America’s neighbor to the north is USA’s largest trading partner …yes, bigger than China, or any other single country. It may be hard to accept that exchanges with a nation of 36 million population exceeds China by almost a third, despite that Asian nation’s 1.37 billion persons and its export-promoting government. Nonetheless, it’s true. Canada is also the #2 nation bringing regular reader to this website. Gotta love those Canadians. Armed with those facts, I was intrigued to see the announcement from the big Italian company, “Tecnam P2008 now available in Canada.” A few days back, Tecnam announced that Transport Canada, their equivalent to FAA, confirmed that the P2008 has been added to the Eligible to Be Registered Advanced Ultralight Listing (although the Tecnam model has not been added to their website list at this writing). “P2008 aircraft may be registered in Canada as of this date,” wrote Civil Aviation Safety Inspector, Craig Davis of Transport Canada on August 14, 2017.
When I started this website back in 2004, even before Light-Sport Aircraft officially arrived on the aviation scene, I began by uploading hundreds of pilot reports that had appeared in various aviation magazines. Most were very detailed descriptions of many ultralights (both single and two seaters) and light kit aircraft. After flying nearly 400 models, I had information that most buyers lacked, so I often took questions that were similar to, "You've flown all these airplanes. Which one should I buy?"
The question turns out to be impossible to answer. It is something like asking me, "Which color car is best?" The answer depends on what you want. What I like is nearly meaningless unless your desires are almost identical to mine …and that's very unlikely. If we spoke long enough at an airshow, perhaps I could learn enough about you — your experience, your home location, your expected use of an aircraft, your spending budget, and much more — such that I might advise you what might work for you.
I would rarely have that much time and even if I did, I only answered the question for one person. That is a definition of inefficient.
Thus came PlaneFinder. Version 1.0 was a series of three articles for EAA Sport Pilot magazine (since discontinued as a publication). The three articles were a lot of work for me, and for readers. At the end, maybe you knew what to buy …but possibly not. It was a worthy first effort, you might agree, but it was not the right solution.
So, 
"The goal of the project was the production and installation of a (public) charging station for electric airplanes, because the need for a stationary type of charging has been shown," wrote the company.
On August 30th, 2017 the electric charging station was officially turned on at the Pipistrel company and was used to charge one of their Alpha Electro aircraft. The project was "financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport and the European Union from the European Social Fund."
In Pipistrel's 25 years, the Slovenian company has produced 600 aircraft of the Sinus-Virus family (the ones most familiar to Americans) plus 120 aircraft of the Taurus-Apis family (motorgliders and gliders). Together with approximately 500 weight shift trikes — the aircraft that started this company back in Soviet times — Pipistrel has manufacturered about 1,300 aircraft. 
"Oshkosh is all about airplanes, right?" asked 
Vastly easier demo flying can be done at events like the just-concluded 
To keep up with demand and spark more TAF-USA hired Barry Jay as North American Sales and Marketing Manager, who will work closely with Matt Liknaitzky and Jean D'Assonville. "Barry comes to us with decades of experience in the general aviation and automotive industries," said The Airplane Factory USA. Jay has sold new Piper and Mooney aircraft, managed Lexus national advertising and worked with Toyota's aviation business development department." A private pilot with over 900 hours, Barry has been a member of the Sling Flying Club for over four years and has been a strong promoter of The Airplane Factory brand. An FAA Safety Team Representative, Barry was also recently reelected to the post of President of the Torrance Airport Association for a twelfth term.
In a eNewsletter to what they call "Breezerians," the German company with the same name as their model reported a festive debut to their newest model called Breezer Sport.
Here's our earlier looks at 
"Today, we can do things differently and that’s why the Breezer Sport has a totally different approach. Plus, the current integration of 3D CAD/CAM systems enables us to create form factors meeting the expectations of strength and performance." Breezer Sport is not only an enhancement of the B400/B600, series they say. "It is a completely new aircraft with totally different technology approaches."
Belite entrepreneur James Weibe has successfully used his tech industry background to raise interest for his latest project, this time his first two seater called Chipper. (It was named Pipper but that apparently energized the anxieties of Piper Aircraft lawyers so James altered the name.)
James has informed his Facebook and email readers with continual updates. After making initial flights fairly recently, he has judged the aircraft able to make a cross country flight.
Chipper uses power from the 912 
"I flew Chipper to Angel Fire, New Mexico," James exclaimed. "I flew nonstop one way (960 miles roundtrip) from Wichita, Kansas to Angel Fire, performed flight tests, and then returned to Marion, Kansas before the sunset." Now that's a good day's flying.
"Angel Fire is the fourth highest elevation airport in the United States at 8,322 feet above sea level," James reported. "Density altitude was 10,400 feet." Three conditions can degrade aircraft performance at altitude: higher elevation, higher temperature, and higher humidity. The latter is not much of a problem in desert-like New Mexico but all affect aircraft performance. (Humid air, made up of water vapor, is less also dense.)
In my experience, operating at more than 10,000 feet density altitude causes a Cessna 150 or 172 to take significantly more runway to get airborne and climb performance can be sharply reduced.
"Chipper's takeoff roll length was 600 feet," said a proud James. "Why did they make the runway 8,900 feet long at Angel Fire," James wondered with a twinkle in his eye?
"Climbout was greater than 200 fpm," he added. Now that's not nearly as fast as a 80-horsepower Chipper would perform at sea level but it's better than a Cessna 150. "Everything in the pattern was normal," James continued, "it just took longer to climb."
For his evaluation, Chipper's test weight was 950 pounds. He observed that a normally-aspirated (carbureted) 80-horsepower Rotax develops 52 horsepower at Angel Fire's pattern altitude.
Brian and Carol have created a valuable service by their work for more than a decade. The LSA industry is lucky to have them hard at work.
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 — 
Back in 2003, when I was still involved with BRS Parachutes, I traveled to the Czech Republic. My contact was American Chip Erwin, then head of Czech Aircraft Works and now the man behind 
The company began selling the first version of Bristell Classic in 2011, a fixed-gear aircraft. In 2012 Milan developed a Bristell RG retractable gear aircraft and in the following year Bristell TDO, their taildragger option (photo) that lends a very sporty look. BRM Aero acquired their own production facilities only five years after starting the business. Since moving, production capacity more than doubled over the next two years.
Today's Bristell Ultralight (the European regulatory description) and BRM Aero's LSA variation is offered in these three configurations that obviously pleases many pilots. A tricycle gear fixed undercarriage configuration is the right choice of aeroplane for use in flight training at flight schools, glider towing and for most recreational flying. Thanks to the solid performance, combined comfort involving thoughtful ergonomic design with and the largest cockpit in its category, and modern instrumentation, any of the Bristell models is an excellent choice for cross-country flights. A Bristell HD version offers heavy-duty wing spars, which make cross-country flights safer in stronger weather conditions.
In the USA, Bristell now enjoys a highly experienced and dedicated team at 
FX1's cabin is fully enclosed and sports large, curved doors. The tail is joined by a more conventional looking fuselage rather than a simple tailboom. The engine is now fully enclosed. Flightstar built it the way they did for some 1,000 aircraft to keep the weight down to a minimum because of the ultralight regulations of the day. That was also a simpler time and today's FX1 may have appeared bulky and expensive back in the early 2000s.
After bringing in the aircraft of other producers Alfredo began work on his own design resulting in the JetFox 91 (in 1991), followed by an upgraded model called JetFox 97, and finally the JetFox GT in 2005. That was about the time Light-Sport Aircraft burst on the scene and caused pilots to look in new directions bringing doubt about the future of JetFox.
A dozen years later, Alfredo is back with his best looking project yet, called FX1, a fourth-generation sport plane evolved from multiple European sport planes over the last three decades. "This modern computer-aided design has been carefully engineered to optimize all aspects of a proven configuration," said Di Cesare (see sidebar). "It incorporates countless improvements and refinements that came from the knowledge and experience of working with similar designs."
Given a fresh design with Italian styling and the promise of future sales, InnovAviation announced several developments.
"We've got financial support to ramp up our serial production," said the company. They plan to demonstrate Special LSA compliance and will seek FAA acceptance "within 2017."
Their first sale went to their dealer in Israel and they noted, "We are in negotiations for dealerships in France, Scandinavia, Australia, and Iran."
For U.S. consumption, "We are in negotiations with a group of investors from Florida in order to establish a US sales and assembly point."
"We've people coming to our factory for demo flights every month," added Alfredo.
Looking for more? Contact Alfredo via 
Improved forward visibility — to enhance flying enjoyment and safety.
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 
Nearby, from one of light aviation lightest aircraft sellers — Michael LeMaire and his 
Machines like Stratos aren't what we usually cover here — any more than space rockets — but since it was beautiful to behold and is coming from one of our LSA suppliers and supporters, I enjoyed a look-see and thought you might as well.
On the way to the Ultralight Area — rebadged as the Fun Fly Zone (an accurate name, IMHO) — we passed by the antique airplane area with its own red barn, seen in the background of the nearby image. What caught my attention was the snazzy paint job or decal on this taildragger.
It doesn't compare to the superlative 
Finally, we arrived in arguably my favorite area of 
"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's cockpit is totally newly designed and looks great," added Anssi. The long established tradition in aviation (and most industries) of adapting the good ideas of other designers shows in Atol's new MVP-like approach.
Anssi explained, "Atol's new articulating canopy retracts up and back, getting out of the way, allowing pilot and passenger to stand upright and access the cockpit from the front if desired, which makes docking and beaching easy. Our avionics retract with the canopy allowing them to be out of harm’s way, avoiding water spray. The seats are removable so when operating solo you can load up with gear to take advantage of our industry leading 600 pound useful load. Carbon fiber is accented with beautifully finished wood trim providing the feel of a classic automobile… it truly is striking."
Among LSA seaplanes a 600 pound useful load is also striking. Anssi explains how they achieve that, "The outer layer of our hull is Kevlar with cold-molded, foam-cored birch. This combination is extremely rugged, light and strong. We use fabric covered wings featuring Oratex. These can be lighter than carbon fiber with the added benefit of field repairable. This is a real plus for a seaplane."
“Finland has 188,000 lakes," said Anssi, "so we know the joys of water flying as well as the demands. Many of these lakes are remote and require range and reliability to access so we designed the Atol 650 for this environment.” Atol's 650 designation refers to 650 kilograms, the metric equivalent of FAA's 1,430 pound seaplane weight limit.
"We think Atol USA is the best and fastest solution for us to be able to serve our North American customers. Our Rovaniemi factory in Finland (photo) will produce for the rest of the world and continue product development,” Anssi added.
Atol USA will produce the 650 at Brunswick Executive Airport (KBXM), site of the former Brunswick Naval Air Station. A local development authority has created a manufacturing technology incubator and is "currently constructing an environmentally-controlled composites layup room, curing oven and paint booth designed to aviation standards and sized to accept wings, fuselages and other large structures. These complement our CNC machining center, welding shops, 3D printers and on-site Composites Engineering Research Lab," said development director Steve Levesque. "We make these assets available to companies throughout the State of Maine." The northeastern state has a long history with amphibious flight having been the home to Lake Aircraft for decades.
We expect to deliver these airframes beginning in the first quarter of 2019 and at a firm fixed price. What price? "Current pricing is $179,000 for delivery through 2018, although most of these positions are allocated so our open slots begin in 2019," explained Paul.
Want to know more? Review Atol's technical specifications 
His first production aircraft weighed in at 242 pounds. Sound familiar? Maybe that's where FAA conjured the 254 pound empty weight of Part 103 aircraft, a category created 76 years later, in 1982.
On January 4th, 1910, Santos Dumont broke a flying wire and crashed. He never flew again. History doesn't record if his mishap was in a 19 Bis, or the 20, 21, or 22.
The Winchester Skonkwerks Ultralight Research and Development Facility — let's shorten that to Skonkwerks — represents a team from Larsen, Wisconsin. Skonkwerks honored Alberto by first building a 23 Bis and later the 24 Bis you see in nearby images taken at AirVenture Oshkosh 2017. The group describes itself as a "loosely knit organization of friends, flyers, and fanatics… tinkerers, builders, and bullsh###rs. We are engineers, designers, and dreamers hanging out in a little hangar screwing stuff together and making it fly."
Skonkwerks is an honoring nod to the famed Lockheed Martin Skunkworks, the latter becoming a term widely used in a generic sense to denote a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy to work on advanced, sometimes secret projects. The Winchester Skonkwerks uses the name "in jest to project an aura of something outside of the norm being worked on, developed, or flown while staying in touch with meager roots."
With this article you see no website or phone numbers. This aircraft is not for sale but is certainly worthy of you traipsing down to Oshkosh's Fun Fly Zone (i.e., the Ultralight Area) to see for yourself.
Meanwhile, here's a few facts you might enjoy:
According to the 
This is the 
The latter comparison is especially apt because this is one of those airplanes you get on rather than in. Pilots side astride the welded steel forward fuselage with their feet on the rudder pedals out in the breeze, although at a top allowed speed of 63 mph (55 knots), that breeze won't be particularly windy.
Troy indicated they have done all the analysis and much of the testing (wings are done even though they weren't brought to Oshkosh). He is sure it will make the empty weight challenge of 254 pounds.
Before it even flies, no price has been set, but with an engine price well under $4,000 and a simple airframe from a very established builder, it is reasonable to think Just 103 will be quite affordable. Stay tuned!
* I did not write Part 103 vehicles are the lightest powered aircraft as Part 103 also covers hang gliders and paraglider, which are commonly unpowered.
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 
Tom explained, "The new company will be known as Flight Design General Aviation, GmbH. After concluding the sale of all major company assets to the Lift Holding investment group, Flight Design General Aviation will be based at a new and modern facility (photo) near the historic town of Eisenach in the Thuringia region of Germany.
Lift is also the owner of the 
FDGA has aircraft operating in 48 countries around the globe. The company will soon employ 20 employees in Germany — mostly highly qualified engineers and technicians — as well as about 100 manufacturing employees in Ukraine. Since the founding of the company in 1988 and the establishment of the Ukrainian production plant in 1993, the company has delivered over 1,800 aircraft.
"Flight Design has some unique products and experience in the production of all carbon-composite, very efficient light aircraft. We want to invest in development of those products and also achieve leadership in customer support," said Lars Joerges, the new Managing Director of FDGA.
Flight Design General Aviation also plans to continue development of the C4 four-place aircraft, although Tom Peghiny said the program would change to accommodate the efficiencies in a changing certification landscape in the United States and abroad, referring to the long-awaited Part 23 rewrite and its mirror regulation in Europe.
Tom indicated that FDGA will make a return to AirVenture for the 2018 event.
"We received confirmation from EAA on the time slot for our forum and meet & greet at 
The only light aircraft producer based right at the home field of 
Sonex will also present the tricycle gear version of the new B-model Sonex for the first time. The B-models now include the Sonex, Waiex, and Xenos motorglider models but to-date all have been taildraggers. If that's not your experience, Sonex now has you covered with tricycle gear.
After hearing from customers, the company has also created a mount system to accommodate the very popular 
Even though Sonex employees are doing double duty during AirVenture, the company conducts daily factory tours during the event. However, if you aren't going to Oshkosh or don't want to tear yourself away from the show, you can catch our 
One of the stalwarts of the light aircraft sector is Kitfox, a brand known widely around the globe. First flown in November 1984 by Dan Denney, nearly 5,000 aircraft in various models have been produced. Nearly all were built from kits but the company also achieved 
Using the fuel injected 
Some Dragonfly pilots working at the Ranch have more than 10,000 hours logged in Dragonflys alone. All that is achieved in an intense, full-power flight towing a hang gliding on a 200 or so foot line to 2,500 feet then releasing the glider, abruptly powering back to idle thrust, and diving madly for the ground to snatch another waiting pilot into the air. A round-trip takes literally minutes so think about how many takeoffs and landings were involved for a pilot to log 10,000 hours doing so.
During some competition events, I have seen 11 Dragonflys doing this drill. It is nearly mind-blowing to watch a collection of these awkward-looking aerial tractors whizzing this way and that in an utterly chaotic-looking yet amazingly well-choreographed ballet of tow planes and glider pilots. You literally have to see it to belief it. My words to describe it pale in comparison.
What else might it do? Well, plenty perhaps, and especially so should FAA allow LAMA to coordinate with industry for a test period to see if Light-Sport Aircraft can become working aircraft. More on that another time.
Ed Pitman, a longtime hang glider pilot turned aircraft manufacturer, recently gained approval for a Dragonfly Rancher model as a Special LSA. "Got both 900 & 582 series Dragonfly Ranchers approved SLSA yesterday," he wrote, taking after Bobby in being frugal with words. I pried a few more from him.
"We reworked the 
Every U.S. state is different when it comes to aerial application, said Ed. "Here in California, a land owner is allowed to spray their own property from the air with a standard Applicators Permit. Dragonfly Rancher is a bonafide piece of farm and ranch equipment."
"Vne on Dragonfly was 66 mph (upped from those earlier models) and Rancher goes further, to 88 mph Vne." The newly beefed-up Dragonfly can carry enough payload to do micro spraying, which — if you don't know as I did not — is a legitimate method of application in some situations.
"We increased the gross weight to 1,200 pounds because we will be putting it on floats, also," said Ed. "Bobby re-schemed the wings, which only gained 2.2 pounds each to get to that higher gross weight." The all-up weight went from 992 pounds (450 kg) earlier.
I asked Ed to explain what they did to bump gross and Vne speed. "We reduced rudder pressure, added electric flaperons, reinforced the main gear, and improved longitudinal stability of the Dragonfly," he clarified. A nose cone and windscreen reduces fatigue for a working pilot. Yet Dragonfly remains "fun to fly," he asured. "It actually performs better with flaps up in aerobatics — spins and loops — and still does a controllable spin."
"With floats it can be used for Introductory Flights as a SLSA," added Ed. Training pilots for towing required a second seat, though it is commonly, and easily, removed along with the aft joystick and pedals.
Interested in micro spraying? "My website has tax calculator link to see federal tax benefits," reported Ed. (calculator is another website) Also some videos.
Get more info on this hard-working aircraft on