Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/254584
EAA Experimenter 13 is not built by the factory, it is not a certifi cated S-LSA like the fi nished factory-built planes. Instead, the amateur-assembled aircraft must be certifi cated as an experimental light-sport aircraft (E-LSA), and must conform to one of the factory- built S-LSA. As a side note, just because you assemble the E-LSA air- plane, you are not the repairman. To get a repairman certifi cate, you must take a 16-hour training course. The Texas Sport is constructed very dif erently than the Lancair; instead of using composite materials, the builder con- structs the plane mostly out of aluminum. Two items inside the cabin of the Gainzas' new airplane look decidedly nonalu- minum. The immediately obvious one is the wooden fl oor. It is the color of maple and is absolutely perfectly fi nished—shiny enough to make me put on my sunglasses. The other nonalu- minum parts were the carbon composite wing roots, interior door thresholds, and window pillars. Oops! Those weren't composite—they were decals from a Pep Boys automobile parts store. In addition to the dif erences between building the Lancair and the Texas Sport, there are signifi cant dif erences in fl ying the planes, too. Sandy, a conservative pilot, was interested in a plane with a lower in-fl ight workload. "There's nothing like the Lancair to get to Oshkosh in one stop, but it's a lot more pressure to fl y," she observed. The air traf c control workload involves a lot of talking, and handof s come quickly at such fast airspeeds. The Lancair cruises at 330 mph. Craig was also thinking about the speed dif erences in fl y- ing the Texas Sport. "There's something romantic about fl ying low and slow, especially late in the day," he said. Sandy agreed, saying, "The Lancair is exciting and beautiful, but I have a 100-mile-an-hour brain." Other dif erences from the Gainzas' Legend Cub include the Lancair power (100 hp versus 350 hp), gross weight (1,320 pounds versus 3,550 pounds), useful load (475 pounds versus 1,350 pounds), two-person versus four-person seating, cruise speed (97 mph versus 330 mph), and stall speed (35 mph versus 75 mph). A few things are the same between the Gainzas' Lan- cair and the new plane. Both have a 35-foot wingspan and a In addition to traditional round instruments, Craig added a Garmin G3x fl ight display and TruTrak autopilot. Craig Barnett of Scheme Designers (www.schemedesigners.com) created the Pirate Cub logo for Craig and Sandy. E A A E X P _ F e b 1 4 . i n d d 1 3 EAAEXP_Feb14.indd 13 2 / 3 / 1 4 3 : 1 3 P M 2/3/14 3:13 PM