< Back Van's Aircraft laser-cut parts - update 20 Oct 2023 Since our mention of this issue in the August edition of Light Aviation , Van’s Aircraft have been toiling away analysing and testing various structural elements to establish the effect that the laser cutting of parts has had on their strength and fatigue life. Detailed updates can be found on their website, but understandably UK builders and operators are seeking clarity on what the endgame will be on this issue. As the issue generally affects potential fatigue life, there is no immediate need to take action. In discussion with Rian Johnson, Van’s President and Chief Engineer, he tells us that they’re working on service information for the fleet that they expect to be published by the end of the year. Having worked closely with Van’s over many years, our expectation is that we will endorse their position. Next Previous

The Annual General Meeting of the Light Aircraft Association Ltd Whittlebury Hall, Northants, NN12 8QH 19th October 2025, 1200 hrs N otice has been given that the AGM of the Light Aircraft Association (LAA) will be held at Whittlebury Hall, Whittlebury, Towester, NN12 8QH Sunday 19th October 2025, 1200hrs The AGM will provide for both in person and remote on-line participation. These arrangements will be professionally administered. In addition, those unable to attend may elect to submit proxy votes. A full list of nominations, Motions and Association documents links can be found below: The AGM will be preceded by the presentation of LAA Service, Rally Trophies and Awards to members. Following the AGM there will be time reserved for a Member’s Forum for discussion and Q&A on general matters with the Board and CEO. Light refreshments will be available upon arrival and lunch will be available to purchase at the Silverstone Bar, Atrium Clubhouse and Murrays restaurant. If you have any questions or comments for the AGM or the Member’s Forum please get in touch with us via [email protected] AGM DOCUMENTS Agenda Minutes of AGM 2024 Accounts and Chairman's Report 2024 Motion Director Nominations ~~~ How to vote if NOT attending the AGM in person This year we have an independent company, Mi-Voice, who will be issuing and counting the proxy forms. If we have an email address for you and you are eligible to vote (ie/ a beneficial shareholder) you will receive an email from them directly with a link to the proxy form.

< Back New LAA Inspector - Tomas del Carpio 15 Aug 2025 We are pleased to welcome Tomas del Carpio as a new LAA Inspector, having attended an LAA Inspector Assessment Day at Turweston recently. Living in the historic village of the former RAF Upper Heyford base, aviation is a part of Tomas’ life even outside of my daily job of restoring and maintaining vintage and modern light aircraft. He has been in the aircraft maintenance industry since 2008 but the age range of aircraft. He has worked on spans more than a century of aviation history. From helping to restore an original AVRO 504 to carrying out advanced composite carbon fibre repairs on a Diamond DA42, his experience covers a broad and diverse spectrum of aircraft types and technologies - both certified and non-certified. Whether it’s performing an engine change on a King Air in the dusty heat of Malta or changing a tyre on a stranded PA-28 in a muddy field in Kent, He has encountered a wide variety of challenges and learned something valuable from each one. Tomas is always happy to help and share his knowledge and experience whether it’s offering technical advice over the phone or getting hands-on with something more involved. Next Previous

< Back New LAA Inspector - Mike Wigg 22 Sept 2025 We are pleased to welcome Mike Wigg as a new LAA Inspector, having attended an LAA Inspector Assessment Day at Turweston recently. With a deep passion for vintage aeroplanes, Mike strives to bring joy to all enthusiasts by keeping these remarkable vintage aircraft flying. With extensive engineering experience from both military and civilian sectors, he is dedicated to supporting owners in maintaining their beloved planes. Based near Duxford in Cambridgeshire, Mike travels across the UK and beyond to ensure these classic aeroplanes remain airworthy. If you're an owner in need of maintenance, repair, or inspection, please don't hesitate to reach out! Next Previous

Aircraft Fabric Covering Course Price Member - £213, Non-Member - £233 Duration Arrival 09:00. Finish 17:00. < Back About the Course Our covering course is presented by Chris and Alex, father and son team who run Aircraft Coverings Ltd., the UK dealer for Consolidated Aircraft Coverings products. This is a hands-on course, not a lecture, so you will be working with the tools and materials, learning the required skills and you will undoubtedly surprise yourself by how quickly you begin to pick things up! Your Instructor Chris and Alex Allen Dates New date tbc Times Arrival 09:00. Finish 17:00. Duration One day course Venue Henstridge Airfield, Somerset, BA8 0TN Price Member - £213, Non-Member - £233 Booking Pls call the LAA on 01280 846 786 to enquire/book or email [email protected] . *Please note that payment is required when booking, to confirm your place. NO place will be held without confirmed payment* **Please note that your booking payment is non-refundable unless we can fill your place timeously or there are exceptional circumstances**

97 Octane Super Unleaded Since the replacement of regular E5 Mogas at the pumps by E10, for the time being at least, Mogas users have an alternative option in the form of 97 RON Super Unleaded fuels. 97 RON Super Unleaded fuel supplied by garage forecourts is NOT necessarily ethanol-free, but its ethanol content will be capped at a maximum of 5%. 97 RON E5 Super Unleaded fuel can be used under the LAA process for E5 Mogas, as before. There’s currently no legal requirement for ethanol to be present in super unleaded petrol and in fact, quite a few members have reported that their tests have shown Super Unleaded fuel to be ethanol-free in their areas. Esso reports that “Synergy Supreme+ 99 is actually ethanol free (except, due to technical supply reasons, in Devon, Cornwall, North Wales, North England and Scotland). Legislation requires us to place E5 labels on pumps that dispense unleaded petrol with ‘up to 5% ethanol’, including those that contain no ethanol, which is why we display them on our Synergy Supreme+ 99 pumps”. Shell, BP, Tesco and other fuel suppliers don’t commit to such detail, merely stating their fuels “may contain up to 5% ethanol”. Of course, many LAA members have been using Mogas of one sort or another for many years. For many airstrip users, the prospect of having to go to an airfield to fill up with Avgas would seem at best very off-putting, and at worst totally impractical for their style of operation. Hopefully Super Unleaded will continue to be an option using the LAA’s E5 procedure. Where 97 octane E5 super unleaded can be found that’s ethanol-free, it can be used in the broader range of LAA aircraft with engines eligible for use with E0 unleaded fuel. But it is important that Mogas users take on board the fact that unlike with aviation fuels, automotive fuel specifications generally only describe the properties of the fuel blend, in terms of octane rating and other characteristics, they don’t specify the chemical make-up of the fuel. Apart from specifying broad maxima and minima for those components that the powers-that-be wish to either encourage or discourage, the specifications leave to the fuel supplier the choice of how to blend the fuel to achieve the described properties. In some cases it’s the relatively small amounts of additives that cause compatibility issues, rather than the main components of the fuel that cause the problems – and the mix of additives may vary from one batch to the next. With Mogas of any type, what you get from the pump one week may be different to what you get the week after, or got the week before. The fact that your fuel system pump diaphragms, seals, composite tanks and so on might have been unaffected by Mogas up till now does not guarantee that they will be OK with the blend that the next tanker-load brings to your garage forecourt. Unfortunately there is no simple answer to this, and the only way to mitigate this problem is by constant vigilance, and thoughtful adaption of your maintenance schedule to check for signs of problems developing before they create a safety issue – more frequent checking of filters, changing of fuel lines etc. Signs to watch out for are swelling of rubber components like diaphragms, fuel valve seals and O rings, fuel pipes hardening or developing surface cracks, fuel tank sealants wrinkling or detaching from the internal surfaces of fuel tanks. Varnishes on cork floats may go gummy, or plastic carburettor floats absorb fuel and lose buoyancy, causing a rich mixture and rough running. Watch out for discolouration of the fuel you take out as fuel samples, which may imply something dissolving somewhere in the system, and for corrosion in the bases of your carb float bowls and gascolator. Avoid letting Mogas go stale in your fuel system – drain it out before a long period of disuse. Don’t leave the tanks empty for a long period – better to fill them with Avgas which will reduce condensation, and also, particularly with plastic tanks, prevent the tank’s internals drying out which can cause problems with shrinkage, and in extreme cases, the tanks splitting open. O rings and other rubber parts are best kept submerged in fuel continuously. We’ve seen cases where composite aircraft skins have rippled apparently due to exposure to the vapours created by the break-down products in stale Mogas, after being left unattended over a single winter. Mogas is blended with the expectation that in a car it will be used within a few weeks of being supplied, so it doesn’t need to be as stable over a long period of time as an aviation fuel. If a composite or plastic fuel tank is built into your aircraft, consider carefully whether you want to run the risk of having to replace it should the tank deteriorate with Mogas exposure, with all that that implies. With an integral tank in a wet-wing Jabiru aircraft, the answer should be certainly not – but even with the embedded polyethylene fuel tank in a Europa’s fuselage, changing the fuel tank is not an operation for the faint-hearted, involving cutting out quite large parts of the fibreglass cockpit module to release the tank, and then scarfing them back again afterwards in-situ. The Europa kit was first produced in the era of four-star Mogas, a very different blend to what we find at the pumps today. Ethanol-proof rubber hoses are available. In particular SAE J30/R9 or the European equivalent DIN 7339 D3 are automotive hose standards that are widely available from auto factors, and should be used in preference to the older SAEJ30/R6 standard hose which is more permeable to fuel vapour and will more quickly harden and crack, particularly using fuel containing ethanol. The SAE spec J30/R14 is a lower pressure, more pliable version for carburettor systems. Watch out for cheap imitations – the real McCoy should come from a reputable manufacturer, be marked with the SAE number along its length and will likely cost at least £10 a metre. What can we do to help the situation ? It may be that off-the-shelf drop-in-the-tank additives can be used to mitigate some of the problems with mogas fuel, in particular, stabilisers and anti-corrosion products, just as they are routinely in the marine and race-car world. Not knowing what’s in them, we recommending steering clear of any additives that claim to boost the fuel’s octane. Definitely avoid additives that claim to actively enhance an engine’s power or fuel economy, other than just to restore proper performance by giving the carburettor jets and orifices an occasional clean-up. For most aircraft engines UL91 Avgas remains the ideal fuel, in that it is a tightly-controlled aviation-grade fuel of a guaranteed composition, blended for long-term stability and optimal volatility for aviation use. As it is in effect the familiar 100LL Avgas but supplied without its tetraethyl lead, any fuel system designed for 100LL Avgas will be unaffected by using UL91 fuel, or, if circumstances demand, by a mix of 100LL and UL91. Despite a pervasive mis-conception, UL91 fuel is NOT Mogas and suffers from none of the issues associated with Mogas use in aircraft. A list of engines suitable for use with UL91 fuel can be downloaded from the ‘operating and maintaining an LAA Aircraft’ page of the LAA’s new website. Moves are afoot to increase the number of airfields supplying UL91 fuel, with full LAA backing.

< Back New Alert for LAA Eurostar Aircraft 3 Dec 2024 LAA Engineering have issued Alert A-03-2024 to highlight the recent reported incidents of corrosion of the Bowden cable ‘inner’ on Eurostar elevator trim tab cables. In response to these incidents, Airmasters UK, the UK agent for the Eurostar range, have recently issued Service Bulletin SB/EUR/022, Issue 2 which calls for a special check, before next flight, on the friction of the cable ‘inner’ when slid manually backwards and forwards in the ‘outer’. A-03-2024 Eurostar Trim Cables .pdf Download PDF • 203KB Next Previous

< Back Malcolm McBride Update 6 Feb 2026 Malcolm's funeral will take place on 20 th February at 11 am at the village church: St Mary's Church Manor Farm Lane Chesterton Bicester OX26 1UD The wake will be at: The Kitchen and Bar Whitelands Farm Sports Ground Whitelands Way Bicester OX26 1AJ The LAA are sad to announce the death of former LAA Airworthiness Engineer Malcolm McBride, who passed away suddenly on Saturday after suffering a heart attack. Malcolm, who worked for the LAA between 2007 and 2021 was, during that time, responsible for approving many thousands of Permit revalidations on behalf of LAA members and helping members with cheerful advice about all aspects of looking after their aircraft and negotiating the regulations. Malcolm's regular 'Safety Spot' engineering articles in the LAA magazines were always amusing as well as informative, and attracted a significant following amongst LAA members. He was also an LAA Inspector for over 35 years. Our condolences to Malcolm's wife, Janice, and other members of his family. Funeral details to follow. Next Previous

< Back New LAA Inspector - Ian Pattingale 6 Feb 2024 It is time to introduce you to the final new LAA Inspector from the recent batch of LAA Inspector Assessment Days - Ian Pattingale. Ian spent 9 years in the RAF as a propulsion technician, after a brief spell as a Development Engineer. He then spent the following 30 years at British Airways in various roles from aircraft Technical Instructor to B737 Flight Test Engineer. His current job is as an Engineer in London Heathrow Engineering Operations, where we are responsible for providing serviceable aircraft to support the flying programme. He's a keen glider pilot with a current 'Full Cat' instructor rating, as well as a 'Senior Inspector/Chief Engineer (ARC Signatory)' on wood, composite and metal airframes for gliders. In addition, he's a B1 Licensed, with current B777 ratings . As a member of the Vintage Gliding Club, Ian is keen to promote the continuing airworthiness of 'vintage' glider types - a current project that I am working on is the restoration of a 1976 Schleicher ASK18 to a fully airworthy flying condition. Next Previous

< Back Engineering updates in June 4 Jul 2025 The following documents have been issued/updated in the Engineering 'Info Library' during June. Continuing airworthiness information : Mandatory Technical Directive MTD-02-2025 - Mission M108 nose leg Alert A-04-2025 - Jabiru flywheel bolts Alert A-05-2025 - Alpi Pioneer landing gear corrosion Alert A-06-2025 - Christen Eagle II canopy detachment Technical leaflets : TL 3.04 - CAA approved welders TADS : 315 - Evektor Eurostar 330 - Alpi Pioneer 300 & 300 Hawk 370 - Mission M108 Propeller type lists PTL/1 : Isaacs Spitfire Next Previous

< Back New LAA Inspector - Tom Bootyman 20 Jun 2024 We are pleased to welcome Tom Bootyman as an LAA Inspector. Tom attended an Assessment Day at LAA HQ at the start of June. Tom is a serial aircraft builder/maintainer/repairer, also with several years’ experience as an engineer with a global aerobatic team. He has experience building and repairing Zenair and Vans RV types, along with working on many aerobatic aircraft. He is also an experienced aircraft painter. Tom has a love and devotion to all things aviation, so he is always open to requests for information, advice and Permit inspections. He is based at Netherthorpe (Sheffield), but willing to travel. Next Previous

< Back MTD-02-2025 issued - Mission M108 Nose Leg Failures 6 Jun 2025 MTD-02-2025 - 'Nose leg failures' was issued today for Mission M108 aircraft. This MTD can be found HERE and is also attached below. Three instances of nose leg failure have occurred in the past 12 months, two of which recently. This MTD mandates the regular inspection of this area until a long-term fix has been put in place. Lambert Aircraft Engineering is working to finalise a solution as soon as possible, working closely with the LAA. We will update the MTD as appropriate once a solution is in place. MTD-02-2025 - Mission M108 Nose Leg .pdf Download PDF • 212KB Next Previous