LSA with dog carry capacity?

[skyranger2]

"<font color="#333333">The Jab (being really a 4 seater that they took out the rear seat and arbitrarily&nbsp;rated MTOW as as 1320lb to make it LSA legal </font><strong>engineering-wise, if not documented, has a max take-off-weight of close to 1700 lbs and a useful load of about 800 pounds. AFAIK no other LSAs can touch that."

As I understand the rules, EVERY LSA has a MAX take off weight of 1320# (yes, amphibs can be a bit higher) It matters not what the rules are elsewhere on the globe, no one would responsibly advocate flying anything past MAX gross weight? So the comment about no other LSA touching that is incorrect IMHO. Any plane rated for more than 1320# is NOT an LSA..... I am unaware of any "exception" to that reg. I could be mistaken.

Hi Randy. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
You're correct, in that there are few exceptions in the LSA regulations for the 1320# limit on max take off weight. (Only documented exceptions AFAIK are 1430 lbs for seaplanes, and the ICON amphibious LSA has been granted a weight exemption by the FAA allowing a gross weight of up to 1680 lbs.)

My point was that engineering-wise the Jabiru J230 was designed and is built, not "permitted" for a MTOW 1675.51 pounds (760kg) and that would work out to a useful load of about 800 pounds. It's official useful load when registered as an LSA hovers around a decent but not hugely impressive 520 pounds depending on options.

However, there are about 30 Jabiru J230s officially registered as Experimental amateur-built and not as LSA or ELSA , but identical to their LSA counterparts; and those even officially have max take off weight at least 1540 pounds (some sites report 1600 pounds.)

Below my signature is an interesting list I found of some LSAs, including some that have a "book" useful load better than or close to an LSA registered J230's 520 pounds.
Some that sound impressive, though, are like my Skyranger ELSA (which has an impressive sounding useful load of about 700 pounds) have little baggage space (so you can't take advantage of the carrying capacity) and/or are showing on paper a good useful load because the aircraft construction itself is light and/or minimalist.

Personally I'd feel safer flying a J230 knowingly or inadvertently loaded up to 620 pounds (100 pounds over its stated MTOW) and believing I in reality have 180 pounds left "slack" than flying one below that had a book stated useful load of 620 pounds. and was taking off right at the very edge of 1230 pound limit.

You of course make your own calls about when reality and regulations diverge and how deal with that.

Alex

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