Many pilots speak of airplanes they cannot afford. Indeed, $150,000 Light-Sport Aircraft are priced beyond common budgets. One way to solve this is through a partnership or fractional ownership… and I will be writing about partnerships later this year. *** Another way involves a ready-to-fly aircraft for under $15,000. You read it right: $14,995 for a ready to fly aircraft with many features you want including electric starting, flaps, brakes, tricycle gear, and instruments. I must also mention it successfully meets U.S. Part 103 ultralight regulations. Plus, it is great fun to fly! *** Welcome back to Terry Raber’s brilliant Aerolite 103… literally brilliant in day-glow orange (photo). An amazing value, let me list a few of the standard equipment items: Factory-built; Hirth F-33 engine with electric start & battery; nose fairing & windshield; instruments including airspeed, altimeter, tachometer, EGT, CHT, and clock; electric flaps; steerable nose wheel with suspension; and four-point restraint system (this list does not include everything you get).
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AirVenture 2011 Wrap-Up and Summary
Oshkosh 2011 is history. By numerous accounts, this was a vast improvement over 2010 when the comments commonly went, “Well, I had some interest (in my airplane) and I hope to sell one or two… maybe.” This year I had easily 30 conversations revealing either outright positive successful results or varyingly robust mood indicators such as, “Looks like aviation has life in it again.” I heard from sellers and customers and rarely had to solicit their opinions. *** A number of aircraft purveyors said they took cash deposits and wrote firm contracts. I estimate about 30 aircraft sales by this method. Companies like Icon, Flight Design, and Terrafugia sold a large number of future delivery positions (more than 50, more than 60, and “several,” respectively). *** Icon neared or crossed the 500-on-order point, partly by “testing elasticity” in the pre-order market by lowering the A5 seaplane deposit to $2,000 from $5,000.
Farewell to Oshkosh 2011
By all accounts it’s been a good show. I talked with several LSA vendors who, despite the pitiful wrangling in Congress over the debt and general lack of a strong economic bounceback, either wrote some sales or were 90% certain they would. *** U.S. sales leader Flight Design even announced they’d written $11 million worth of business at the show. *** I talked with John Gilmore, the U.S. sales manager for Tom Peghiny’s U.S. Flight Design operation, who briefed me on the new, four-seat, to-be-certified Flight Design C4 the other day (I’ll post more in the next few days). *** John also updated Dan Johnson today on the company’s excellent numbers at the show: *** “We have taken 40 orders for the new C4 plus another 8 orders for Light-Sport Aircraft here at AirVenture 2011,” said John. *** The C4 debuted in Europe in April and a full-scale mockup seen here was prominent in the display all week.
Oshkosh Airventure 2011
After my own Labors of Hercules, I arrived at the EAA Oshkosh Airventure seasonal highpoint event Tuesday mid day. Since it was a beautiful day by anybody’s standards, I decided not to brave the hordes at the show and headed out, once I got settled in my digs for the week, to a lovely little airport named Brennand about 10 minutes northwest of EAA’s Wittman Field show grounds. *** I was in luck with more than just weather: the San Antonio Light Sport Aircraft (SALSA) gang from Texas was there demo-flying its all-composite Pipistrel Virus SW 80/100, tricycle-gear (there’s also a taildragger version), composite touring motorglider. *** The Pipistrel line includes several designs I have admired from afar but not had the opportunity to share air with. *** All that changed when Salsa’s prime mover and shaker Rand Vollmer introduced me to a big, friendly Texican fella named Dave White.
LSA Registration Numbers: The Gang of Six!
Winged buddy Dan Johnson and his colleague Jan Fridrich, head of LAMA Europe, just posted Jan’s exhaustive parsing of the LSA registration data and came up with some shockers. *** Dan calls it the LSA Market Share Report. The first thing he notes is apparent stability in the marketplace: overall registration numbers for the first half of 2011 are about the same as last year, he says, so at least the industry didn’t fall off from that tough year. The pace is on track to better 2009’s 177 total registrations and 2010’s 202. *** In 2010, 48 came from Cessna, which, when subtracted from the total, gives you 154 for the whole year for the rest of the fleet. *** So, looking again at 2011’s first half of 126, subtracting Cessna’s numbers from the total of 126 yields just 72. *** Double that (144) and we could end up with even fewer registrations than 2010, (not counting Cessna) although at just 10 less it’s not an earthshaking falloff unless you want to be a worrywart and consider 2009, which had 177 total…and none from Cessna.
First Half 2011 LSA Market Report
Several readers have asked and we are finally delivering. Jan Fridrich and I present the LSA Market Share Report for the first half of 2011. Figures show a mimicking of 2010 output and that was not a strong year. However, the numbers are not down from 2010 so you could see stability if not growth. *** In the first half of 2011 six companies account for almost 90% of registrations and Cessna alone accounted for precisely half of these. The other five producers: CubCrafters (17% of all first half 2011 deliveries), Czech Aircraft Works (including PiperSport, 13%), Flight Design (7%), Jabiru (4%), and Aerotrek (3%). *** The Over-100 Club now has eight members (chart) up from six at the end of 2010. Our numbers reflect total fleet size, so growth measured this way is inevitable. This method of illustrating market share identifies the strongest producers since 2005.
Allegro Keeps on Training… 3,500 Hours Logged!
LSA America now produces the Allegro in Littleton, North Carolina and anticipates their first U.S.-produced LSA approval before Oshkosh 2011. Despite Czech-based Fantasy Air’s ceasing manufacturing several years ago, Allegro did well enough in the first couple years to still retain the #14 rank. *** Exciting as this now-Made-in-the-USA story may be, this article has a different focus. I want to tell you about an older Allegro, one that has logged more than 3,500 hours, nearly all of them doing training. *** With a few other long-serving LSA that I’ve been told about, this addresses the matter about Light-Sports being durably built to perform instructional flying over an extended period. Some pilots believe lightly built LSA cannot handle the duress of students learning to fly. *** Allegro (N50631) appears to disprove the argument that LSA aren’t tough enough. New factory operator Doug Hempstead stated, “The composite fuselage has proven itself in a flight school setting and aluminum wings make [Allegro] affordable to repair.” He continued, “[Our trainer] is an Allegro 2000, the design built from 2000 to 2006.” It was put in service at B Bar D Aviation Flight School with 200 hours.
Fixed wing or Flexwing; Take Your Pick
I am only aware of one company* in the USA that offers you a choice of a conventional three-axis fixed wing or a weight-shift control (WSC) flexwing. Why do this? Simple. Not all pilots want the same kind of aircraft and some of us like both kinds of flying.
It happens that the boys from Zephyr Hills airport have two interesting machines and you ought to know about them. “Boys” in this case refers to Abid Farooqui, Larry Mednick, and Phil Mednick; the latter are a son and father combo. Abid and Larry are trike guys while Phil is the fixed wing fellow and they display not only expertise, but as the impressive Revo development shows, they bring genuine creativity to the aircraft. This trio of talent operates several businesses, including a flight school.
One company, Apollo Aircraft, offers the Columbian-designed Ibis Magic as well as the Apollo LSA (formerly Apollo Fox).
Zenith’s CH 701 Kit is Sport Pilot-Ready
Every Light Sport & Ultralight Flying magazine reader has probably heard of off-road vehicles. How about an “off-airport” flying machine? You may not have used the term but you probably know one of the candidates: Zenith Aircraft’s highly functional CH 701.
No one calls the CH 701 the most handsome aircraft in the fleet. That title may be better reserved for sleek carbon fiber jobs. But as a practical aircraft appealing to ultralight enthusiasts, the Chris Heintz design with a 20-year history is head of its class. While the design has not changed much in those two decades, the kit has changed quite a bit to make the builder’s effort easier.
The designs of engineer Chris Heintz have been around a long time, beginning with his early Zipper ultralight-like aircraft. A prolific and versatile creator, his aircraft models have put nearly 3,000 builders in the air. The low-wing CH 601 series is the most popular at better than 60% of all Zenith models followed by more than 700 CH 701’s now flying around the world.
Of Amphibs and Aircars
Two of the best-promoted and most interesting LSA projects – and two of the most delayed getting to market – are back in the news. Icon Aircraft, a startup company created to produce the sexy composite A5 amphibian, just snagged $25 million in funding to help complete remaining design issues, tool up for production and begin cranking out airplanes. *** The company reports around 500 A5 orders on the books, at $139,000 per. A few months of flight testing remain to be completed, along with a new wing (reportedly for better spin resistance and directional stability), which means the production target date has been pushed back again, this time to the last quarter of 2012. *** Reported among the new crop of investors are Eric Schmidt of Google, Satyen Patel, formerly of Nike and Phil Condit, former CEO of Boeing, and some “undisclosed” Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. The initial infusion of greenbacks will be $15 million, with an option for $10 million more.
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