[Toshi]

Issue 2 in favor of building a plane: Certification

In the post above I quoted a brief definition of what a Light Sport Aircraft is. Similarly, there's a definition for true ultralights, as per FAR 103 (paraphrased):

- Solo pilot, for sport or recreational purposes
- Empty weight < 254 lbs
- <= 5 gallon fuel capacity
- <= 55 knot full power level flight maximum airspeed
- Stall speed <= 24 kts

This definition is pretty restrictive, in other words. The empty weight and maximum airspeed constraints are apparently the most difficult to meet.

Most fixed wing ultralights appear to be a bundle of sticks + a wing + a Rotax, or "half a VW" in this particular case

Why do people even try to meet these stringent requirements? The answer is that 103-complaint ultralights don't require inspection, registration (no N-numbers), or even mandatory pilot training (!). The latter implies that a flight physical isn't needed to fly an ultralight, so people with chronic diseases that have disqualified them from flying "real" planes sometimes step down to ultralights to skirt the rules/Fight The Man.

While the true ultralight category represents a unique, libertarian-paradise niche carved out from the sky, I don't think it's for me. I want to be trained and licensed in order to do things properly (and not die by virtue of my own incompetence!), and my wife agrees fully with me on this point, unsurprisingly. I also guess that I'll want something with a windshield, based on my motorcycle/scooter experience, for lower wind noise.

Add in a windshield and anything but the smallest of engines and FAR 103 compliance is unattainable by the dry-weight criterion. Given that I'll get a license of some sort if I do this, then what other options might exist? See the next post&#8230;

 

[Toshi]

Scenario: a hypothetical Sport Pilot/Private Pilot-licensed individual who wants something between the unregulated, overly restrictive-ruleset, rickety, "true"/103-compliant ultralights and the $150k+ top end Light Sport machines. Options exist, but are kind of hard to picture given the multiple classes of aircraft:

- OPTION A: Light Sport Aircraft
- OPTION B: Experimental Amateur-Built Aircraft
- OPTION D: Primary Aircraft Sport Plane

Option A, Light Sport Aircraft, are manufacturer-certified to meet LSA regulations. Their drawback, as mentioned above, is that they are generally quite expensive. The cheapest new option, pictured below, I could find is from a Bend, OR company.

$60k X-Air LSA. 37.5" advertised headroom concerns me, but that's a concern for down the road, not now.

Incidentally, there are some really cool LSA designs out there when one ignores the budget. See this electric (!), entirely composite, powered glider, for instance:

Pipstrel Taurus Electro G2. $125k, give or take. Not sure if I'd fit in the cockpit. Straight up Thomas Crown Affair bad-assery, though.

Option B, Experimental Amateur-built Aircraft, is the most promising option, in my outsider's opinion. (Harkening back to several posts ago, this category's existence is why I'm planning on attending the course on how to build a plane.)

Via this category one can get a "fat ultralight", an ultralight-in-spirit that either seats two people, weighs too much (> 254 lbs dry weight), or goes too fast (> 55 kt full-power level cruising speed). (One could also build a veritable Spruce Goose, as one need not hew to even LSA rules.)

Quicksilver GT400, a single seat "fat ultralight" that runs right around $20k in kit form

The catch with this category is that the aircraft has to be built by an amateur, ie, oneself. 51% of the work has to be documented to have been performed by oneself else it doesn't fit any category and is not legal to fly. Supposedly the kit takes 70 hours of labor to complete, provided one has a garage/hangar big enough to work on a 30' wingspan airplane&#8230;

Option D, Primary Aircraft Sport Plane, is actually different from Light Sport Aircraft despite sounding like the same syllables in a different order. It's defined as a subset of the LSA rules, more or less: < 1200 lb max takeoff weight, stall speed <= 45 kts, VFR only operation. The category is a ghost town, with only two aircraft having achieved certification under it, the below plus a $100k prebuilt tailldragger:

Quicksilver GT500, a "fatter ultralight", if you will: essentially a hopped up, two place GT 400. $30-46k in kit form depending on engine.

I don't quite see the allure of the GT500 given that I'm almost certain that my wife would never go flying with me. She's nervous by nature and furthermore doesn't like heights. She flipped out during our New Zealand hot air balloon ride, for instance, although she did go tandem skydiving (as did I) back in 2008, on the other hand. I'd rather have a GT 400, although there are certainly many other options in the essentially unrestricted Experimental Amateur-Built Aircraft world.

(For my reference, here's a positive review of the GT500, for what it's worth.)

Anyway, that concludes a whirlwind tour of "fat ultralights" and the nebulous aircraft that are supra-ultralight but less than the full expression of the LSA rules. In the next post I'll try to sum things up a bit, both for the readers' (any out there? anyone? heh) and my own benefit.

 

[Toshi]

Summary of this whole flying deal:

1) I'm not sure if I'll like to fly: see motorcycle wind noise complaints. I'll find out later this summer.

2) If I'm going to fly, I'm going to get a Sport Pilot or Private Pilot license. Therefore I won't be constrained to <254 lb "true" ultralights.

3) There aren't a ton of new aircraft options in between $10k rickety ultralights and $100k new, glass-paneled Light Sport Aircraft. Quicksilver's $20k build-it-yourself kit "fat ultralight" GT400 looks to be a reasonable intermediate option, at least on paper. I'll find out in August whether the ~70 hr task of building one seems feasible given my limited skill set.

4) If I feel flush later in life, after retirement fund/mortgage payoff/college-fund-for-kid(s) obligations have been fulfilled, then the over-$100k LSA category has some really awesome looking planes, such as an electric powered glider. For purely recreational flight, having a quiet, clean electric motor plus a 40:1 glide ratio would make for a Zen-like experience, or so I imagine. (Recall that in 2011 syadasti's flight instructor uncle advocated for glider flight for the recreational pilot.)

5) Somehow the cheaper-but-conventional LSA offerings, such as the $60k one out of Bend, OR, don't appeal to me as much. I like the cheap, "fat ultralight" ones because I imagine they'd have great visibility in addition to being quiet, slow, and relaxed. I like the expensive, sleek composite ones because they look cool. The conventional designs somehow don't seem like they offer much marginal benefit as compared to the fallback rented-Cessna-at-any-ol'-FBO option.

Cliffs Notes:

In the medium-term I may end up flying and owning something like the below goofy looking thing. Or not.

Quicksilver GT400

 

[Toshi]

Cliffs Notes:

In the medium-term I may end up flying and owning something like the below goofy looking thing. Or not.

Quicksilver GT400

So I ran all this by my wife, and she wasn't too excited about the concept.

She invoked the spouse-veto outright for the rickety true ultralight idea (see #5202) but grudgingly approved supra-ultralight (e.g. GT400) dreaming&#8230; provided whatever I might fly would be equipped with a parachute. Luckily, I'd seen such airplane parachutes before and knew where to look for 'em.

It turns out that BRS makes them for ultralights/"fat ultralights", too, in addition to bigger GA planes. Here's a vertical launch Ballistic Recovery System parachute mounted above the wing of an ultralight:

Note that the yellow GT400 (of which I basically randomly happened to pick an image for the above-quoted post) has exactly such a box mounted atop its wing! In addition to this photographic evidence, the page linked above has a list of ultralights for which mounting systems exist, and the GT400 is most definitely on there.



So this crisis has been averted, and the dream can live on for now.

 

[stevew]

how about one made of wood?

 

[stevew]

new title for toshi: john denver

 

[stevew]

http://www.cheapaircrafts4sale.us/

 

[Toshi]

how about one made of wood?

That's awesome. Key screenshots from that video, IMO:

 

[Toshi]

http://www.cheapaircrafts4sale.us/

See below:

NB: One can find some old-ass general aviation planes for under $20k reputedly, but I find that concept kind of scary. I'll gladly rent an old-ass, maintained-and-documented Cessna 172, but to be responsible for a post-WWII era machine? No thanks.

I'd also add to the above that if I did rock an Experimental Amateur-Built Aircraft it's going to be one built by me. I don't trust other amateurs, just my own skilled doctor-hands.




Update: I suppose one could also buy a more recent, inspected used GA or light sport aircraft through such a site. Doesn't have to be an old-ass one. I'd consider that if it came to that, although it'd have to be a great deal to beat out the default GA option of plane rental.

 

[Toshi]

Latest fun task: hounding Paypal, uShip, and a fraudulent uShip shipper (!) to get my monies back.

Paypal balked right off the bat since I paid way back on 3/11 (even though services were to be rendered in early June) so I filed an Amex chargeback. I'm working with uShip to get the ~10% remainder/deposit that I paid through them back as well.

Hi Toshi ([uShip username here]),

This message is in regards to the shipment(s) you have booked with Jeff Warren (GroundForceOne) on uShip.com. Jeff’s account was recently suspended for Trust and Safety reasons and we wanted to contact you to inform you of this and also to gather information about your shipment’s status. […]

Lovely.

At least rebooking the Acura's shipment was easy: I went through my household moving carrier, who in turn will handle the car carrier booking/payment. $1,436 for 11803 to 98116.

 

[Toshi]

Want: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Toyota-Isuzu-/130913656599?ViewItem=&item=130913656599&forcev4exp=true#ht_34435wt_1165

No idea of legality or insurability.




Posteriquote:

2006 Nissan Patrol Turbo Diesel 4x4, located somehow in Texas
120,301 Miles / VIN: JN1TESY61Z0558116

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

having driven both... i can tell you they arent that much better (not even as good, as a matter of fact) as a lc200 to be honest.

 

[DaveW]

The Nissan TDi diesel motors do have a pretty good rep for being reliable in NZ, not so much for the rest of the powertrian tho.
Tended to be very "agricultural" in the handling and performance areas I found when I drove some.

 

[Toshi]

They're not available for sale in the US, though, which increases their desirability through magic.

 

[HardtailHack]

The later Tdi was good, the earlier ones went booooooom, there are a few companies in Oz putting different engines in them because there are no replacement motors left. Nissan can make awesome vehicles but often produce complete pieces of ****, like the D40 Navara!

 

[Toshi]

My thoughts for my wife's vehicle (again, she's due for one first) are vacillating again. Although we both agree the RAV4 EV's form factor would be much more useful than that of a LEAF, I can't ignore the reliability issues being reported:

http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=338

If there were guaranteed local Toyota dealer support in Seattle this wouldn't faze me, but as these California owners are waiting up to two weeks each time for Toyota/Tesla to fix this issue it's more troubling. (Recall that Toyota claims and it may be the reality that only a few dozen San Francisco-and-further-south Cali dealers can service the beast.)

Perhaps a leased LEAF SL will be in the cards after all, with the thought of her then stepping up to a Model X (?) in three years once the lease term is over.

 

[Toshi]

Could any of you who have electrical experience sanity check this proposed outdoors EVSE wiring setup? Westy? dan-o?

- Leviton EVB40-SPT 40A 240V EVSE, again to be mounted on the outside of the house
- 50 Amp non-GFCI breaker at the box (after upgrading service to allow for this, if necessary)
- 6/2 NM-B cable from said breaker to an LB junction box on the inside wall of the garage
- Within junction box splice the two wires + ground of the NM-B to two 6 gauge THHN/THWN-2 wires plus one additional 10 gauge wire as the ground
- Run said THHN wiring within a 1" metal conduit out through the garage's/house's wall to another sealed/waterproof LB junction box surface mounted on the outside of the house
- Another short run of 1" metal conduit upwards to the underside of the EVB40, to which the conduit will be secured and sealed
- Aforementioned THHN wiring, now safely and waterproofed-ly within the EVSE case, will finally be hard-wired--no receptacle involved in this chain as it'll be an outside installation, again

Answers to anticipated questions:

1) Why a 50A breaker? 1.25x upsizing for continuous loads per code.
2) Why outside the house? Mother-in-law's house, and the garage isn't really big enough for two vehicles. She parks her ICE-mobile inside.
3) Why NM-B for the indoor run? To avoid running conduit all around the garage if I don't have to. I could simply staple NM-B cable to the exposed garage rafters, easy.
4) Why metal conduit for the outdoor run? The bottom "plug"/H100-TB hub on the Leviton EVSE mates with 1" metal conduit, as best as I can tell. Might as well stick with it.&#65279;
5) Why a 40A EVSE? Why not?
6) Why a non-GFCI breaker? Per Leviton, their 240V EVSE does not need to be on a GFCI protected circuit.
7) Why 6/2 cable instead of 6/3? See wiring diagram for the EVSE below. Only need two hot wires + ground. No neutral.

Diagram from EVB40 installation guide showing the conduit entrance for hard-wired setups on the bottom left of the unit as you face it:

 

[Toshi]

I'm not sure if the clinging onto her toy (Sophie the giraffe for the uninitiated) was intentional, but she held onto it for a good 10 minutes or so while batting at things with her right hand.

 

[Toshi]

4 months since she prematurely popped into the world:

5DII, 135/2L, 1/160, f/2.8, ISO 3200, pushed +0.3 and corrected for white balance and camera profile in Lightroom.

 

[Toshi]

Could any of you who have electrical experience sanity check this proposed outdoors EVSE wiring setup? Westy? dan-o?

Suggestions I got from my mynissanleaf.com posting of the same/found via the magic of google that sound reasonable:

1) Either put a remote disconnect at the outdoor junction box or install a handle lock on the circuit's breaker at the inside panel. I think I'll do the latter. Cleaner, more weatherproof exterior configuration, cheaper, and 6 (4? perhaps ground wouldn't need to go through the disconnect) fewer splices.

2) Use 1" PVC conduit instead of metal. Again, cheaper, and easier to work with? Glue instead of threading or set screws, so perhaps not.

3) Use something newfangled like this to splice the NM-B to THHN at the inside junction box instead of split bolts (or run UF-B the whole way): http://www.amazon.com/Morris-Products-Multi-Cable-Connector-Insulated/dp/B005GDFSDU/

 

[Toshi]

My goal this evening was to test drive a Fit EV, my interest in it newly piqued by the $259/mo, 0 down lease deal Honda announced today.

I failed completely, and just ended up wasting 3 hours of my life wading through the ghetto hellholes of Woodside and Brooklyn. Never again will I visit these dealers, one of which lied to me on the phone about whether they had a car available (they didn't), and the other of which demanded that I sign lease paperwork before they got off their lazy asses and moved the car "in stock" from their inaccessible off-site lot to the showroom location.

How Honda expects any EVs to be sold in the NYC metro area given this level of service escapes me.

 

[Toshi]

My […] interest in [the Honda Fit EV was] piqued by the $259/mo, 0 down lease deal Honda announced today.

Total cost of ownership math time!

[wonkiness/arithmetic placeholder; if you're actually interested in the details see here and here]

The net result of this number juggling is this somewhat startling conclusion: The 3 year cost to lease, run, and collision-insure the Fit EV is a mere 64% of that of the comparable gasoline Fit.

Yup. We've reached the point where comparing TCO(-in-lease-land) of an EV vs. its gasoline counterpart shows very significant–$2k/yr!–savings even over a period of "ownership" of 3 years. Booyah. (The Fit EV lease deal is also cheaper than that for an equivalent LEAF, by roughly $1k/yr, just for the record.)

 

[IH8Rice]

and the other of which demanded that I sign lease paperwork before they got off their lazy asses and moved the car "in stock" from their inaccessible off-site lot to the showroom location.

How Honda expects any EVs to be sold in the NYC metro area given this level of service escapes me.

buy before you drive it? seems legit

 

[Toshi]

buy before you drive it? seems legit

They must be counting on selling cars solely to the 11.4% of Americans who buy without a test drive&#8230;

 

[Toshi]

The next cart-before-horse planning exercise: How would I get a hypothetical Fit EV home (Seattle) from the nearest participating dealer in Beaverton?

Answer: Not very quickly at all, but it'd be possible. Each one of these charging stops would be for 1-1.5ish hours as the Fit EV doesn't have CHAdeMO (but does have a 6.6 kW charger).

It'd be one loooonnng day, but it'd be doable: Take the Amtrak down the night before, perhaps, or maybe make it a two day trip. At least it's not as slow a method of travel as in the old covered wagon era…

 

[Toshi]

So after getting pre-approved to lease a Fit EV through Honda Financial and getting all excited about the prospect in general, I think I have to drop the idea for now. The cars are just not available for test driving, and that's a deal killer for me, not to mention that they're then subsequently equally unavailable for actual leasing after the fact. (Blame Honda's meager total of 1,100 to be built spread out over multiple states.)

Plus I'd have to go through the rigamarole of obtaining an Oregon drivers license and pretending that I live at my parents' house, and then either re-registering the cars to my wife in Seattle or getting another license yet again…

Easier by far to lease a LEAF locally in Seattle… not to mention the ease of getting it serviced and not having to slog up I-5 as per the above post. Driving dynamics and a small amount of money shall be sacrificed in favor of leather, cargo room and local availability, in other words.

 

[Toshi]

Revised simpler/cheaper/no conduit! EVSE + self-wiring plan:

- Siemens 30A Versicharge EVSE, in rear-fed configuration, to be mounted on the outside wall of the house/garage
- 40A GFCI breaker at the box (Siemens recommends the use of a GFCI breaker whereas Leviton does not)
- 8/2 NM-B cable routed indoors stapled to or bored through the rafters, spliced at an interior 8" x 8" x 4" junction box mounted on its side, with a knockout punched through to make it a faux-LB, using a Multi-Cable Connector, with the net result two 8 guage THHN/THWN-2 wires plus a 10 gauge ground exiting wall-wards
- Run said THWN-2 wires through a 3/4" hole drilled through the wall, entering directly into the back of the Siemens EVSE, following Siemens' own "fed-from-behind, hard-wired installation" instructions (no outside junction box or conduit runs involved)

The 30A Siemens EVSE is $850 vs. $1,100 for the 40A Leviton unit on Amazon, 8-2 NM-B cable costs roughly $0.90/ft vs. $1.30/ft for 6-2 NM-B, and this proposed "fed-from-behind" installation method allowable with this Siemens unit seems to me to allow for elimination of all conduit&#8230; right?

 

[Toshi]

Runoff management is laughably bad in Long Island, as this BMW driver is about to find out when she returns to her car. (Our Prius is high and dry in the driveway on the near side of the street, and the Acura is in the auto shippers' hands already.)

 

[stevew]

 

[Toshi]

Asian people, sheesh. Always playing their string instruments&#8230;

 

[Toshi]

(12 mm rectilinear lens + up close + full frame sensor)

 

[Toshi]

My next commuter machine:

 

[Toshi]

Updates from the road (in Kansas City at the moment, to Denver tomorrow):

1) got all my funds back from the fraudulent car shipper, and the non-fraudulent one hired in its place should be dropping the Acura off in Seattle tomorrow
2) the tsa apparently stole or lost some baby clothes when they searched her luggage. Gah.
3) I toured the Zenith Aircraft factory in Mexico, MO today. Cool place. I also have adequate headroom in the model I ended up favoring, the STOL CH750: http://www.zenithair.com/stolch750/
4) the flight dream still lives, then, so I'll sign up for some flight time via groupon in a few weeks

 

[Nick]

Updates from the road (in Kansas City at the moment, to Denver tomorrow):

Time for eats and drinks in Denver??

 

[Toshi]

I'm game. 'squeeb mentioned lunch but we haven't made plans. I'm there next night and the night thereafter, have wheels, and am camping out with my sister plus her brood in Highlands Ranch, also home of stoney, I hear.

 

[stevew]

toshi...if you have time while you are in colorado...this view is about 20 minutes away from the ranch in sedalia...

 

[Toshi]

I didn't make it to the lookout, and didn't meet Shane, Nick or Mike. I did share a beer with Mark, though.

I pulled into Seattle yesterday afternoon. Just over 3,800 miles in total, split between 7.5 driving days and 3 days spent hanging out: a day each in Cincinnati, Denver, and Coos Bay, respectively. The longest day was 875 miles and the shortest about 400, I believe. What's more, the movers dropped off all of our junk today, too, so I have been on the move/out of sorts for quite some time.

The Prius did its job adequately on this trip, albeit showing its weaknesses in an inability to crest 60 mph while climbing passes on I-70 and brake fade on the Old McKenzie Highway east of Bend. It also got great mileage: 45.8 mpg all said and done, with lots of midwestern miles cranked out at an indicated 77 mph plus crossing the Rockies, etc. On the other hand, it has too much road noise over 65 mph when the pavement is rough (hello, earplugs!), lacks power and brakes in the mountains, and scraped its cargo-carrier-laden tail in all manner of parking structures.

Moving into the mother in law's place has been a bit dysphoric, too, as I re-realize how old and crappy this house is. It'll still be a great option in terms of non-rent, child care, and keeping the wife happy, but the house is never one we'd, say, rent on our own given what we know about it. Half of the enclosure isn't insulated at all, the wiring in the garage is a veritable rats' nest that worries me given the requirement for a city inspection post-EVSE installation, and the garage itself now houses our couch: the old-era doorways were too small to fit it in either the storage room attached to and below the garage or within the house itself. This place is the antithesis of an open layout, with narrow doorways and hallways, obscured sight lines, and twisty staircases galore.

Did I mention the lack of rent, though? In the end, that trumps all for this year.

This year will be about learning some higher quality medicine (orientation begins tomorrow!), paying off our consumer debt and some small fraction of our student loans, leasing an electric car at long last to fulfill my destiny, possibly getting Thing 2 cooking while Thing 1 continues to grow, and working on finding an attending job west of Denver (inclusive of the same). The pains of a long commute, long anticipated hours, and a damp, old house will be but temporary.

 

[berkshire_rider]

the wiring in the garage is a veritable rats' nest that worries me given the requirement for a city inspection post-EVSE installation

Maybe this will help?

 

[stevew]

I didn't make it to the lookout, and didn't meet Shane, Nick or Mike. I did share a beer with Mark, though.

well if you're up for a hike when the thing number 1 gets older.....

there are plenty to choose from in your neck of the woods...

 

[Toshi]

Maybe this will help?

This all only reinforces my desire to live in the future in a new-ish, corners-uncut home. All I'll touch on this house is running a circuit for the EV "charger." There's an unused 30A breaker and 200A service to the main panel so I'm hoping that I can just swap in a 40A breaker, wire it up, and call it a day.

well if you're up for a hike when the thing number 1 gets older.....

there are plenty to choose from in your neck of the woods...

Mariko already has been riding about the neighborhood in the front mounted carrier thing. It'll be a fine day when she can hang out in the carrier on my back or in the ancient jogging stroller that Jessica's aunt snagged for us.