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XL / Re: XL empty weight, with various engines?
« Last post by BradW on July 09, 2026, 06:22:56 PM »Yeah, well I don’t want to go there really, but there are other fairly obvious things, “if” the guy is looking for them.
This private airport (grass runway 2400’) where I live is open to the public, has an FBO with gas, had maintenance until the guy just retired, has a restaurant (is a destination), and as such has a *lot* of traffic from all over. The locals come out to go to the restaurant and watch airplanes do low passes. And the FSDO guys are all friends with all the airline pilots who live and play here. So they are around actually - you just never know. But then they don’t bust these guys for doing formation low passes (< 50AGL) in two Texans, pissing off all the neighbors with the noise, and the obvious aerobatic maneuvers as they pull up at the end, less than 200’ from all the people outside at the restaurant - so hey maybe they could care less about an ultralight, right?
But anyhow, as far as weight is concerned - I think a lot of people just don’t want to talk about it, and really don’t want to publicly go on record as to what their actual weights are. It’s “don’t ask - don’t tell”. But just having finished wing weights separate from the airframe, and fuselage weights after everything is welded up, stuff like that, would be a huge help. And engine weights are almost meaningless unless you weigh the entire installation, firewall forward, no prop - and nobody does that as far as I can see. Just build it and fly it is the attitude, I guess. But I would still like to see some info on those things.
This private airport (grass runway 2400’) where I live is open to the public, has an FBO with gas, had maintenance until the guy just retired, has a restaurant (is a destination), and as such has a *lot* of traffic from all over. The locals come out to go to the restaurant and watch airplanes do low passes. And the FSDO guys are all friends with all the airline pilots who live and play here. So they are around actually - you just never know. But then they don’t bust these guys for doing formation low passes (< 50AGL) in two Texans, pissing off all the neighbors with the noise, and the obvious aerobatic maneuvers as they pull up at the end, less than 200’ from all the people outside at the restaurant - so hey maybe they could care less about an ultralight, right?
But anyhow, as far as weight is concerned - I think a lot of people just don’t want to talk about it, and really don’t want to publicly go on record as to what their actual weights are. It’s “don’t ask - don’t tell”. But just having finished wing weights separate from the airframe, and fuselage weights after everything is welded up, stuff like that, would be a huge help. And engine weights are almost meaningless unless you weigh the entire installation, firewall forward, no prop - and nobody does that as far as I can see. Just build it and fly it is the attitude, I guess. But I would still like to see some info on those things.
but I really was not very fond of the ones I had. So to the drawing board. First I took a picture of one of the ribs along side two rulers and imported them to the drawing program (shapr3d) then drew out the image as needed. Next, imported to the slicer and printed with LW-ASA. End resuld was a way to make all the ribs I want with consistency and at half the weight. cool!