Jabiru Calypso (J120) max weight questions (US)

·         Adam Anderson

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I recently purchase a Calypso 3300 in the US. It is registered an Experimental and looking at the specs for this aircraft it appears (at least to me) that this airframe may be limited to 1100 max gross to meet the stall requirements of the Light Sport Aircraft rules.

I was wondering if it would be possible (or wise) to utilize vortex generators to knock a few knots off the stall speed and increase the max gross weight to closer to the 1320 max in the US?

Thanks

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·         Doug Smith

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Hi Adam,
The Calypso airframe is a variant of the UL airframe. The UL was designed around a 990lb (450kg) gross weight and was itself a development of an earlier / lighter airframe. While there is some structural margin there, in cases like this the bigger part of the job is actually all the other stuff - like re-testing the stability etc. Plus we did a lot of work on the stall speed of the UL-D back in the day and got no real useful gain from VG's so unfortunately you're unlikely to get up to the category limit (circa 1320 lb or 600kg).
Regards,
Doug.

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