Panther Sport Aircraft Forums

There has been some discussion about adding some rivets in various places of the rear fuselage for better fatigue life. However, plans have not been finalized and so nothing has been released officially yet. We are still gathering information from the flying aircraft to come up with the best possible information. The oldest customer built aircraft has just been flying a little less than 11 months, so it is obviously early in the life cycle of the aircraft, and with more aircraft flying we are starting to hear about some possible minor longer term issues, not all have been verified as yet.

There will be a notification when these plans have been finalized. If there is ever a major problems, notifications would be made right away.

I cannot say that it is strictly because of larger engines. The Panther was designed with up to O-320 as the largest supported engine from the beginning.

I was talking to another builder that is almost complete, and he said that there is a change that Is desired to add more rivets to the horizontal row of rivets on the stiffener along the rear fuselage bc of stress from the tailwheel. Is this because of the heavier engines putting more downward force forward of the main gear and it is adding force to the rear cone? Will this be issued in some kind of a service bulletin somehere? It would be easy to do now because my lower skin is still only clecoed.

Is this issue with Corvair, o-200, O-235 installation? Or just heavier engines? I figured the bigger engines would push the envelope a bit as the airframe was designed for Corvair and 100 hp and Dan said they weren't supporting bugger engines.

Also, does anyone know if there will be SBs issued for stuff like this? It seems like
I don't hear anything about this, or changes to HT incidence, etc, unless I happen to talk to another builder and they chatted on the phone with someone at Panther or another builder. Can we get a more for all system thst is easier to track?