It’s enough to be proud of flying a “real” airplane for 50 years without accident, incident, or citation for 50 years. But imagine if half of those years were flown in those crazy “death wish” machines: ultralights! Of course, those of us who’ve flown hang gliders, ultralights and other true bird experience aircraft know just how safe they are. Anything you fly requires skill but also flying it within its strengths and limitations – that’s the only fail-safe secret to safe flying.
Nobody knows that truth better than George Karamitis. He’s just received the FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, for half a century of impeccable flying in both GA airplanes and the all-time best selling ultralight, the Quicksilver. George started out like a lot of us did, gawking through the fence as a kid at his home airport, Oshkosh’s Wittman Field. The veteran aviation icon and airport namesake himself, Steve Wittman, gave wee Georgie a ride one day, which sure beat hanging out in the family bathroom at home, as he liked to do, sitting on the toilet seat lid and pretending to fly with a plunger for a joystick!
Archives for February 2013
Seaplane Tsunami — Water-Borne Flying Fun
Once upon a time, in the early days of Light-Sport Aircraft, way back in 2006 and 2007, new LSA models were being introduced at the torrid pace of two, three, even four per month. Aviation had no prior design outpouring to compare. The rate of development had to slow — such a pace is not sustainable — and it did. Yet the young industry continued on to the astonishing sum of 131 models and it ain’t over yet. Meanwhile, though, a new tsunami is building within the LSA sector. I’ve written about a wave a new seaplanes and as summer 2013 approaches, a tour of the many choices may help guide interest of seaplane enthusiasts.
Current Seaplanes (distinguished from float-equipped land planes *) include FAA-accepted SLSA models: Mermaid, SeaMax, SeaRey, and Freedom. At present all are being offered and have some measure of U.S.
LSA Industry On Life Support…ummm…Nah.
In a recent article from Flying Magazine, an editor volunteered his opinion that the Light Sport industry is on life support. There are so many good arguments to refute such a sky-is-falling assessment, it kind of makes you wonder why a respected journalist would go out of his way to attract a lot of heat in the first place … but that’s another story.
Dan Johnson makes a ton of solid rebuttal remarks in this article and in a video he did with UltralightFlyer.com — check those out.
Meanwhile, here’s a magnificent retort to the LSA-is-dead silliness: Airtime Aviation out of Tulsa, OK. Owners Tom Gutmann and his son Tom Jr. just delivered their Number 100 Flight Design airplane, a new CTLSi with a fuel injected Rotax 912 iS engine.
At Sebring I saw a bunch of installations of the new engine: it’s really catching on.
Long, Lovely Wings … Even Longer Flight
I think Phoenix is one the loveliest aircraft in the LSA fleet. Of course, I have a rather large bias as I’m a soaring enthusiast and this is one fine soaring machine in the SLSA fleet, able to compete fairly with a pure glider. I’m also a fan of importer Jim Lee, a modest, soft spoken man with a deep honesty streak. He’s also a world-renown soaring champion. Yet what just catches my eye again and again are the long, lovely, shapely, slippery wings of Phoenix, which lead me to present the photos you see with this article.
These views came from Jim’s long flight from his home base not far from mine in Melbourne, Florida to Bogota, Columbia. That meant a long water crossing from Key West to the Mexican coast, then south to Belize and on around to his destination (see route map). Jim wrote a blog of this entire experience featuring many photos and I’ll bet most pilots would like to read it.
LSA Market Share … the Rest of the Story
We recorded very strong interest in our recent market share article. Traffic spiked to double in the days since our report was posted (and that was from record levels). It would appear the LSA segment is hardly in “critical condition” despite what some may think. Today, the LAMA board of directors had its monthly teleconference and some interesting thoughts were expressed. Here we present a summary of how those discussions relate to LSA market share.
First, since 2009 we observed the number of newly registered Special LSA Airplanes have been 20-25% of all single engine piston (SEP) GA airplanes deliveries. For 2012, SLSA Airplane deliveries were 259 to 790 GA’s SEP airplanes, meaning Light-Sport represents 32.8% of GA deliveries or 24.7% of all airplanes. However, that is only part of the story.
In addition, you ought to consider the impact of Experimental, that is, kit-built LSA (ELSA) plus “alternative” aircraft such as weight shift, powered parachute, and gliders/motorgliders.
2012 LSA Market Shares — Cubs & Surprises
Our annual review of LSA Market Share brings our updated fleet chart and a second chart showing prior-year registrations. While sales of new SLSA remains below par, the market appears to be experiencing spotty but regular recovery from earlier low points. The first half the year foretold a better recovery but the last half of the year stalled somewhat. Regardless, based on traffic to this website, LSA interest is higher than ever. For January 2013, ByDanJohnson.com set all-time records in Unique Visitors and all other measuring criteria Thank you for your support!
2012 Market Share report — Nearby, we present our standard market share numbers. Our original chart remains consistent, illustrating the “installed base,” or “fleet size.” Because we know many of you seek recent-year information we are repeating the Calendar Year chart that debuted last year.
For the second year in a row Cessna lead in 2012 with an impressive 94 registrations though this is down 30% from 134 in 2011.
Keeping it Neutral
Ken Godin, an endlessly enthusiastic, high-energy entrepreneur and 30 year ultralight, LSA and GA pilot, created his own company, Composiclean, a few years back, to market a line of pH-neutral and other cleaning products that are finding their way to air shows, car shows, dealer ramps and at docksides around the world.If you’ve scanned the Aircraft Spruce catalog recently you may have seen Ken’s goods. *** Like many innovations, Compsiclean came about through a vacuum in the market place. Ken was a key player at Tom Peghiny’s Flight Design USA operation until 2008, when he left to become Director of Sales and Service at REMOS Aircraft. *** “Tom asked me if I knew of a neutral cleaning product for his CT line of LSA. He had seen first hand that some composite components can be negatively affected by the alkaline pH of the cleaners typically available..most cleaners are either acidic or alkaline.” Ken’s a networking guy so he went looking for a neutral-pH cleaner.
Keeping Your New LSA All Shiny & Clean
Who doesn’t like to ride around in a clean machine? If it’s your car, you have thousands of products to choose from…and no big problem if you use the wrong stuff. But if your LSA is a composite airplane, you need the right stuff and it comes from Composiclean. When entrepreneur Ken Godin took his products to this summer’s AirVenture Oshkosh, his persuasive selling ability and some superior products helped him grab the attention of aviation big shots, like aerobatic pilot Shawn Tucker and Flight Design owner, Matthias Betsch, among numerous others. *** If you react with a “Ho-hum, it’s just soap” response, let me suggest you go have a look at Composiclean’s testing results. I was surprised what the wrong cleaners can do to composite surfaces. Keep scrolling down. Yikes! Then research elsewhere on the Composiclean website to check out the right stuff.
New Year Clean-Up Job; Help Your LSA Gleam
ByDanJohnson.com is dedicated to light-sport aviation and keeps a laser focus on the aircraft of this sector. Included are new developments, market share, and maintenance of Light-Sport Aircraft to name a few. In the maintenance category, at its most basic level, is keeping your bird clean and shiny. *** I’m sure some other products can also do the job, but one company has made LSA the subject of much study. I wrote about Composiclean earlier but as we prepare for a new season of flying recreational aircraft, this low-tech task deserves another look. A leading reason: you can seriously harm some aircraft finishes by cleaning them with the wrong chemicals. Don’t take my word for it; Composiclean shows customer comments on their website. *** Major distributors have signed on to sell these LSA-friendly cleaning products. Lockwood Aircraft Supply has a whole area for the goods and Aircraft Spruce sells them at airshows (photos).
Go Negative … or … Work Together?
It is true that a pilot of one type aircraft may not know much about nor (therefore) care much about another type aircraft. Ultralight pilots and turbine pilots may not seem to have much in common. Sailplane pilots and crop dusters, likewise. Powered parachute enthusiasts seem on the opposite side of the spectrum from airline pilots. Yet, regardless of our interests — or even the country in which we live — pilots as a whole are more alike than different in one critical way: we all love flying and we treasure the freedom and beauty flying can provide. So, why do some aviation groups disparage other groups? Why do fixed wing and rotary wing or powered and unpowered pilots sometimes engage in heated arguments? The reasons are many and as varied as humans are different. Fine … we have to accept that we are different. Yet should editors and aviation leaders act more professionally?