Charles Thomson sounds wise beyond his 21 years, all the better since he’s just started up a flight training operation at Santa Monica Airport (SMO) in the general aviation-dense L.A. Basin. *** Santa Monica Flyers is its moniker, and transplanted Brit and CFII Charlie seems ideally suited to the task of teaching people to fly…since he could easily have died himself in a recent training accident. *** “Starting a flight school came out of my anger and annoyance at my own student pilot experience. I found it too expensive, and during my Commercial check ride, a throttle linkage on the Cessna 172 broke. We were only 1000 feet up in this old airplane with steam gauges; the airplane’s horrible inside and out anyway, and then it breaks and tries to kill me! We had a bad crash.” *** “I feel that training in a Light Sport aircraft has got to be the future of flight training if general aviation is going anywhere.
Archives for February 2010
American Eagle Flies East
Soon to be a part of the GA flight line at a quaint country strip in western Mass. is the American Eagle. *** It’s new home will be at *** Great Barrington Airport (GBR), typical of small airdromes throughout our great land with its 2,585-foot paved strip, flight training and repair stations, charter ops and a loyal cadre of hangar-flyin’ pilots, some of whom I met the other day when I dropped in to say “Hi.” *** The lovely airport is five minutes from the cultural mecca of Great Barrington, nestled in the Berkshire Hills, a great place to live and a draw for Gothamites (NYC) to the south and Bostonians to the east. *** The strip was converted from a potato field in the ’20s, (maybe that explains its appeal to those of us of the Irish persuasion.) *** One regular who’s flown out of GBR for decades, after I asked him when the new Eagle SLSA would arrive, shot back, partly in jest, “Whattya want one of them for?” *** Once I told him a bit more about the industry and my little corner of it, we had a good yak about things all pilots love to talk about, starting with airplanes and ending with…airplanes.
1st Video – Tecnam P2008!
Fresh from the skies of Sebring, FL comes my short clip of the Tecnam P2008, a truly beautiful SLSA built in Italy. Construction is traditional aluminum skin and structure for the wings and tail and composite/carbon fiber for the fuselage and all the gorgeous curvy parts. *** The airplane will go for $170,000, making it truly the Mercedes Benz – or perhaps Ferrari – of the LSA elite. *** I had the pleasure of flying it: very smooth and solid, it feels like a much heavier airplane in the way it rides out the bumps and responds to control inputs. *** Lovely interior; full boat of top-line avionics; quality finish inside and out. *** I’ll have a full pilot report two issues from now in dead-tree Plane & Pilot. *** Meanwhile, though I had limited opportunity to shoot many angles that morning as I was sharing the airplane of EAA’s Jim Koepnick, who along with his editor Mary Jones, was kind enough to let me beg my way onto the flight.
Something New in Aviation? Fly a “Hang ‘Copter!”
I readily admit to being a hang glider pilot at heart. After flying several hundred airplanes,
I still consider flying a hang glider to be perhaps THE purest way to fly.
I’ve always said that if I could just snap my fingers and be in the air — oh,
that it was so simple and quick! — I would always choose a hang glider to
experience the magic of flight. *** But how about “hang ‘copter” flying? Huh!?!
I’ve got almost no time in rotary aircraft but I was caught by some video showing a
fellow flying a hang glider with a rotor blade doing the lifting instead of Dacron wings.
It struck me as kind of crazy …yes, even a hang glider pilot who loves flying off
a mountain. But there it is, looking pretty sane, actually. Near the end of the video,
the pilot waves comfortably to the camera before executing a very normal looking
landing (well, normal to a hang glider pilot if not a jet jockey).
FAA Sport Pilot Revision Is Out!
Some long-awaited revisions to the Sport Pilot Rule have just been released and as we’ve anticipated in earlier posts, there are positive improvements. *** First up: the restrictive 10,000-foot maximum altitude limitation for Light Sport flight, which among other scenarios restricted flying over high terrain such as in the Rockies, was amended to allow flight above the limit, with one important condition: pilots must remain at or below 2,000 feet AGL — whichever is greater. *** The proposal to change the original maximum altitude was made to address concerns of LSA pilots about flying safely in the mountains or over large bodies of water. *** Another concern was keeping sufficient altitude over sensitive wildlife areas, where 2,000 feet AGL or greater is often required. *** The rule change only allows for greater-than-10,000 feet if that altitude doesn’t put the airplane more than 2,000 feet above ground level.
NH:Jim Lawrence Announcement
Merry Christmas 2009 from ByDanJohnson.com
More LSA Content · Completely Free
WORLD WIDE WEB / December 23, 2009 – A well-known aviation businessman once said, “Pilots are information starved; they read anything and everything that pertains to their area of interest.” With that in mind, leading Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA) website, ByDanJohnson.com, now offers a larger array of content after enlisting professional blogger, James Lawrence.
James Lawrence is the LSA editor for Plane & Pilot magazine and he regularly blogs on that company’s website. Now, after agreement with Plane & Pilot management, Lawrence’s blogs will appear on ByDanJohnson.com — an LSA-only Internet resource — making it easier for those searching for the newest and latest info to find more of it with a single click.
Lawrence is also a widely seen photographer of hundreds of cover photos, pilot report photos, and more. His work has also appeared in Outdoor Photographer.
The blog postings by two LSA veteran writers on a website dedicated to this newest sector of aviation adds to the user experience and all such content is offered for free and without even the need to register at the website.
Running Some Numbers… from the Insurer’s View
I just had the pleasure of a nice long chat with Mike Adams, the always-helpful V.P. of Underwriting for Avemco Insurance, who updated me on the accident picture for Light Sport flying this past year or so. *** There’s good news and bad news: *** Bad news first — “The results are still not what we’d like them to be,” says Mike. He’s talking about Avemco’s payouts to insured customers for repairs and total losses to SLSA. *** “But the good news is, the picture is improving.” *** The bottom line: LSA accidents continue to cost, on average, between 100% and 200% more than similar accidents in the General Aviation fleet. *** That’s primarily due to the average cost of SLSA: around $100,000 equipped. *** “The other factor is the accident rate, which still averages about twice that of GA.” *** Mike explains though that the 2X rate includes the first four years of LSA flight — during which the ratio was four times the accident rate of GA!
Sebring Day Four: High, Wide and Sunny
After five days of hustle and bustle to get the talking, shooting, flying and writing done at Sebring (I’m an Air Force of One), I got a real treat: pal Dave Graham, who’s worked tirelessly since the beginning to bring the Gobosh line of LSA to America and get the two lovely low-wing models they represent on the map (Gobosh currently ranks 15th on Dan Johnson’s market list), offered me the left seat in a Gobosh 700S so up we went. *** We tooled around beneath the broken clouds in the waning yellow-orange afternoon light, chattering away about all things LSA, and life in general — real smell-the-roses time. *** Dave, a native of Ireland, is a well-read, very bright guy who’s got a clear pov about all kinds of things and is a tirelessly engaging conversationalist. *** He’s been a pilot for 20 years and is passionate about aviation, plain and simple.
Sebring Day Three: To The Max
Evektor USA’s main man Jim Lee took me up for an enjoyable float above the clouds today in the SportStar Max, the top-line evolution of the SportStar which won the first ASTM SLSA designation back at the beginning of the category. *** Above the line of scud clouds murking things up below 2500′ or so, we cruised around for awhile in smooth air, doing some stalls, playing with the TruTrak EFIS, enjoying the solid, easy handling of the bird, and talking about the simple joy of flying as we gazed down upon the beautiful green earth. *** I’ll be writing up my review of the Max for an upcoming issue. Meanwhile, more eye candy. *** (That’s Jim standing by the airplane). *** Attendance for the show seemed pretty good today, although no official numbers yet.
Sebring Day Three: Fog, Sun, Wind, Clouds
The day started at 6 with a drive up to the airport in the fog. I sat with Jim Koepnick and friends, waiting for the fog to lift for our 7 a.m. shoot with the PiperSport. *** Never happened. *** Jim’s the long-time head of EAA’s photo department: if you’ve seen some of the zillions of gorgeous photos filling their publications over the last couple decades or so, you’ve seen his top-notch work. *** Jim and EAA editor Mary Jones were gracious enough to offer me a seat in their Cessna 210 photo ship, and we’ll try again tomorrow morning. *** The sun finally broke out, bringing the wind and puffy scud clouds. *** Piper’s long-time unsung hero Bart Jones, with whom I’ve flown countless photo missions over the years (along with P&P’s veteran Senior Ed. Bill Cox), took me up for a demo flight in the lovely new PiperSport.