In the upcoming Learn To Fly issue of dead tree Plane and Pilot, I wrote an overview article covering the Sport Pilot license. *** Helping me out with some valuable insights was Jim Sweeney, well-known ultralight/Light Sport teacher/expert who really knows his FAA regs. *** One comment Jim made: FBOs have been slow to embrace LSA flight training for a variety of reasons, including reticence to invest in aircraft and training aids for fears the movement would wither on the vine like the Recreational license. *** So I was happy to have Jim note this year’s increase in LSA training nationwide. *** In that vein, Kandace McCoy, in an unusually accurate (for the media) story in the Mt. Vernon News-Register, brought good Christmas tidings for midwesterners: the opening of Southern Illinois LSA Flight Academy, a new school two years in the making that will operate out of Mt. Vernon, IL’s Outland Airport. *** The Academy, run by SRT Aviation, offers comprehensive LSA training. SRT prez Rich Carney is quoted as saying the school has four flight instructors and several students lined up. *** Local officials hold up the new school as a sign of the airport’s progressive vision of aviation innovation and economic benefit (local motels, restaurants, car rentals etc.) *** A spanking new Jabiru J230 with all-glass cockpit, XM satellite weather, traffic collision avoidance and autopilot will carry the training duties. *** The Academy is even spreading the word in a Trade-a-Plane online ad quoting $3325.98 for a Prepaid Light Sport Pilot Package. (Where do you think that $.98 comes in?) *** We wish the new school and all LSA training operations the best of success in 2010! *** —photo courtesy Jabiru USA
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