New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Talk about airplanes! At last count, there are 39 (and growing) FAA certificated S-LSA (special light sport aircraft). These are factory-built ready to fly airplanes. If you can't afford a factory-built LSA, consider buying an E-LSA kit (experimental LSA - up to 99% complete).

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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by drseti »

RickSigler wrote: I've been told that the identical models of the planes are flying in Europe with a weight limit of 1,700 LBS and so the FAA is the problem, not safety.
Rick, before you assume that higher weights have no impact on safety, you really need to study kinetic energy dissipation. This has been discussed in other threads on this site, as well as in my Aircraft Wt and Balance EAA webinar (linked from http://www.avsport.org/webinars).
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

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Jim Hardin wrote:Of course the SportCrusier was built by Bristell but the Bristell LSA is not the same airplane! It is redesigned to eliminate the shortcomings of the SportCruiser.
Jim, I think what you meant to say is that the two aircraft were designed by the same engineer (Milan Bristela). The two are manufactured by completely different companies, which just happen to be located on the same airport in Kunivice. And, despite cosmetic (visual) similarities, the Bristell is actually a clean-sheet design, not a reworked Sport Cruiser.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by Merlinspop »

drseti wrote:
Jim Hardin wrote:Of course the SportCrusier was built by Bristell but the Bristell LSA is not the same airplane! It is redesigned to eliminate the shortcomings of the SportCruiser.
Jim, I think what you meant to say is that the two aircraft were designed by the same engineer (Milan Bristela). The two are manufactured by completely different companies, which just happen to be located on the same airport in Kunivice. And, despite cosmetic (visual) similarities, the Bristell is actually a clean-sheet design, not a reworked Sport Cruiser.
Are the manufacturers completely different? When the Bristell first came out, their website featured footage of the manufacturing and assembly plant. I went over to the SportCruiser website, and they had the exact same footage. Maybe they were both using "B roll" but it did make me go 'hmmm'.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

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Merlinspop wrote:Are the manufacturers completely different?
Indeed they are. When Czech Aircraft Works reorganized as Czech Sport Aircraft (and Piper bailed out on the PiperSport agreement), Milan left , and he and his son started their own company. At first they were renting hangar space from his former employer while they were setting up their own operation. This from the BRM Aero website:
Milan graduated in the subject of aircraft construction and aircraft producing on the Military Academy of Antonin Zapotocky in Brno. He has been in aviation industry since 1983, in this year he graduated the university. During 26 years he has been collecting experiences not only in the field of aircraft construction and aircraft design but also marketing and international trade. Milan founded BRM AERO s.r.o. in 2009 with a simple but ambitious goal – to develop the best aircraft in the world in its category. The development and production of the first airplane he began in rented spaces (emphasis added) together with his son Martin, who is an integral part of the company today. After the successful certification of the first Bristell prototype OKQAR25 he has developed cooperation with a network of distributors for selected foreign territories. The company began selling the first version of Bristell Classic in 2011, a fixed-gear aircraft. In 2012 Milan developed a Bristell RG retractable gear aircraft and in the following year Bristell TDO, aircraft with a spur gear. The growing production was oved to its own production facilities after 5 years (emphasis added). Production capacity was more than doubled over the next two years.
So, BRM Aero is a completely different company, under different ownership, now with its own facilities, though located on the same airport.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by MrMorden »

drseti wrote: Rick, before you assume that higher weights have no impact on safety, you really need to study kinetic energy dissipation. This has been discussed in other threads on this site, as well as in my Aircraft Wt and Balance EAA webinar (linked from http://www.avsport.org/webinars).
But I think if you ask pilots flying LSA if they would accept the safety consequences for higher gross weights, 95% would say yes.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by drseti »

MrMorden wrote: But I think if you ask pilots flying LSA if they would accept the safety consequences for higher gross weights, 95% would say yes.
I'm sure they would, Andy. I'm equally sure that the LSA manufacturers would not accept the greater liability associated with those safety consequences. That's probably why all the manufacturers on ASTM Committee F-39 voted for those restrictive limits.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by rsteele »

drseti wrote: I'm sure they would, Andy. I'm equally sure that the LSA manufacturers would not accept the greater liability associated with those safety consequences. That's probably why all the manufacturers on ASTM Committee F-39 voted for those restrictive limits.
I don't understand this statement. Maybe you could elaborate? It sounds like you are saying the manufacturers wanted the current 1320lb limitation. I would have thought that they would design/build planes to whatever the spec is.

Last I knew the ASTM specs were proprietary. This has contributed to making the rolls FAA and the ASTM a bit fuzzy in my mind. Is there a readily available source for them now?
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by 3Dreaming »

rsteele wrote:
drseti wrote: I'm sure they would, Andy. I'm equally sure that the LSA manufacturers would not accept the greater liability associated with those safety consequences. That's probably why all the manufacturers on ASTM Committee F-39 voted for those restrictive limits.
I don't understand this statement. Maybe you could elaborate? It sounds like you are saying the manufacturers wanted the current 1320lb limitation. I would have thought that they would design/build planes to whatever the spec is.

Last I knew the ASTM specs were proprietary. This has contributed to making the rolls FAA and the ASTM a bit fuzzy in my mind. Is there a readily available source for them now?
The ASTM consensus committee for F-39 is comprised from members from LSA manufacturers and others from within the LSA community. I personally know people who are or have been on the committee, and they are stand up people from within the LSA community. It is not just some arbitrary group of people making up standards.
ASTM specs are not proprietary, they just are not available to the public free of charge. You could freely buy a set of standards if you choose.
The role of the FAA is just like it has been for any other airplane with exception of aircraft certification standards. With LSA the FAA is no longer in the standards business. It is quite likely that the FAA was represented on the committee.

Edited to add: ASTM is a organization formed by scientist. Their documents are copyrighted, and they sell them to help fund the organization.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by MrMorden »

3Dreaming wrote:With LSA the FAA is no longer in the standards business. It is quite likely that the FAA was represented on the committee.
FAA is still in the standards biz with LSA, insofar as they enforce regulatory compliance with things like the 1320lb weight limit, stall speeds, etc. Those are standards all LSA must meet. The ASTM develops standards for construction and acceptable methods to achieve compliance with the LSA specs, but they do still have to fit within the regulatory LSA definition as set by the FAA.

The FAA defined the LSA weight and performance specs, and then the ASTM designed build standards to those. If the LSA weight had been set at 900lb, or 2000lb, the ASTM would have designed with those weights in mind. Honestly if the weight were set differently I'm not sure the acceptable methods would have changed much. Physics is physics.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by 3Dreaming »

MrMorden wrote:
3Dreaming wrote:With LSA the FAA is no longer in the standards business. It is quite likely that the FAA was represented on the committee.
FAA is still in the standards biz with LSA, insofar as they enforce regulatory compliance with things like the 1320lb weight limit, stall speeds, etc. Those are standards all LSA must meet. The ASTM develops standards for construction and acceptable methods to achieve compliance with the LSA specs, but they do still have to fit within the regulatory LSA definition as set by the FAA.

The FAA defined the LSA weight and performance specs, and then the ASTM designed build standards to those. If the LSA weight had been set at 900lb, or 2000lb, the ASTM would have designed with those weights in mind. Honestly if the weight were set differently I'm not sure the acceptable methods would have changed much. Physics is physics.
Andy, the FAA has provided a definition of a light sport aircraft. That definition has limits that must be adhered to. You are confusing those limitations with standards.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by rsteele »

3Dreaming wrote:
Andy, the FAA has provided a definition of a light sport aircraft. That definition has limits that must be adhered to. You are confusing those limitations with standards.
For those of us that aren't lawyers, what is the difference be specifying limitations and standards? To my engineer's mind they are both things written down that must be adhered to. I'm not trying to be a wise guy here, I really want to know. It seems like a lot of the confusion in this thread over the past few weeks is over how deferent people perceive words. My guess is some folks here are layers and insist on the correct usage of legal nuances. Others like myself just want to know the practicalities without needing to get a law degree.

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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by 3Dreaming »

For the purpose of this discussion a limitation is, "a limiting rule or circumstance; a restriction.". The regulations created a definitions and a set of limitations that are required of all light sport aircraft regardless of their certification.

A standards as it applies in this case is, "Technical specifications contained in a document that lays characteristics of a product such as levels of quality, performance, safety, or dimensions. Standards may include or deal exclusively with terminology, symbols, testing and methods, packaging, or labeling requirements as they apply to a product.".

CFR 21.190 states that a light sport aircraft that wants to receive a special airworthiness certificate in the light sport category be built to a consensus standard approved by the FAA. In the case of a light sport aircraft seeking this airworthiness certificate the only approved standard is ASTM.

BTW, I am not a lawyer. I am a simple minded pilot/mechanic. This stuff is important to me, because I live and work with it on a daily basis.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by MrMorden »

rsteele wrote:
3Dreaming wrote:
Andy, the FAA has provided a definition of a light sport aircraft. That definition has limits that must be adhered to. You are confusing those limitations with standards.
For those of us that aren't lawyers, what is the difference be specifying limitations and standards? To my engineer's mind they are both things written down that must be adhered to.
That was my point as well. I think of the 1320lb limit as a standard/limit/compliance directive/whatever. The term doesn't matter to me, it's a requirement set by the FAA.

The FAA can enforce compliance on pilots (and mechanics) with legal penalties, the ASTM can only strong arm manufacturers. So to me FAA requirements are far more important than ASTM requirements.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by 3Dreaming »

MrMorden wrote:, the ASTM can only strong arm manufacturers. So to me FAA requirements are far more important than ASTM requirements.
The ASTM isn't strong arming anyone. They simply created a set of consensus standards that is acceptable to the FAA for the design of a light sport aircraft. It is the FAA that requires compliance with the standard, not ASTM. That is why the FAA audits the manufactures for compliance with the standards. Also by regulation the manufacture must sign a statement that a SLSA was built according to the ASTM standards to receive a special airworthiness certificate in the light sport category.
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Re: New LSA - Bristell, Sting S4, SportCruiser or ?

Post by RickSigler »

Bristell is the one. I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Lancaster to fly the Bristell, SportCruiser and look at the Sting. I flew the Bristell Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. I flew the SportCruiser Thursday afternoon. I saw and sat in the Sting Thursday afternoon. The Sting belonged to John Rathmell's customer and his wife didn't want us flying the plane (understandable). I still didn't feel comfortable with the Sting's fiberglass gas tanks and the build quality didn't come close to Bristell's. The SportCruiser had a real weird landing issue that I didn't like. Once the mains touched down the nose wheel wanted to slam down on the runway unless you added a lot more back pressure. I'm sure I could adapt to that, but why should I have to? The build quality of the SC wasn't up to Bristell's. John had two brand new Bristells in his shop that just got delivered, so I got to watch the wings being attached and other set up items. If anyone is considering making the trip, I highly recommend it. John is a tremendous host and took great care of me. The provided lodging was unbelievable. Got back to Albuquerque late Saturday and put up my DA40 for sale. I've got number for the Bristell with the IFR package and turbo. $237,000. Now if I can just sell my plane and survive the six month wait for delivery, I'll be happy camper.

Thanks to all of you for your comments and advice.

Rick
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