The holidays approach like a lumbering airliner on final, sure and certain. With its arrival, aviation in America can take stock of the year and begin the anticipation for a new season to dawn once the days begin to lengthen. Winter in many northern states is a time of reduced recreational flying activity but (speaking […]
Light Sport Aircraft
Russian ‘Beetle’ takes off
News from Russian sport aircraft producers is rare. Though the old USSR had a vast military aircraft complex, that hasn’t translated to recreation aircraft the way it did in the formerly Soviet Czech Republic, where many of our LSA originate. However, that doesn’t mean efforts are absent. We’ve seen some uptake of LSA (like Pipistrel) […]
Long, winding approval tale — SLSA #128
A most remarkable thing happened recently. I refer to a recent approval of a brand new Special LSA. Why is that noteworthy, especially as it is #128 on our SLSA List? Everyone in the business of LSA and most other alert readers have followed the long, winding, still-evolving path of FAA approvals in the fall […]
Pilot celebrates 100th birthday flying his Evektor SportStar
By John McVey, The Journal MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Thomas Guy Reynolds Jr. eased back on the stick of his Evektor SportStar light sport aircraft and it lifted effortlessly off the runway at the Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport (MRB). He circled the field three times, making a couple of low passes over the runway for […]
Tecnam offers bargain-priced Echo Classic Light
Major Italian producer Tecnam has launched the P92 Classic Light microlight. This is the seventh-generation model in Tecnam P92 range of airplanes, which this year celebrated 20 years of production. The company reports that over two decades of service, “P92’s worldwide fleet now stands at nearly 2,000 aircraft with 200,000 flown hours. The P92 Classic […]
Happy Birthday, ASTM
The group of folks, mostly volunteers, who have written the ASTM standards used to “certify” Light-Sport Aircraft celebrated their 10th anniversary in Atlanta at the end of October. The people who did, do, and will labor to make these industry-devised standards are woefully under appreciated yet they have achieved so much in a short 10 […]
LSA not durable enough? Nonsense! Here’s proof
Again, I heard a common refrain. This time was at the AOPA Aviation Summit in Palm Springs, California. I was speaking with some GA fellows, the kind — like so many — that know well of Light-Sport Aircraft but have opinions about them based on speculation or heresay. This time it was the familiar, “LSA […]
Hitting 100…
When talking of success stories in the Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA) world, consider Pipistrel. “This really important news kind of snuck up on me as a surprise,” observed U.S. representative, Michael Coates, “but I have just noticed that our multi-year cooperation with Pipistrel has resulted in selling our 100th aircraft recently!” According to Pipistrel boss Ivo […]
First fuel-injected CTLSi flying
After an introduction of the new fuel-injected Rotax 912 iS engine to European and American markets earlier this year, the Austrian engine company is now in full-scale production of the upgraded engine. Flight Design has been working diligently with the new powerplant and upgrades for it, according to company officials, who report a group of […]