gregsmi
Joined: 01 Jan 2011
Posts: 268
Location: Topeka, KS
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 Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 4:16 pm Post subject: Pulsar weight restrictions |
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All the discussion on Pulsar gross weights got me back into the manuals, news letters, and finally discussions with my favorite air craft designer. I know there has been some confusion about this, and if you have a plane that was purchased and built in stages, then this can be very confusing. So, here is the simple explanation.
Early Pulsar kits had a sitka spruce wood spar. Spar caps of unidirectional glass were added to the top and bottom of the spar for strength. On the earliest wood spars, the spar caps did not go all the way to the wing tip. The gross weight of a Pulsar built with these spars is 870 pounds. Latter in the program, the spar caps were extended to almost the wing tip. With that, the gross weight was upped to 900 pounds. 900 pounds is the max for the wood spar. This is exactly as stated by Alan Gill for Pulsar aircraft in the UK.
Later Pulsars had the composite spar and gross weight was increased to 1060 pounds.
Please note, gross weight limitation is solely determined by the spar material and spar caps. Composite wing skins and added glass to the spar sides does not increase the max gross weight.
I have looked in the Skystar manuals and not found the numbers for their aircraft, so will limit my comments to the Aerodesigns kits.
Flying an airplane over it's design limit is like driving a car, with smooth tires, at high speed on a wet surface. You may get away with it, until you hit a puddle, or in our case, turbulence. Turbulence adds G loading, and if you are over design limits, the wing could fail, not a good situation.
Needless to say, this is a major safety issue, and thus my concern. If you have any questions about this, please get back to me and I will try to get an answer for you.
Fly safe,
See you at Oshkosh,
Greg
Jabiru 2200 Pulsar
1500 hours
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