Soaring Article: "Mini and Me

[Matt Herron]

I wrote a cover piece in the February issue of Soaring about my visit to Lithuania to test fly a LAK 17b FES and a MiniLAK FES. I purchased the Mini. I assume most people reading this group will have seen the article, but for those who are not members of SAS, I would be happy to send them a PDF of the article. Just email me.  matt(at)takestockphotos(dot)com.

[jshaw]

Thanks Matt.  Amazingly, the issue with your article came out 2 days before I called a soaring friend asking him if he wanted to drive to Baltimore with me (we are outside Philly) to collect SN 015 - mini-LAK FES.  He was in shock.  (I hadn't seen the article yet, but did shortly after returning with the ship.)  I sent a scan of it to friends and family to help them understand the new ship.

In any event, I just completed my 5 hours of "test" flights required by my DAR for the airworthiness certificate and am now free to fly her anywhere I'd like.  Today was my first self-launch (prior flights all aero-tow) and it went well.  The same friend was my wing runner and we launched from a nice wide paved runway.  I did two launches with climbs to 1000 ft AGL on both and a little bit of thermalling.  The second launch was a bit less brisk, but still didn't even use 1000 ft of runway to get airborne I think.  I will be looking into the more powerful batteries at some point, but the current ones do work quite well.

Very happy with the ship so far...

[Jamie Shore]

Hello Matt,

The five hours of test flights is a formality. You can see the details in my Airworthiness Certificate (six page document) on page 3 article 19 in the airworthiness folder on my Google drive.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lTIZ9DqoMgkYh--mFlTMmvW3ODE8UEww

In the same airworthiness folder above, I included all of the docs that I sent to AIC, a third party company in OKC that helps the paperwork process along. The use of this type of company isn't required but they know what the FAA wants and can help avoid silly paperwork delays. Their fee is worth it.

I recommend that you get in touch with a DAR, Designated Airworthiness Representative, soon so you know what he/she expects. Since you live in the northwest (I think?), Lynn Wyman would be a good contact to learn about his DAR experience. The DAR will need to see your glider but you also need to get a Condition Inspection from a different mechanic before the DAR visits with your glider. The DAR can also give you advice on the paperwork timeline. The DAR will expect you to have the FAA registration related paperwork done before their visit and this can take a few months. One of the first steps involves reserving an N number.

https://aircraft.faa.gov/E.Gov/NN/reserve.aspx

In the event of a Houston/Galveston delivery, I think that we already discussed the use of DAR Chip King in Uvalde. Here is his contact info again:
Ernest W. "Chip" King III
King Aerospace Consulting, LLC
901 Maple St.
Uvalde, Texas 78801
830-591-9581
www.kingaerodar.com

Jamie Shore

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 6:25 AM Justin Shaw <justi...@comcast.net> wrote:

Matt,

I'll send a better explanation/note when I have a few minutes (and happy to chat on the phone), but once you get your aircraft in the US, you first need to get it registered with the FAA and receive the official registration.  Then you need to have an airworthiness inspection to get the a/w certificate.  As these ships are experimental, the examiner has to create "limitations" and they require a certain number of "test" flight hours in a restricted geographic area.  You also have to do a "Program letter" which must be revised annually.

Having stumbled through the process (with some guidance from Jamie thankfully as well as Vitek), I have some recommendations that could help smooth it for you so we should definitely talk when you're ready.  I'm also happy to share copies/scans of my documents... like the application for a/w, program letter, etc.

Adding Jamie as he has also recently lived through this and may have additional advice.

Justin

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Herron <herron...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2019 12:24 PM
To: jshaw <js...@mba1997.hbs.edu>
Subject: Re: Soaring Article: "Mini and Me

Dear Jshaw (Sorry, don't know your name):

Good to hear from you, and delighted that more Mini's are making it to this hemisphere. Soon there may be enough for us to have our own contest!

I appreciate your flight information. The more we share  experiences, the better all of us will become as FES pilots. To that end, could you enlighten me a bit about "5 hours of "test"
flights required by my DAR for the airworthiness certificate"?

My own Mini experience is a bit weird. I've flown the ship in Lithuania but still have to understand all the in's and out's of importing and certifying a Mini in the US.

What field do you fly from??

Please keep up the interesting reports.

Cordially,

Matt Herron