Light Aircraft Association

[AlanR]

I wonder if anyone can tell me know what the latest UK Thatcher approval status is?
With no messages on here for a long time now I assume things have stalled but what are the issues please.

Is itworth buying the plans?


Alan Radford

[Ian Melville]

Hi Alan,
No it's not stalled. Progress is slow because we are having to put most if not all of the design through CAD and FEM assesment. There is little to show in major milestones but there are four that are at various early stages of construction.

Only you can decide if or when it's worth buying a plan. You can build up-to where there are aspects to be resolved. Currently it is OK to build the wing and centre cection. Most of the work is falling on one person, who also has to earn a crust or two, so the work will be slower than we all would like.

[AlanR]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the information.

Slightly concerned about the apparent lack of progress after nearly a year but I am still enthusiastic about the plane.
Time is the killer in these things and I wonder if there is anything that can be done to push the process along a bit quicker.

I now have access to the forum so I will have a good mooch around and probably post a question or three on there before taking the big leap and buying plans.

Alan Radford.

[Ian Melville]

Hi Alan, Don't know what you are measuring the year on but there was little that could be done prior to the meeting on 22nd Jan this year. Still a long time though.

The first point to make is that full approval will not be given until the first UK CX4 has been test flown and found to be acceptable by the LAA test pilot. With an estimated 8-900 hrs build time assuming no hick-ups. At normal home build construction speeds you are looking at a few years yet. Some of us have to work you know

We are having to make some changes to apease the LAA. The Zenith CH601XL issues have also rebounded on us.

You can either wait for full approval in a few years, or you can build as each stage is cleared, In which case you can start now.

Unless you have design experiance and or FEM skills that there is little anyone can do to speed things along. I am in contact with our stress engineer several time a week and we would both love to put a final design adressing the LAA concerns on the table. As you will see from the forum this will cover 80% or more of the issues. If there is an action point that you would like to take on, contact me first so that we can discuss it.

Forum is not realy working as I intended and is now getting a bit dated. I will try and do something about that this week, but input from other builders is not forthcomming as I had hoped.

It's about time I did another news broacast to all the UK builders. I am also planning a review meeting in Jan 2010 and hope that most of the design issues can be resolved by then.

Cheers
Ian