Sucker born every minute - stepping up to an old turbine.

I’m noy sure what you mean by
“wish the French would have been more positive in their certifying and documentation habits though and also stop pulling the rug under many French designs by revoking the CoA”
If you mean that the French are not very good at business, then I would have to agree with you.

gallois wrote:

If you mean that the French are not very good at business, then I would have to agree with you.

Well, that is the consequence I reckon.

What I meant with the above is that a lot of French made airplanes are basically impossible to upgrade under EASA as there are not STC’s for e.g. EFIS, AP’s e.t.c. I was more than once looking e.g. at Robin’s HR100, which is a great airplane, but a 10 hour range airplane without an AP makes no sense to most. Robin never managed to get on any AML or get STC’s for any recent AP’s and even those models who did are few and far between.

Even if also a lot of American companies lack on this, I think the primary problem I would have with operating things like a Robin or a Gardan or similar nice airplanes is that they are factually not upgradable under EASA. It should have been in Robins best interest to be helpful to such upgrades, not only as they did do what in reality amounts to “grande visits” to lots of their airplanes, but in order to promote sales of new ones. I know two owners of HR 100’s and another one with a ST10-Diplomate (basically the predecessor of the TB20 even though some say that was the HR100-Tiara… ) who also sold up after finding it impossible to install one of the normal AP’s of these days (neither S-tec nor King nor Edo Aire had any approved AP’s). One STEC guy at FHA many years ago told me that they tried to get Robin interested in pursuing those STC’s for their 30,40,50 series but got the cold shoulder.

The pulling the rug thing:
Imagine you own a fleet worth loads of money only to be told by Airbus that they are pulling the type certificate unless that airline is willing to pay insane amounts of money to keep it going? That is what happened to BA with Concorde and it also happened to the hapless owners of the last 10 or so Caravelles which were reliably flying in Africa and South America. While the Concorde thing was most probably political (as AF lost money and did not want BA to continue) they pulled the rug from under the Caravelle Operators who had airworthy airplanes in one moment and static displays in the next. Also they made it brutally clear to any one owner of those planes that no, the type certificate is NOT orphaned but it is retracted and null and void, therefore flying the airplane without the explicit permission of Airbus is illegal.

So you buy an airplane, fly it happily and well cared for and one day a fax comes in telling you that you sit on a static display type airplane because the manufacturer retracts the right for you to use it. Despite you having done all that was prescribed to keep them going. I knew people involved with this and they to this day have stated vigorously that they will never ever touch another French airplane, which includes anything Airbus produces. Those who are still in business are flying Boeings now. The Caravelle which I was involved with was sold less than 12 months after a “grande visite” to Waltair in Kinshasa who operated it and an 11 only to be told they can’t as Airbus pulled the rug supported by the French DGAC, which many claim are one and the same.

The same thing can happen to any other French airplane if the manufacturer still exists and pulls the rug. Where the manufacturer is gone and done for, the risk is less, as it is officially orphaned, but if the manufacturer or owner of the type certificate is willing to stop a plane from flying, they can and will if it suits their ends. And that, so far, I’ve only seen in France as far as larger valuable fleets are concerned.

I have never come across this cancelling of the TC and stopping customers from using their planes. Do you have any publications I can read up on?
IMO the problem in French business is that we have plenty of good designers, engineers etc but for the most part we have no idea about mass production and marketing. Something that the Americans and the Japanese anf now the Chinese and Koreans tend to be very good at.
Having said that, usually in France, where there is a will there’s a way although it might be convoluted. I have been trying to find out whether Thales (a large European company) and the current owners of what was Badin Crouzet and who still make top notch autopilots have STCs for replacing the old ones in Rallyes and Robins etc.

Will do.
https://minijets.org/en/0-100/jet-cobra/mc15j/

Just a bit of fun Adam. Engine runs on LPG which is lighter than jet fuel.

Flight time 17 minutes, vne ~130 knots.

However, incredible what one can do with less than 170kg total mass

Not good range I admit but 17mins gives enough for an aerobatic routine. In FAA land the Cri Cri is apparently the smallest aerobatic aircraft up to 10G. Or so some my American friends tell me.
The electric versions are faster but have similar range. One was recorded in level flight at 153knots but has reached 194kts during tests.
I think that was for the 4 motor version.
The great thing about experimentals like the Cri Cri is that you can stick any engines you like on it, providing you can demonstrate it will fly safely.
So far I have counted around 25 different types of engines but there are probably more as the Cri Cri makes a great test bed for trying things out. The limitation on single cylinder engines is that above 20hp they tend to vibrate a lot. The original design IIRC was 2x 9hp.
An added advantage in FAA land is that the Cri Cri can be used to build multi engine hours as it will climb OEI.😃😃😃
BTW Adam in Air Connect magazine, back in July, 2 were listed for sale (twins) 2 x Cri Cri + 2xtrailers for €34000. I don’t know if they have sold yet. They are still listed on the internet.

Would a Cri-Cri be an SSDR (single seat deregulated) aircraft in the UK? It’s certainly light enough and stalls slow enough, I’ve not seen anything saying an SSDR can’t have two engines (yet).

It might well be an SSDR in the UK but I don’t know the UK regs regarding them. AFAIK France doesn’t have this category but I could be wrong.