Sport Pilot Talk

Glasair have made the first flight of it's new Merlin SLSA.


http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/eaa-news-and- ... den-flight

https://glasair.wordpress.com/2015/04/0 ... st-flight/

To me it looks a lot like the Skycatcher especially the front end. It would seem to 'fix' a lot of the Skycatcher 'issues'. Empty weight is around 780 lbs I believe. Composite, 24 gallons, Rotax Sport injected engine, nice interior, Dynon Syview Touch. Still has the 'stoke' control wheel.

Price about $150k. Add another $10k for second screen, auto-pilot and BRS with resulting increase in weight.

Think it's dual 12 gallon wings tanks.

Should be at Sun n Fun.

I have been told that the fuel tank is a single 24 gallon tank in the fuselage similar to the Diamond DA20, which will certainly make it easier to fuel. Additionally mogas up to E10 will be supported. The factory also told me that they will offer the Garmin 3X avionics as an option also. I understand that the plane needs to fly 50 hours before they can give demo rides or leave the pattern so it if should make to Sun 'n Fun it may be by truck.

Stephen,

I wasn't sure if they'd gone from the single tank to the wings. Thanks for the correction.
Also, they seem to have opted for the wing struts too, just like the C162, and I thought this might have been because of moving the fuel tanks.

Do you know if the tanks are metal or fiberglass?

Are you excited that the plane is flying now!

Howard,

If I recall the fuselage is carbon fiber, the wing is fiberglass and the wing ribs are made of aluminum the same ribs from the SportsMan. I am not sure what the fuel tank is made of. The original design which I saw in the factory did not have struts but had a spar carry though in the cabin, the decision was taken to remove the spar carry though and add struts. In my opinion the plane does not look as nice with struts but the factory claims that the struts will not effect either performance or empty wight.

I will post a pirep after I get to fly it.

Stephen,

Thanks. My reason for the question about the tanks being metal is that on another thread Rich thinks he 'may' have some debris entering his fuel. Not sure if his tanks are metal or composite.
That said…if Glasair say E10 is approved you would presume that this has been thought out, although Sting have the same approval in Rich's Sting POH. Of course, Rich's problem 'may' not be due to the tanks and he's checking into it.

The struts make it look more Skycatcher to me, although it would produce more drag.

3 blade prop an option?

If the empty weight is around 790 then 2 x 200lb passengers would allow about 21.5 gals of fuel, no bags. ith a reserve of about 45 mins and a burn of 3.5 gph that gives almost 6 hours endurance! Much better than C162. If you drop off some fuel weight for bags you could get a good 4 hours with bags.

Much better than the original Skycatcher!

Looks nice enough, but nothing makes it stand out from current offerings - at least to me. Especially at $150k. I'd far prefer an RV 12 - for less money to boot.

No reason struts should add weight. Though they obviously weigh something, their addition means less structure elsewhere, often reducing weight overall. Going strutess makes more aerodynamic sense at higher speeds, where parasitic drag increases exponentially. In slower aircraft, much less so.

To my knowledge this would be the only US manufactured composite high wing tricycle landing gear aircraft and an alternative to the imported Tecnam P2008 and the Flight Design CTLS. Having sat in the mock-up the Merlin the proposed interior is much nicer than the Vans RV12 and also includes the Rotax 912iS but I agree with you that you can not beat the price of the RV12.

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c162pilot wrote:To my knowledge this would be the only US manufactured composite high wing conventional landing gear aircraft and an alternative to the imported Tecnam P2008 and the Flight Design CTLS. Having sat in the mock-up the Merlin the proposed interior is much nicer than the Vans RV12 and also includes the Rotax 912iS but I agree with you that you can not beat the price of the RV12.

It sure looks like it has tricycle gear to me.

I stand corrected.....

Nomore767 wrote:Should be at Sun n Fun.

Can't wait to see it up close. Thanks for posting.

Dan Johnson has additional information:

http://www.bydanjohnson.com/Sidebar.cfm?Article_ID=1987

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SportPilot wrote:It's too bad they couldn't bring that to market at $99,900.

Maybe they could do that by making the engine, propeller, instruments, and landing gear optional equipment.

Nice video of first flight including cockpit video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29k3-84vxnU