A friend who used to be one of three with whom I share my beloved Europa, left
the group to join with others in the purchase of an RV12, which I would describe
as a "tin" Europa. He was lured away by toys such as a full glass cockpit and
an autopilot. What a tart!
He also bought a Rans S6 which had been somewhat damaged in a landing accident,
folding the nose wheel and shattering the prop. So after many months he's fitted
a rebuilt Jabiru engine, new propeller and brought it back hopefully to flying
condition.
Yesterday, after he'd been unexpectedly called away to work at a remote
location,
I was left "holding the baby" to meet two LAA inspectors who came from afar
to assess whether the aircraft could be recommended for test flying in order
to regain a permit. Inevitably they ended their thorough inspection with a W &
B procedure, which resulted in the aircraft empty weight being 10 kg above the
microlight maximum of 268 kg!
Before anyone asks or suggests "Did you consider this?" or "Could such and such
be removed?" or "Were the fuel tanks drained?" and other helpful ideas, I'm not
asking for ways to get the empty weight down. Please accept that the inspectors
know their stuff and thoroughly checked everything twice in my presence,
using calibrated electronic scales and triple checking their figures. Chunks of
airframe would need to be sawn off to lose so much mass!
This particular version of the S6 has a heavy engine and heavy battery towards
the rear to counter-balance it. Removing things like the baggage container and
one or two 'mods' like an instrument panel cover won't even achieve a quarter
of what's needed. How it ever got through the initial W & B is a mystery to me,
but I'll leave it to your imagination. Even the subsequently fitted lightweight
Trig radio and transponder can't explain it.
So one of the inspectors suggested that my friend might speak to the LAA about
getting the S6 reclassified from microlight to SEP. Which brings me to my
question
"Does anyone know whether this has been successfully done previously?".
Many thanks,
Jonathan
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