S-19 Progress Report - 06/29/09
S-19 Articles__All Articles
Interior Kit
The new interior kit is in production and we will release the kits the moment we have several in stock. The kit can be installed after the plane is flying. The parts are marked where to trim, and seem to fit up really nice. The panels are easy to remove for inspections. The stock kit has the parts to go with or without the center panel. Also one can customize the kit by applying different fabrics or leathers over the stock material. The material supplied matches with the stock seat upholstery. The current plan is to offer only the gray color scheme, but we are looking at other colors such as beige or tan. We will post photos of this new color scheme as soon as we complete one. Price Guess $1200.
Speed Fairings on Gear

The juncture of the gear to the belly now has an optional fairing. Testing shows this to maybe gain another knot in cruise. We will make these available as soon as we are conclusive about the good they do.
Wheel Pant Option
Currently the wheel pants are not released from testing. We are seeing a speed gain, but are not too happy with the mains, for the lack of ease of servicing the tires. It may turn out we need to do a custom mold with a design similar to the nose gear, where you have fewer screws and much greater ease at getting to the wheel.
 
Rotax Engine Warranty
The kind folks from Europe keep building value into the Euro and our dollar becomes less and less (I wonder if printing an extra 100 Billion US dollars had anything to do with this?). The point is the engine cost is on the rise, as of July 1st we will see an increase of 5%. For those who have bought the engine ahead of install time, many were curious about the warranty. I mistakenly spoke about an extended warranty, which I have since learned is no longer available. The good news is that Rotax has agreed to evaluate any warranty claims on a case by case basis. I think this is better anyway, and affords you more protection and is in line with our thinking, do what is right! I stand corrected on the warranty issue and trust everyone will have as little trouble as we have with the engines and never need warranty.
Head Rest Straps
I am testing an addition to the S-19 headrest, which have gone up $10 each because of the idea. We have installed a couple snap straps to keep the shoulder belts in place. It is a little less easy to access the baggage compartment, since you have to unsnap them to fold the seat forward, but I do like the way it keeps the shoulder harness from slipping off your shoulders.
Warp Drive Prop Testing
I have tested the 3 blade tapered tip 68” warp drive on the S-19LS. The results are acceptable; the prop is smooth, tough, and easy to set up. As for replacing the Sensenich, I do not think so. The Sensenich 2 blade ground adjustable is still better in climb, and equal in speed. I also think we will be seeing more fuel burn with the 3 blade (that should be true with any 3- blade). The conclusion is the Warp will be equal in speed , less in climb and more in fuel burn ( that being a guess on fuel burn).

11:1 Glide

Glide test with wheel pants and the 3- blade Warp Drive prop confirm a glide ratio of 11:1. I adopted a new method to more accurately calculate the glide. The plane is climbed to a safe altitude, engine shut down, and a triangle course is flown holding a steady IAS and sink rate, noting the GPS speeds on all three legs. The average distance over one minute is divided by the average sink rate. 11:1 is a great glide, even with a 3 blade dragging in the wind. Best glide speed is 83 MPH.
Simpler Fuel Tank Install
We have eliminated the cork, and all the angle mounting brackets for the tank install.   This is a measure to reduce weight and simplify the tank assembly. Also the plastic tanks have proven their reliability in terms of not wearing against smooth metal surfaces and support inside a metal wing. The original system was way over built with mounts both in the tank and brackets to fix it to the spars. To make your install as per our method, simply omit using the mounting angles and cork. Only use the molded in mountings to secure the tank within the wing cavity. This will reduce the bolt count from 32 to 20.
Gear Leg Brake Line Feature
The groove machined into the back of the gear legs seems to be working fine. Our second flying example featured the groove instead of expensive gun drilling. The groove is designed to retain the brake line.  The trick to getting the line to stay in the groove is applying wraps of anti-chafe tape in two places, one near the top, another near the bottom. The tape ups the friction load against the tubing in the groove. Line routing is simple too, since there are now no fittings to leak going into and out of the gear leg.
SLSA Production
We are behind schedule on the completion of the original five S-19LS’s, but we are slow for the sake of quality and performance. As some may recall we offered only 5 SLSA’s in order to refine and document the assembly process and determine if we are going to be profitable. Although we are not 100% certain, so far so good, I won’t blow any smoke here folks, it is tough making a buck building finished planes, and it is no less of responsibility as a light sport compared to an FAA certified plane. What the consumer ends up in the end has to be a plane they can trust to do what we say it will do, and be durable enough to be practical. That does not sound like a hard goal to accomplish, but if you look at the light sports offered I for one can find a few that fall short in both areas. Building ready to fly planes is a serious business and trying to do this on-time and in budget makes it even more interesting. To my faithful depositors, I am thankful for the tremendous understanding and faith you have in our efforts, and for that you will be rewarded with a plane that as Neil Salmi, our Wyoming dealer keeps saying to me…”you build such fun airplane!”. Neil has taken delivery on the first production plane, and although it was not a hitch free (the fuel gauge nightmare!), he is happy with the plane and continues to giggle after almost every flight (that was my paraphrasing and conjecture).  The bottom line is we deliver, and even though the process is taking longer than we planned, it is worth the wait.
 
We will get more aggressive about promoting the sale of the S-19LS as we get near completion of the next 4 planes.  At this point the new price is holding at 135K for the digital version, a lot of airplane by any measure.
 
S-19 Articles_All Articles