process does get cheaper/longer etc. I think you may find that it is something as simple as not having oxygen aboard when doing the certification tests, and then along came bad weather followed by Covid 19.
But that is just a guess, because of the lockdown I have not been able to chat with the people involved.
I don’t think the Mogas fuel is the reason for the limitations.
There are many planes, certified and uncertified, flying with this or a closely related engine and the same fuel without any altitude limits.
If it really is fuel-related, I think it can only be because of extremely bad fuel line design.
From here
@Peter : This one may come very close to what you suggest.
https://elixir-aircraft.com/en/
Granted, it’s only a 2-seater, but unlike ULMs it’s fully EASA CS-23 certified and will become available with a Rotax 915 is turbo.
IFR version is under development and planned to be ready by 2023 ( I asked them).
With the 915is turbo it’s supposed to cruise at 150 +TAS with a 5-6 hours endurance on less than 25 L/ hour.
And it’s got a parachute.
I were in contact with Elixir during last year when we were looking for newer airframes for the Aeroclub and they claimed a useful load of about 270 kg. Should be doable to get some IFR stuff in there.
Price in basic version was around 235 000 Euros + VAT…
Despite claims on their website that they have a cheap way of building aircraft.
Fly310 wrote:
Despite claims on their website that they have a cheap way of building aircraft.
Most new entrants in the aircraft building market at some point in time figure out, that not all existing companies are run by morons and therefore there are reasons why new aircraft prices are where they are …
Elixir still looks like a reasonable value for money – but even though their founders might have thought differently, they can’t do magic either.
It is quite a hike on what was expected to be the original base price of €130,000.
If you add to that the cost of equipment for IFR I’m not sure how it compares with its competition, although I think in the 2 seat IFR marketplace there is only the Liberty XL and I don’t think that has a parachute.
The reason it was supposed to be cheaper was that in the area where it is built, there are quite a few composite luxury boat builders and the aim was to use these facilities rather than building a production line from scratch. I wonder what happened.
Does anybody know the cost new of an IFR equipped DA40 or Robin 401 or the parachute equipped SR20?
