Pelican Factory Tour
Sept. 1/2002
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11 members made it out to Ultravia Aero in Gatineau, home of the Pelican
PL and Sport. Lorraine Chauvin, VIce President and Partner of the firm was our
hostess. Our tour started with Lorraine explaining the history of Ultravia and
the
Pelican, then she went on to explain the reasons for them working towards
having the Pelican
certified.
Ultravia Aero was founded in 1982 by Jean-Rene Lepage and his wife Lorraine
Chauvin. 100's of their first kit, the single seat Pelican, were delivered
between 1983 and 1985. In 1984 the two seat Pelican Club with a composite
fuselage was
developed and at that time, was powered by two-stroke Rotax engines or
VW-derived engines.
With the introduction of the Rotax 912 in 1990 Jean-Rene went on to develop the
Pelican PL followed by the Pelican Sport in 1998.
After some questions and answers, an informative walking tour
of the plant took place. Seen were the wings that they are currently
building for the certifcation and some tips on wing construction. Next stop was
the fiberglass shop where she explained the process required in forming the
different composite parts of the kit. Lorraine talked about the the static load
testing that was being done on the stablizers as evident to the 1100 lbs of
weights. They had just tested the vertical stablizer earlier and it was
impressive to see how the little thin wall of the tail was able to withstand all
that load. We then saw the kit packaging area. The tour ended up at the bench
holding their Rotax 912 ULS and a discussion on its merits and operating cost
compared to the other engines currently in use today. For any of you thinking
about building an advanced ultralight, you should give the Pelican a good look.
We thank Lorraine and Ultravia Aero for the enjoyable and informative evening.
For more information on the
Pelican
visit their website.
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Nik, Neil and Steve inspecting one of the Pelican Sport wings under
construction.
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One of the better wing jigs you will see around, coming to a garage near
you?
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Well done design work leads to a strong and light weight product.
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It was hard to believe that all that weight couldn't hurt the structure of this
well designed aircraft.
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Lorraine in front of the wall of parts ready to be packaged into a kit for
you.
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