http://www.moyes.com.au/articledetail.asp?ID=321

Vicki Cain <<email>> asks that I highlight this:

Moyes Delta Gliders Safety note: … replica Zoom upright warning…

It has come to our attention that someone in Slovenia intends to produce and distribute uprights which closely resemble our Zoom uprights that can be mounted into our gliders. The overall outside specs are quite similar, so customers could easily be mislead into thinking they may be just as good to use.

Moyes strongly urges all pilots to avoid using such non-Moyes spare parts!

Upon inspection we found that the false Zoom upright has a thinner wall thickness and weights only 850gm. This means 12% less material, as compared to our original 970 gm Zoom and 17% less than the new, more refined 1030gm Zoom. Consequently this will yield to about 30% less compression strength (buckling resistance) as compared to the 970gm Zoom, and about 50% less strength than the new Zoom uprights you will find fitted to our latest generation Moyes gliders.

Along the same lines goes our concern with retrofit home-made or backyard-produced speed bars. None of these mostly wet lay-up, low cure temperature resin fabricated speed bars have ever seen any kind of certification load test. They do considerably differ in shape, length and strength from the specs required to go with our glider frames.

Please bear in mind, that uprights and speed bars are a crucial factor for any hang glider to sustain the +6G load test required to grant a hang glider airworthiness.

Using retrofit, non-original, non-tested components in your hang glider will in general inevitably put you outside this requirement for airworthiness. In case of an unfortunate accident this might not only harm your health, but likely deprive you of otherwise legitimate insurance claims, if your accident can be related to the presence of such non-tested components.

Since Moyes has introduced the Zoom upright and speedbar, we have over the years refined their cross sections and overall design – partly for better fit, partly for higher strength margin, partly for more efficient aerodynamics.

Whilst all the Moyes Zoom A-frame components have numerously passed the required certification tests, we are still constantly working to improve those products.