Project News
Projects which inspire others to build their own aircraft Compiled by Mike Slaughter
Project News L ooking down the New Projects listing at the end of this column, I see that the Sling 4 TSi continues a run of relative dominance. Over the last six months it’s virtually accounted for one in every four new project registrations. Impressive for any manufacturer, but this is a single model type. Clearly it possesses attributes that many feel makes it worthy of their hard earned, hopefully we’ll see an update on one of the builds in the not-too-distant future – anyone? In this month’s column, we have tales of two Bristells, another popular type for Project News, but interestingly both are repeat builds for their owners. Chris Simpson’s story below is one of alternating RV ownership and Bristell building. Geoff Beale’s is described as a winter lockdown project and was only around seven months from start to finish. We have so many tech options that we can now add to our projects,
but I’ve never heard of anyone adding a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) to an LAA type before. It’s an interesting idea and indeed I have suffered two punctures myself this season both fortunately at home base. Geoff has added TPMS to his Bristell following previous problems of his own. Such enhancements set me thinking, many new projects feature fully configurable electronic display systems for flight and engine monitoring. Is it time we started detecting these other inputs like TPMS into them? I know my Mini Cooper loves to nag me that it’s time to inflate the near side rear wheel, replace the brake pads, book a service and so on. A winter project perhaps! To get in touch with Project News, and tell your story, report a milestone or just to send a pic, email: projectnews@laa-archive.org. uk. Please share your story!
G-CLUI (LAA 385-15690) Bristell NG5 Speed Wing By Chris Simpson
B
ristell G-CLUI is my second aircraft of this type. Some time ago I’d lost, and subsequently regained, my medical but in between I had sold my much loved RV-9A. So, with a regained medical but nothing to fly, I decided to build a Bristell, as I knew the UK agents. They were also local to me, so technical support would be readily available. Construction was not particularly difficult, but the build manual was not very good, although this has now been greatly improved. The aircraft was completed in a just over a year and, much to my relief, flew very well from the first flight. The performance and handling were not quite up to Van’s RV standard (100hp versus 160hp) but were acceptable to me and the fuel burn was very much reduced. One big bonus was that the Bristell was much better on grass than my RV, which had what some consider the suspect RV nose gear, although I had strengthened mine with the approved ‘Anti-Splat’ device from the USA. The Bristell nose gear has a coil spring and shock absorber at the pivot point and is able to handle rough strips that I wouldn't have even considered
10 | LIGHT AVIATION | September 2021
landing at in my RV. Of course, one of the secrets of landing nose gear RVs on grass is to perform good landings where the touch down is always on the main gear first. Bristell ‘number one’ and I were getting on very well, until out of the blue I was offered an RV-6A, complete with hangarage at Shoreham, which is always in rather short supply. I simply couldn’t resist the prospect of dashing around again at 140-plus knots, so I sold the Bristell and bought the RV. This example was somewhat more elderly than my first RV and the purchase turned out to be a poor move. She flew very well, and the engine never missed a beat, but the aircraft seemed to suffer from recurrent and annoying faults. I was getting a bit fed up with constantly having to work on it while the rest of the hangar went flying, so I decided to sell it on. I then decided to build another Bristell, for the same reasons I built the first one, the decision being helped by the fact that Bristell UK had a kit in stock. I thought that as I knew what I was doing this time, the elapsed time for the build would be much shorter. I duly started the build and then Covid struck along
