Marc Cook, Author at ByDanJohnson.com

Risen Group Plans Transatlantic Flight to OSH

By Marc Cook || May 8, 2024 1 Comment (Edit)

Andreas Venturini and Alberto Porto announce “The Challenge Flight” from Italy to Oshkosh at Aero Friedrichshafen 2024.

You’ve heard of the Risen, Alberto Porto’s sleek, fast retractable that makes the most of its Rotax 912 power. With more than 180 mph on tap with the 912 iS, the Risen seems the perfect two-person traveling machine. It’s also one, like the Sparker, that would fit well into the new MOSAIC rules. Well, Porto and Andrea Venturini are going to find out just how well it travels this summer. They’ve announced a “unique, record breaking flight across the Atlantic Ocean.” Only this Risen will be using the latest Rotax 916 iS, the turbocharged, 160-hp engine so many airframers are now fitting in place of the 915 iS. For Porto and Venturini, “the plan is to cover 3200 kms or about 2000 statute miles across the Atlantic Ocean with a fuel consumption of just over 50 gallons of fuel at speeds up to 230 mph. The entire route, not known to have been ever flown before, certainly not in a piston powered aircraft, will cover 3900 nautical miles over about 20 hours.” The destination, of course, is Oshkosh for AirVenture this summer.

The Risen Superveloce at AERO 2024 packs the most powerful four-cylinder Rotax, the turbocharged 916.

Porto offers more detail. “This will be a flight starting from our home base airport Voghere Rivanazzano Airport, LILH, in Milan, Italy, and complete in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. We will stop at Goose Bay, Canada for customs then will continue to Appleton, again for US customs, then ultimately into Oshkosh. My co-pilot Andrea has a deep passion for flying, that is what got us together to begin with. He has a great knowledge of aviation and is an advanced sailplane pilot. Andrea will be documenting the flight and reporting the entire flight on social media, producing content that will be live streamed.” Reported Alberto. It won’t be the first time a Risen has crossed the pond. “Alberto and Risen are not new to this kind of adventure having already crossed the Ocean twice,” says Venturini. “First breaking every record through the ‘southern route’ from Italy to South America through Cape Verde and a second flight through the ‘northern route’ via Iceland and Greenland. We will be watching the weather closely in June and July, as we will need the right conditions to meet this challenge." https://youtu.be/sfy4UWv041o https://youtu.be/g_H220j2MVQ

There’s a New Rotax Service Center In Town: LEAF Acquired By APS

By Marc Cook || May 2, 2024 1 Comment (Edit)

Advanced Powerplant Solutions (APS) is a new company under the new ownership of Jeremy and Daniela Knoll, who you may know of AeroSport fame, that has purchased Leading Edge Air Foils, LLC (LEAF), which, among other things, was a Rotax independent service center for the central US. APS will carry on the Rotax-oriented business from LEAF from its base in Delavan, Wisconsin. They’re based at Lake Lawn Airport (C59), about 40 miles southwest of Milwaukee and 35 miles northeast of Rockford. Joining the Knolls will be Brett Lawton, as their technical director. Jeremy and Daniela say that they are “dedicated to maintaining the legacy of LEAF while integrating innovative solutions and expanded service offerings. Customers can look forward to a comprehensive range of Rotax engines, parts, technical support, repair, and maintenance services. Our goal is to be the central hub for Rotax services in the USA, ensuring reliability, expertise, and the highest standards of customer service.” While the company is getting spooled up, maintenance classes are on hold until Fall 2024.

The Bush Cat, shown here at Sun 'n Fun 2024, is no longer in production.

This is a happy turn of events after disappointment at Sun ‘n Fun this year, when the Knolls were informed by the factory that the Bush Cat was going out of production. The factory will continue to produce parts but not whole airframes. As they say, one door closes, another opens.

Watch Three Guys Talk About MOSAIC!

By Marc Cook || May 1, 2024 13 Comments (Edit)

With the MOSAIC program now through the comment phase and in the hands of the FAA, we thought it would be a good time to recap some of its key elements and use our considerable powers of observation and prognostication to provide a little context where needed. Join me, Dan Johnson and LAMA president Scott Severen for a wide-ranging talk on MOSAIC. https://youtu.be/JcXC7BaJowM

MOSAIC Update & A Call For Questions

By Marc Cook || April 25, 2024 41 Comments (Edit)

There’s little question we’ve covered MOSAIC extensively here on ByDanJohnson.com and have been looking ahead to a day when the proposal is a rule, sport pilots gain access to a whole raft of new aircraft, legacy LSAs have a chance to expand their operating envelopes and many of the companies planning to make new models that fit into the MOSAIC template actually come to market. Yeah, that’s a lot. And, yes, we’re all a little impatient for the FAA to make MOSAIC real. Since the comment period closed in January, there’s been plenty of industry talk and one major airshow where MOSAIC was definitely a topic of conversation. With that in mind, Dan Johnson, Scott Severen (LAMA’s president) and I are meeting next week (virtually) to catch each other up on the program—video of this meeting will post here next week. As we prepare for it, I’d like to invite you to submit questions you have and we’ll take them up during our chat. Pop ‘em into the comments section below and we’ll include them in our discussion.

Back to Timelines

Recent reporting (for example, on AVweb) helps clarify a few things. First of all, the timeline. It was understood early on that the FAA was planning on taking 16 months to review public and industry comments, starting from the close of comments. As you probably remember, that was extended from October 2023 to January of this year. Then there was another shorter extension to fix a few “technical” issues with the original proposal, mainly relating to rules around noise and noise testing. My sources say that the FAA is unlikely to add that additional delay to the overall timeline. There was chatter early on that the FAA might have some kind of announcement at AirVenture this year, but anything beyond “yes, we’re still working on it” seems unlikely. The FAA tends not to do rulemaking in public (after the comment period, anyway), so it’s likely that we won’t hear much until we get the final rule. But that’s not the end of it. Once the FAA has published its final rule on MOSAIC, the ASTM committees may have to refine their standards based on the final rule and the FAA will need to approve it. Of course, this back-and-forth is already going on, so it’s not like the ASTM committees are working in a vacuum and no one I've talked to is predicting massive rewrites. But, according to sources, the approval process on the airframe side could take from 2 to 6 months after the rulemaking is made final. So even if the FAA and the ASTM committees are in close agreement, it still won't be an instant-on situation. Where does that get us? According to EAA’s Dick Knapinski, “It is correct that early to mid-2025 is expected to be the announcement of the final rule. We’ve been telling those who ask that, based on our conversations with the FAA, most recently at our annual winter summit in Oshkosh in early March.” But if the approval process stretches out, it could be December of 2025 before the new rules are widely in effect. Which means the biggest challenge we face with MOSAIC is mustering patience.

Live (Sort Of) From Sun ‘n Fun — The Sun’s Out and Stuff’s Happening

By Marc Cook || April 10, 2024 Leave a Comment (Edit)

Because deviled eggs. (Photo: Amy Wilder)

It's delightfully warm and getting even better here in Lakeland, Florida, for the 50th running of the Sun 'n Fun. What's happening? Lots. Why haven't you read much of it here yet? Good question. Truth is, I was stuck on the Experimental side of the situation—not a bad place to be, actually—for the first day of the show. But that doesn't mean there isn't news to report. Junkers unveiled its new radial-engined A50 today. I spent some time with Dynon Avionics to talk about the new 12-inch version of the SkyView HDX. (See the video I did for Kitplanes below.) And there's much more to come, with an important opening reception tonight centered on the LSA market. Plus a few of the hardy souls who reached out with an interest to write for this site have been turning in their fine words. Sun 'n Fun, from a working perspective, is a whirlwind. News conferences sometimes overlap important forums and other product announcements. But that makes for good buzz and considerable enthusiasm. So bear with me while we gather the news and plug it into our magic "ones and zeroes machine" for your enjoyment!

(Photo: Amy Wilder)

Who Is This Guy, Anyway? Please Welcome, Marc Cook!

By Marc Cook || March 28, 2024 10 Comments (Edit)

You’re probably wondering about this raspy old voice appearing on the ByDanJohnson site. Who are you and what have you done with Dan? Part of that you already know.

Look, over there! A different job. Marc Cook with Glastar co-founder Ted Setzer in 2005.

Dan sold this site to what was then the Flying Media Group, owned by Craig Fuller, an LSA owner himself. Since adding a bunch of marine titles from Bonnier, the overarching company is now known as Firecrown, but the aviation side is still a big part of the portfolio, including FLYING, Plane & Pilot and KITPLANES (among many others). ByDanJohnson, when it becomes Affordable Aviation, will fit like the perfect puzzle piece into the group

Speaking of KITPLANES, that’s where I come from. In fact, Dan and I have history—the good kind—as he wrote about the then-nascent LSA category for KP back when all this got started. We felt it was important to get smart about the segment since it would intersect with Experimental aircraft. How, exactly, we weren’t sure but it did seem that many existing makers of kits would jump at the chance to series-build airplanes (and they did) and that we might just get some coming the other way (not as much). In any case, even though my recent activities haven’t been so directly involved with production SLSAs, I’ve kept a keen interest in them. So taking over for Dan here represents a comfortable and exciting expansion to my duties over at KITPLANES.

Ancient History

It’s easy to get bored with the details here. Let’s just say that I can remember my first flight like it was yesterday. I was maybe 10 and a friend of the family had a straight-tail Cessna 182. I was offered a ride out of Hawthorne airport in California and never even thought to say no. Why my parents didn’t put the kibosh on it I’ll never know, but I remember watching the right main tire slip away from the runway, the wheel come to a stop and a whole new set of sensations wash over me. The flight was probably no more than 15 minutes but it set a hook big enough for a Marlin. Many years later, I worked for a motorcycle magazine that succumbed to some early 1980s economics. I was young and dumb, so the severance package was a complete surprise. Still living at home and thinking nothing of being out of work, I allowed a long-simmering desire to fly come to the surface. I drove to the Long Beach airport, put all of my severance down on block time for rentals and found a CFI. From February to June I flew as often as I could, getting the private in a Cessna 150 then getting checked out in the mighty Cessna 172 and various Piper Cherokee models.

The Cessna 150. In fact, the same 150 Marc took his checkride in.

Head East!

With just a few hundred hours in my logbook, I applied for a job with AOPA. I’d noticed the tiny ad in the back of the magazine, and knowing about publishing assumed that it was just a formality; they’d already found a writer but had to make an effort. I sent a resume and quickly photocopied clips expecting to hear nothing in return. I went back to my life giving it not much more thought. Until I got a call from none other than Dick Collins. Legendary as the editor of FLYING, he had recently been lured by AOPA to remake its Pilot magazine. He believed that it was important to hire young staffers who he could mold into aviation journalists. I was one of the lucky ones, accepting the offer to move to Frederick, Maryland, while still very green in the aviation realm even as I had a lot of experience in print publishing for my age. Given my rambunctiousness, I figured the job would last a year. I was there for 11.

Eventually, career opportunities led me back to motorcycling, then back to airplanes again in 2004 when I was offered the big seat at KITPLANES. I got spooked by the economic issues at the end of the decade and swiveled to playing with two wheels before being lured back in 2018. I’ve been editor in chief of KITPLANES since then, and now add this website to my list of responsibilities.

Where To, Then?

I have the good luck to fly a lot of different small aircraft in the course of my work and have owned four—two I built and two I bought. My first kit was a Pulsar XP in the mid-1990s, the second a Glasair Aviation Sportsman in the mid-2000s. In between, as the family grew, a Beech P35 Bonanza, which taught me the value of ongoing maintenance. I paid dearly for the previous owners’ lack of it on that Bonanza, let me tell you. My current airplane, another GlaStar, was purchased already flying. I also had casual arrangements to use aircraft as diverse as a Mooney 231 and a Socata TB-21 Trinidad TC.

The Pulsar XP homebuilt from the 1990s. (Mike Fizer photo.)

I don’t want to sound like the crusty old guy in the corner hangar who has seen it all—but I have seen a lot. And that makes me optimistic for the future of LSA with the coming of the MOSAIC rules package. Dan’s done a masterful job covering the project and updating you on the progress. Expanding the capabilities of LSA is a great short-term goal, making so many more airplanes available to Sport Pilots is going to do only good. But I’m most excited by the prospect of new designs—built with MOSAIC and consensus standards in mind—coming to market. When I started, the Cessna 172 was already old. And other legacy designs, like the Mooney and Bonanza models I’m so familiar with, just can’t be cost effective based on the raw labor hours required to build them. It’s going to take new thinking, like we’ve already seen among LSAs, to build out a more affordable segment of aviation, in addition to supporting the most basic, just-for-fun flying machines in the world. So bear with me as I slip into this new role. Sun ‘n Fun 2024 is going to be busy for me, a great way to get up fully up to speed on this exciting segment of aviation.

Hi Folks! In case you thought you'd seen the last of me… you have not. 😎 While Marc will take over the editor duties for this website, I plan to contribute when I discover an aircraft I am sure readers will like. I've come to gain a good handle on what you love so I hope to fascinate you with new developments I find. Nonetheless, please join with me and offer a very hearty welcome to Marc Cook to the pixels of ByDanJohnson.com — becoming AffordableAviation.com. —DJ

You’re probably wondering about this raspy old voice appearing on the ByDanJohnson site. Who are you and what have you done with Dan? Part of that you already know. Dan sold this site to what was then the Flying Media Group, owned by Craig Fuller, an LSA owner himself. Since adding a bunch of marine titles from Bonnier, the overarching company is now known as Firecrown, but the aviation side is still a big part of the portfolio, including FLYING, Plane & Pilot and KITPLANES (among many others). ByDanJohnson, when it becomes Affordable Aviation, will fit like the perfect puzzle piece into the group Speaking of KITPLANES, that’s where I come from. In fact, Dan and I have history—the good kind—as he wrote about the then-nascent LSA category for KP back when all this got started. We felt it was important to get smart about the segment since it would intersect with Experimental aircraft.

Good Neighbor! — How Sling Pilot Academy Made Their Trainer Whisper

By Marc Cook || March 28, 2024 6 Comments (Edit)

So, Whisper Sling

Necessity is the mother of invention, so the saying goes. Necessity, in this case, was success.

(SPA) at the Torrance, California, airport has grown to become a training behemoth, with their fleet flying more than 4,000 hours per month, the bulk of it in the Sling two-place LSA it uses as a primary trainer. That makes the SPA one of the busiest training companies in the region. And Torrance, like many urban airports, faces increasing complaints from non-pilot neighbors; in fact, Torrance’s very existence has been threatened for decades by those opposed to the presence of airplanes at, get this, an airport. You can see where this is going.

Although SPA worked hard at community outreach, noting in part that it already used aircraft that operated well under the airport’s noise limits and burned relatively little unleaded autogas (thanks to the Rotax 912 iS engines), complaints continued. At one point last year, SPA management had to fight being kicked off the airport entirely. They needed to do something to go “above and beyond” in order to keep the school running and, indeed, growing.

Engineering Challenge

At this point, co-CEOs Matt Liknaitzky and Jean d’Assonville decided to undertake an ambitious engineering solution to reduce not only the actual noise footprint of Sling LSA but the quality of that sound. But we’re getting ahead of the story here.

“We started by changing our procedures,” says Liknaitzky. “We then started reminding people that we had the quietest airplanes on the field. We never busted the noise monitor. But in multiple meetings with the community, we started to listen to what they were saying. They started describing the sound of our airplanes. They said it’s not that our airplanes are loud but the nature of the sound was annoying. This was a turning point for us. We told ourselves that we have to look at the sound quality, not just the quantity.” Sling then began working on solutions to making the whole installation — Rotax and Sling — less annoying. “We know that many aircraft have low-frequency sound but ours were being perceived as being buzzy, like a mosquito,” says Liknaitzky.

After significant study, Sling realized that it wasn’t just the higher frequency sound the combination produces but that it wavered as well, likely the result of acoustics and the Rotax’s high-rpm nature. And they had to get on with a solution because “we’re adding 30 airplanes this year, and we already have 40 in the fleet,” says Liknaitzky. “The first thing we tried was the exhaust,” says Matt. “We added off-the-shelf glass mufflers and that made a huge difference in the sound. Then we realized you have to either add length or change the direction to reduce noise. Changing the direction has more of a backpressure penalty. We had to keep to the Rotax spec of 2.9 psi of backpressure. The standard muffler is 1.0 psi,” says Liknaitzky, so there’s some room to reduce noise even if it costs some backpressure.

One noise-reduction tactic was to end the exhaust in a "kick up" behind the wing.

Keep Improving

“We iterated on the muffler: making it longer or shorter; changing the diameter,” says Matt. “We kept iterating and performing flight tests, but we also used our ears as an instrument.” The goal was to achieve something an instrument might not pick up: the quality of the noise. Eventually, the company settled on a configuration that reduced noise by 10 dbA using a long pipe that extended beneath the cabin and exited behind the wing with a distinctive “kick up.” That kick up helps place the exhaust in the wake of the wing and aim it away from neighbors on the ground. But it’s also effective in other directions. “If you were to stand behind the airplane with the engine fully revved up, you cannot hear the exhaust. All you can hear is the propeller and prop wash,” says Liknaitzky. The muffler is a simple perforated inner tube with glass packing around it. All told the muffler is 52 inches long with 40% open holes.

Surprisingly, the system appears to actually improve the Sling’s performance. The company assumes that the stock Sling-built exhaust actually had too little backpressure and so the new, quieter system gives the Rotax more of what it needs. Still, testing continues. “We’ve been testing with an older airframe,” says d’Assonville, “but we’re going to be starting over with a brand new airframe. Do all the noise testing in standard configuration and then test out what we think is the final configuration. We’ll start with just the exhaust, then add the cowling modifications and then the DUC three-blade propeller.” What cowling mods, you may ask? Sling discovered that some of the noise signature came from the cowling itself, transmitting some of the acoustic energy of the Rotax through the fiberglass. In the test article, they applied a foil-backed foam sound deadening material, which substantially reduced the perceived noise level. Moreover, it helped reduce the perception of high-frequency noise, getting the company back to the goal of giving the Sling a more low-end-biased noise signature they felt neighbors would find less objectionable.

Quality inspecting the finished exhaust.

“The change was remarkable,” says Matt. “It took out a lot of the jangle…it made a monster difference.” Another seemingly simple change was to alter the air exit path in the lower cowling. But forcing it to follow the lower fuselage, rather than let it vent directly downward, the sound levels were further reduced. All together, the modifications add about 10 pounds to the Sling two-seater.

Noise-reducing insulation was used inside the cowling as well.

Sling has the advantage of being not only the user but a close relative to the factory itself, so getting approval through the ASTM process only requires a letter of authorization from the factory for testing. A similar path of the factory conducting its own testing of the modifications can lead to approval to retrofit the parts to existing airplanes and potentially to make the configuration a factory option. At this stage, the package looks like it’ll cost $3,000 to $4,000 per airplane. Testing will continue through spring and summer 2024.

ARTICLE LINKS:

Sling Pilot Academy, flight school website
Sling LSA, information and content on this website
The Airplane Factory USA, importer contact info and all content on this website
The Airplane Factory, website for the South African manufacturer of the Sling series.
Torrance, California airport, airport information website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njW_CJBuuJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXAIKmpwDJ4

Harley Davidson or Rotax — Sounds can be unique and associated with a certain brand. Harley motorcycles have made their sound a trademark, defending it vigorously against wannabe knock-offs. Sling Pilot Academy found Rotax 912iS engines output a particular sound, too. However, they wanted to shield their neighbors from it. As busy as Sling Pilot Academy has become, keeping good relations is essential. So, Whisper Sling Necessity is the mother of invention, so the saying goes. Necessity, in this case, was success. (SPA) at the Torrance, California, airport has grown to become a training behemoth, with their fleet flying more than 4,000 hours per month, the bulk of it in the Sling two-place LSA it uses as a primary trainer. That makes the SPA one of the busiest training companies in the region. And Torrance, like many urban airports, faces increasing complaints from non-pilot neighbors; in fact, Torrance’s very existence has been threatened for decades by those opposed to the presence of airplanes at, get this, an airport.

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