Hi everyone.
I know we have some very passionate aviators on this site and I’d like to gauge the potential interest in a high performance single seat ready to fly or kit LSA. The beauty of the Australian LSA regulations is that we have removed the top speed limitation, while maintaining the balance of the international LSA frameworks.
Our team within Rapture Aircraft have a couple of airframes flying. We have one in Adelaide powered by a Jabiru 3300. This aircraft is currently topping out at close to 200 knots. We had one flying in the US with a Rotax 912ULS that topped out at about 186 knots, but the prop was not optimised.
Photos of both aircraft are attached.
This aircraft currently has a wing area of 40 sq.ft. and stalls at around 55 knots with landing flaps. As part of a project with the aircraft that we are working on, we are scaling the wing to provide an area of 66 sq.ft. One of the repercussions of doing this is that the new wing could potentially offer a stall speed that meets LSA criteria. This configuration would still offer bugger all drag at cruise speeds. We know that a Rotax 912 fits under the cowl ok, but we are thinking that a 155hp Edge Performance 912sTi would be a nice powerplant that with its turbocharging would offer excellent performance at both sea level and at altitude. A 200 knots cruise should certainly be attainable with this powerplant.
The current airframes are Vne limited to 220 knots (designed for and flown to higher speeds by the original designer, but a conservative number was subsequently placed on the Vne). However, the design overhaul that is being carried out will offer a higher Vne.
The ready to fly aircraft wouldn’t come cheap, particularly given the cost of the engine, but the question I have for forumites is whether in your opinion there would be legitimate interest for folks to buy a 200 knots ready to fly single seat LSA? Of course, the alternative to the high performance high cost variant is to offer a Rotax 912/Jabiru 3300 powered low cost variant that would only offer a 160-180 knot cruise.
We will still plan to offer the original wing for the super high performance kit market, but with the big wing making the aircraft LSA eligible, we want to explore that market.
I would appreciate your opinions or comments about the concept of a high speed single seat LSA.
Dave
