Light Aircraft Association

Having called, left messages and said what my question was at LAA HQ well into double figures without a response, does anyone know why the above aircraft type lost its aero status? G-WULF was regularly displayed with aeros in the past. Thanks.

I'd have to check with Engineering but I seem to remember that one suffered some potentially serious structural damage which was found on inspection.

i ask the same question for the vari eze and long eze over here they are not aerobatic yet france and the us they are ? any ideas why

The amateur build regulations are very different in France and the US; both are effectively self certificating, so if a builder or designer says his aircraft is strong enough to be aerobatic, unless it all goes very wrong, nobody is worried about him proving whether it is or not.
We take a somewhat more pro-active view and exepect the builder or designer to prove that the aircraft is strong enough, and does have the necesary handling attributes, before allowing it to be aerobatted. It would be possible for somebody to submit the Eze designs for aerobatic approval but it would not be EZ. Strength would have to be shown by calculation or proof loading, bearing in mind composites are required to have an additional safety factor added, and the aircraft would then have to undergo aerobattic flight testing if they were shown to be strong enough.
Personally I don't see the point, and I'm probably not alone because as far as I know, nobody has sought to get aerobatic approval for an Eze. If you want to do aerobatics you go buy or rent an aerobatic aeroplane, rather than use one that was designed as a tourer.

I'm confident that I've read in an old Sport Aviation that neither the LongEZ nor the VariEze were designed for aerobatics and that, when sued by the family of a pilot who killed himself doing aeros in one, Burt Rutan successfully countersued.

Harry Hopkins

yes i can confirm, the Ez's and other rutan type canards are deffinatly not suitable for aero's

Brian Hope wrote:The amateur build regulations are very different in France and the US; both are effectively self certificating, so if a builder or designer says his aircraft is strong enough to be aerobatic, unless it all goes very wrong, nobody is worried about him proving whether it is or not.
We take a somewhat more pro-active view and exepect the builder or designer to prove that the aircraft is strong enough, and does have the necesary handling attributes, before allowing it to be aerobatted. It would be possible for somebody to submit the Eze designs for aerobatic approval but it would not be EZ. Strength would have to be shown by calculation or proof loading, bearing in mind composites are required to have an additional safety factor added, and the aircraft would then have to undergo aerobattic flight testing if they were shown to be strong enough.
Personally I don't see the point, and I'm probably not alone because as far as I know, nobody has sought to get aerobatic approval for an Eze. If you want to do aerobatics you go buy or rent an aerobatic aeroplane, rather than use one that was designed as a tourer.

It was only a question not a guide to seeking approval i already flly an aerobattic machine of certified stature and yes you are correct the ez was not built as an aero machine but as a very good going places aircraft but your coment of why would i want to do aero's in a tourer now wouldnt the fuji fa200 fall in to the same catt ?

Chris, if I'd simply answered 'because the LAA say you can't' you wouldn't have been very pleased would you? There's no pleasing some people!
Of course there are a number of dual purpose aircraft, but few of what are basically tourers have particularly good aerobatic capability. Maybe the CAP10 is an exception, and the RV4 and RV8 also equip themselves well. I know nothing of the Fuji's aeros ability, but I do know the Eze isn't up for it, and that was the question you asked.

Brian, this is not a question of being happy or not quote; 'There's no pleasing some people!’ My enquiry was purely out of interest not as a request for authority. Therefore, if I were to ask with the desire to gain authority for such a venture, I would have tendered my request direct to the LAA and most certainly not through a public forum such as this. This as I specified was just a general question out of interest, after all if the LAA said no then I would have no problem with this as they are the authority with the CAA and no generally means NO, and us li'll ole aviators just have to except it or change cat of aircraft (and cost) to get what you want. In addition my question was fuelled by the numerous aerobatic displays available for viewing on YouTube.

colinb wrote:Yes, I can confirm the EZ's and other Rutan-type canards are definitely not suitable for aero's

Is this because a canard aircraft cannot stall; or are there other reasons (such as airframe strength)?

I have seen the Gyroflug Speed Canard, a German production machine similar to the Varieze, aerobatted though whether it was intended to be aerobatic I do not know. I believe there was also a display team of Varieze and Long Ez in the US at one time. It is a question of the designs being strong enough to take the increased g loads imposed by aeros, particularly when it goes a bit pear-shaped and the pilot has to pull harder than planned to recover.

I had an answer from John Tempest about this subject back when he worked at LAA Engineering.

I'm paraphrasing now because it was a long time ago, but basically the WAR aircraft have a tendency to be heavier than designed.

Dynol is replaced in favour of much heavier glass cloth, foam densities must be increased etc etc etc. It ends up weighing much more than intended and then needs an O-200 to pull it's mass around.

The long and the short of it was that by the time it was beefed up enough to satisfy the LAA, then given enough power to get off the ground, the primary structure was no longer strong enough for aerobatics.


It's quite common in the UK unfortunately. The best one I read in the LAA magazine (which would have been hilarious if it wasn't so silly) was that article about Robin Rotherwick's lovely Glassair III. Towards the end of the article it mentioned the spectacular aerobatic displays Bob Herendeen used to do over Texas in the type, then in the same breathe concluded the paragraph by stating that due to high temperatures the Glassair III wasn't strong enough to perform aerobatics in the UK.