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Toggle switch for small aircraft charging system in case of failure
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ITman496:
The wings come right off with just 3 pins!  Big pins, but.. still actually quite fast!

Some quick googling seems to suggest your microlight license is still significantly cheaper, at 4000 pounds, vs 15k for a normal ppl?

One thing I know I saw on the forums was that the blueprints for the plane had to be approved in the UK.  Luckily, the minimax has been already approved so I think you can just say hey I'm making one of these and they go oh ok we've seen those before and approved them already.  I'm sure there are other models just like that.
richard.cs:
It looks like a pre approved design helps but there's still a lot of faff, lodging plans beforehand, logging the whole build, every item that goes into it and where it came from, inspection at the end, a series of formal test flights, etc. It also looks like they want a full assessment for even minor deviations from an approved design.

It's clearly possible and I'm sure people do it, but it's nothing like the US ultralight class. For me it pushes it from "fun, cool project" to "pain in the arse" which is quite sad really.

If you're interested the whole UK process is in a document called CAP 659.

Maybe I should learn French.
SkyMaster:

--- Quote from: richard.cs on April 19, 2020, 12:29:08 am ---
It's clearly possible and I'm sure people do it, but it's nothing like the US ultralight class. For me it pushes it from "fun, cool project" to "pain in the arse" which is quite sad really.


--- End quote ---

The United States ultralight category (Part 103) is for very small ultralight with an empty weight of less than 254 lbs, max speed of 55 kts, etc.

But, you could buy an already flying aircraft ;)

On the other hands, all those regulations are there for a good reason; safety.

 :)
SkyMaster:

--- Quote from: ITman496 on April 17, 2020, 08:14:38 pm ---
The fly by wire controls are a backup system I decided on to raise the travel limits of the trim motors and raise the speed so god forbid something happens to the teleflex control cables, I can fly the plane home via the trim motors.

It is tremendous fun!!

The EFIS is my own creation, running on a pi 3b+ (well a 3b, i got a b+ to swap in though for more performance) running on processing 3.  Which is why it looks like garbage.  The screen is a 10.1" 1200nit brightness non touch with a glass multitouch overlay stuck on top.

Here is a custom board I made to run power for everything.  On it is an arduino to listen to the rotary encoder and backup mfd hardware buttons, and to run the power supplies.  On startup it listens to the power switch, turns 12v and 5v on (for the pi and 12v lcd) and the pi raises a gpio high while the software is running.  Then when I flip the power switch on the panel down, it lowers a gpio to the pi and the pi sees that and shuts itself down, eventually powering down and the gpio its holding high drops, which signals to the arduino its safe to cut power.

--- End quote ---

Very impressive.

Your Instrument Panel would fit right in a BD-5, or even a BD-5J.

 :)
ITman496:

--- Quote from: richard.cs on April 19, 2020, 12:29:08 am ---It looks like a pre approved design helps but there's still a lot of faff, lodging plans beforehand, logging the whole build, every item that goes into it and where it came from, inspection at the end, a series of formal test flights, etc. It also looks like they want a full assessment for even minor deviations from an approved design.

It's clearly possible and I'm sure people do it, but it's nothing like the US ultralight class. For me it pushes it from "fun, cool project" to "pain in the arse" which is quite sad really.

If you're interested the whole UK process is in a document called CAP 659.

Maybe I should learn French.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, that is quite depressing.  Reasonable, but depressing. I'm honestly shocked that the FAA of all groups in the usa allows ultralights to exist still.


--- Quote from: SkyMaster on April 19, 2020, 01:10:18 am ---
Very impressive.

Your Instrument Panel would right in a BD-5, or even a BD-5J.

 :)

--- End quote ---

Oh thank you very much!  I know the bd-5 and bd-10 were two things that super inspired me to want to make my own airplane.  Too bad the bd-10 was a failure.

I'll be sure to start a thread on the electronics of the aircraft once I get more progress!  It's going to be quite the system, with a bunch of modules talking over CAN bus!
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