As we work on PlaneFinder 2.0, our one-of-a-kind method to help pilots find the best Light-Sport Aircraft — watch for it in a few more days — we have another list-in-waiting. It is our FIRM List or FI.R.M List, meaning it helps you find Flight Instruction (FI), Rental (R), or Maintenance (M).
These two — PlaneFinder 2.0 and FIRM List — complement our currently operating SLSA List as guides to help people interested in light, affordable aircraft. Even the SLSA List will go through further refinement; these steps were necessary after we moved from an old website built in the early days of the World Wide Web to a thoroughly modern website you can read on any device you have from desktop to smartphone.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Aviation has a new offering for those of you seeking a trained, qualified mechanic to help you keep your Light-Sport Aircraft in top-top flying shape.
Archives for August 2017
BRM Aero, Maker of Bristell Light-Sport Aircraft Models, Rolls Out 300th Unit
I believe you should applaud Milan Bristela. Now a veteran of the Light-Sport Aircraft sector, he has steadily built a successful aircraft manufacturing enterprise — BRM Aero — that recently rolled out Bristell #300.
With its first delivery to a customer in 2011, this represents an average pace of 50 aircraft per year, a wonderful business size for a LSA manufacturer. Every company starts smaller and grows, so assuming a spooling up of their production engine, BRM is now completing between one and two aircraft per week. Good job, Milan and team!
BRM Aero started in 2009 with two employees. Over the course of several years the team has grown to 50 employees, they report. When growth demanded, they moved into larger quarters but they’ve also maintained a family feel with father Milan and son Martin running the enterprise as partners.
The full name of their very handsome aircraft is Bristell NG 5 LSA.
Italy’s JetFox Redux — InnovAviation FX1 Moving toward SLSA Acceptance
We reported on FX1 shortly after it began flight trials in the hands of American light aviation expert John Hunter. This article offers John’s perspective on flight characteristics along with specifications; you should definitely read this if FX1 stirs your imagination.
InnovAviation is an Italian company founded in 2001 by Alfredo Di Cesare, who began his aviation career in the early 1980s as an importer and kit builder of Striplin Aircraft from the USA. Later that decade, Alfredo started importing Germany’s Comco Ikarus C22, which lead to C42 that became that country’s most popular light aircraft.
Alfredo saw room for improvement.
He probably also saw the success of America’s Flightstar, which was significantly based on work by Hans Gygax, the brain behind Comco’s C42. While resembling Flightstar, you can also see FX1 is much more developed.
FX1’s cabin is fully enclosed and sports large, curved doors.
Intriguing Light Aircraft Views from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2017
Before America becomes completely consumed with Eclipse Viewing Fever, you might want to pull your (solar filter-protected) eyes away from the soon-to-darken sky to catch a few glimpses of intriguing aircraft from EAA’s summer celebration of flight.
In this pre-Eclipse weekend post, I’ll show you some images of cool flying things I saw at the big event.
Starting off with my fascination about spaceflight, EAA communications guru Dick Knapinski told of the challenges of arranging an 80-foot-tall flying machine on the central Boeing Plaza square. This is where you see a changing kaleidoscope of aircraft from old to new and slow to fast. However, no aircraft I’ve ever seen in this location flies as fast, stands as tall, or is more unique than the Blue Origin rocket.
From the billionaire-thick wallet of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos comes this space flight company that is competing with Space Exploration or SpaceX among others in the new era of private space companies.
Atol Light-Sport Aircraft Amphibian — Design and Production Update
“Coming to America” is a common refrain from light aircraft producers in some countries. Why? The obvious reason is that most designers perceive a huge market in the USA. Another is that shipping from the USA to other countries proves easier than shipping from their home countries. Other reasons also exist but those two are enough to decide in favor of the move.
One builder of a LSA seaplane is Atol Avion, based in Finland. They have been moving steadily toward approval, production, and sale of their Atol amphibian.
Anssi Rekula, co-founder of Avion and the director of sales said, “We have a lot of news and it’s centered on delivery of production airplanes. He enumerated:
We have received new investment to support our European certification, which is expected by the end of 2017.
We have established our North American operation in Brunswick, Maine.
We are scheduling customer demo flights in Finland as soon as the crew is back from Oshkosh 2017 where customers can see and fly the all-new cockpit design (images), and,
We have received our first order from Australia …so all is good and very positive.
Skonkwerks …an Ultralight Aircraft Tribute to an Aviation Pioneer
Update 8/17/17: See our video interview at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2017 on this aircraft (at bottom). —DJ
The aircraft you see in the photos is called “A Tribute to Alberto Santos Dumont.” Do you know who that is?
In my conversations with a few other pilots, almost everyone knew the name (“vaguely”) but not one remembered what that person did. Since the 24 Bis (that’s what they call the example you see in the images) is a tribute to Alberto, let’s take a second to recall his history.
Santos Dumont was a prolific aircraft designer working from 1898 to 1920. The first year was when he made his first balloon ascension, in Paris, on July 4th. Only six years later, not even three years after the Wright Brothers’ famous Kitty Hawk flight, Alberto flew his 14 Bis on November 12th, 1906. This flight won him the accolade “first person to fly in Europe.”
His first production aircraft weighed in at 242 pounds.
Icon Updates: Crash Cause …yet Onward with Deliveries
Icon Aircraft CEO Kirk Hawkins shared a computer depiction of events leading to the crash of an A5 flown by factory chief pilot, Jon Karkow. From A5’s onboard black box Icon engineers assembled a second-by-second path for the ill-fated Light-Sport Aircraft. The data showed speed, power settings, flap position, and more.
According to the Napa Valley Register relating a National Transportation Safety Board report, “Pilot error caused the crash that killed two men in a small airplane on May 8, 2017 in Lake Berryessa.”
NTSB wrote, “The pilot, Jon Karkow, of Icon Aircraft in Vacaville, was flying too low, and mistakenly entered a canyon surrounded by steep rising terrain.” The investigative agency said Karkow had taken off from the Nut Tree airport in Vacaville at 8:50 a.m. accompanied by passenger, Cargi Sever, a new Icon employee. The pilot intended to take Sever on a familiarization flight in the Icon A5 amphibious Light-Sport Aircraft, said NTSB.
Big to Small, Just Aircraft Pleases; Now, Check Out their Part 103 Ultralight Aircraft
If you know the Part 103 category of the FAA regulations, you know these are the lightest aircraft in aviation (that is, man-carrying aircraft; drones excepted).* After years of disappearing, Part 103 entries have come back more recently and at AirVenture Oshkosh 2017, we saw another.
This is the Just Aircraft Superlite, except that name was never certain and has (since Oshkosh) been taken off the list as a model name. Until they put a fresh name on it, I will call it Just 103.
Part 103, as most readers may know, requires no pilot certificate (really, none!). They also require no FAA registration or N-numbers. Since 1982, you need no aviation medical to fly one. Plus, they can be built ready-to-fly… or in kit form of any percentage. For 35 years now — the rule went effective in September of 1982 — Part 103 ultralight vehicles have been part of the aviation firmament.
Update: Flight Design and its Popular CTLS Light-Sport Aircraft
After more than a year, a resolution was reached for the airplane that topped the charts in the LSA space since Day One. Although Flight Design’s CT-series was eclipsed in 2016 by CubCrafters (by a very slim margin), the aircraft remains well regarded and its many adherents are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief that the “reorganization” (what Americans might call a bankruptcy) has been resolved. All good!
(Read more about this reorganization here.)
During EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2017, longtime Flight Design USA representative Tom Peghiny sent news about the new owner of the brand. The crush of airshow activity let others beat us to this news, however, we will use our long history with this company to provide a more detailed report.
That Was Then
Flight Design, the German company that makes the CTLS, has been through the wringer in recent years with a series of reversals no one could have anticipated.