In the early days of Light-Sport Aircraft, a veritable tsunami of flying machines crossed the Atlantic or Pacific to land on American shores. In the earliest days imported aircraft comprised more than two-thirds of all entries on the market and that situation persisted for a few years.
Later, American companies — which had been relegated to building kit aircraft due to regulations at the time — joined the growing parade. Today American-made LSA represent better than half of total registrations.
Of course, U.S.-based kit-aircraft makers continue to do well as my recent article showed. Fully manufacturing an aircraft is quite a dissimilar business model from manufacturing a complete kit and supporting home builders (arguably the bigger task). Both are demanding enterprises but require different staff, different facilities, and different machinery.
Hidden to Visible
Although I have been an advocate of Part 103 ultralight vehicles since they first began in 1982, for many years this was something of a sparse, desert landscape with fewer choices than many of us would’ve preferred and almost no news coverage about them.
Archives for January 2022
LSA and Sport Pilot Kits Offer Aircraft Your Way: Factory-Built or Kit-Built
Barely after we rang in the new year, here’s a review of 2021 market shares and info regarding the state of the light, recreational aircraft industry. After a surprisingly strong 2020 despite Covid, 2021 returned to Earth a bit but with some shifting between categories. This year the contrast that stood out was between Factory-Built and Kit-Built.
In 2020, perhaps because builders were locked down at home and completed more projects, kit registrations blew the doors off factory-built. For 2021, the ratio equalized again with kits narrowly edging out factory-built (nearby chart).
Note that for this reporting, datastician Steve Beste said, “We define kit-built as aircraft registered as Experimental Amateur Built. Factory-built are everything else, including SLSA, ELSA, Exhibition, Primary, and Standard.” To understand how Steve solves the FAA database mysteries, check this PDF.
How Healthy Is the Market?
Generally speaking, the leaders from 2019 and 2020 remain in similar positions for 2021 — the second year everyone endured the virus pandemic.
Announcing: Launch of the Part 103 List, a One-of-a-Kind Resource in Affordable Aviation
To welcome a brand new year in affordable aviation, I am pleased to announce the launch of our Part 103 List. This new list presents 89 Part 103 entries for models built by 57 manufacturers.
[UPDATE 1/18/22 — We made the 103 List even better with the “Model column now leading to info right here on ByDanJohnson.com, when available. Other article changes are shown in red text. —DJ]
Too many people believe this is a minor sector with “no fixed wing aircraft that qualify.” They’re wrong; we have 38 fixed wing producers alone. Some others among the general aviation pilot population thought that Part 103 ultralights had disappeared completely. They could not be more wrong.
Not only are plenty of Part 103 ultralights being produced, they come in many diverse shapes and plenty of them are being sold.
Clearly, it’s about time a list like this one got published to put the record straight!
A Multicopter for the Rest of Us? Part 103 eVTOL Hexa Is Preparing for a U.S. Tour
You can hardly follow any media without finding some article about the latest whizzbang electric propulsion multicopter project that “will transform urban transportation!” Or so they breathlessly exclaim.
Fine. I look forward to going from a downtown hotel to the airport in minutes versus slogging through ground traffic for an hour. Will these arrive in some near future? Maybe. Even if they do arrive sooner than later, would a pilot feel entirely comfortable flying in an autonomous, computer-controlled aircraft? Only you can answer that question.
You might get a chance sooner than you think.
Whatever you think right now, would you change your mind if you got to fly one of these machines, safely, of course?
Since autonomous operation is part of the plan, a current-day Lift Aircraft Hexa could take over any time and land safely on its own. Heck, my ancient (3-year-old) DJI drone can do that, with zero input from me.
Wrapping Up 2021 — News Bits and Expectations for the New Year Ahead
Now that 2021 is historical and following two years of Covid uncertainty and business interruptions, many readers can breathe a sigh of relief for an better 2022.
We have two full years remaining before FAA’s Mosaic regulation becomes active. During that time you’ll need to respond to the proposal I predict we will see at Oshkosh 2022 (only seven months away). Until then, what might happen in the world of light aviation?
I don’t know any better than you. The future is as unknowable as ever. So many things can happen …who expected Covid-19? With my eye to the sky I’m pleased to start the new year out with some fresh news. Here are five stories to kick off 2022.
Rotax Power
141 Horses …and
Sometimes the changes are big (iOS 15.0). Sometimes the changes are incremental (iOS 15.2). Significant changes often arrive through small steps forward. News from Rotax Aircraft Engines represents one of those smaller yet valuable updates: more electrical power.