In Answer to Martin Sobel:

"I am afraid that your fears about not wearing chutes may have an
adverse effect on the club. "

First I am not recommending that the club purchase parachutes for everyone or install ballistic Chutes. I just think it wrong for anyone to discourage the use or investigation into parachutes.

The clubs in Eruope seem to cope quite well.... I do not see people not driving cars because of the seat belt or the air bag. People still go boating and wear life preservers.

We should be giving some instruction concerning parachutes. There is no mention of the parachute anywhere in our club and the first time they come in contact with it is when they are required to wear a chute in the fall roundup contest...... Which is sometimes a borrowed chute and they have no instruction in how to use it. It is just fulfilling an obligation. Would I deny lending a parachute because of liability???

What if you were giving instruction in a 2-33 and wanted to bail
out of the aircraft? Would you leave the aircraft before your
student? Could the student get out of the aircraft's front seat?
(Robert Mudd does not think it would be possible.)

This is a difficult question but easily answered in an emergency. If I was allowed to teach flight instruction each student must get proper instruction on the use of the parachute. If an unrecoverable accident occurs that requires one to jump, I will call the emergency then I will get out as quickly as possible and hope the student does too. I would rather try get out than wait for certain death. I keep myself fit and I am not overweight and I easily fit in the rear seat of a 2-33 with a parachute and I can get out while in flight. I have also successfully opened the 2-33 front canopy in flight.

Have you flown any of the club aircraft since the accident without
a parachute? Who is going to give the instruction you promised
on your web site? Does this border on a commercial operation
using club aircraft and equipment? How does this effect the
club's liability?

I have flown giving instruction to a few people in the club without my chute. I am not offering instruction in club equipment to anyone outside the club but I do offer a checkout flights to show the lay of the land, flight patterns, club rules etc. before one attempts the Monarch There is no charge to any of this.

Lastly (for now), what testing have you done with the Monarch?
Have you attempted to spin the aircraft? If so, how many turns?
Have you flown it 150% past its published Vne?

Martin

We do test the Monarch constantly. Stalls are not possible ( even whip stalls) and the Monarch is extremely spin resistant. We have a video of one doing a spin... but it will only do less than a turn before complete recovery without pilot input. We also have videos of the Genesis wing with the same behaviour.

The safety aspect of the Monarch and of Jims designs is really to be looked at carefully. You cannot stall the wing, it is very spin resistant and with the loss of any controls it will still fly straight and level since it has a positive pitching moment in the airfoil. On the other hand the 2-33 has a negative pitching moment that will mean a sudden turn towards the ground with any loss of elevator.

The spars are designed to about 12 G since the carbon rods are too flexible at 8 g's giving too much deflection. Jim has done extensive testing of spars in Lithuania and the use of carbon spars is well researched and well proven.

It is impossible to go to 150% of VNE since the reflexed airfoil gives such pressures as the pilot cannot fly over redline. I think you should do some more reading on positive pitching airfoils and some of the great safety benefits that can be derived from them.

-mat