Sport pilot and light-sport aircraft,
what’s it all about?
If you’ve ever thought about
learning to fly, returning to
flying, or resuming flying lessons
that you started years ago,
congratulations; your timing is
just about perfect! This rule provides
new opportunities for you as well as
anyone who has dreamed of owning
an aircraft.
This article will summarize how
SP/LSA affects you. We’ll keep it simple;
when you’re ready for more,
EAA offers many ways to become
more informed (see “For More
Information”). Like many activities,
flying has its own language with
abbreviations, acronyms, forms, and
numbers to make discussing it faster.
Veteran pilots throw this lingo around
casually and often baffle those who
aren’t involved. We’ll avoid such jargon
in this article, and we’ll only use
abbreviations after we’ve explained
them.
Let’s Get Started!
SP/LSA has two basic components:
“Sport pilot” refers to a new pilot
certificate you can earn (the FAA calls
them certificates as opposed to licenses);
“Light-sport aircraft (LSA)” refers
to a new category of aircraft.
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CGS Aviation Makes Hawk
Remember why we fly ultralights? Few general aviation airplanes are flown below 1,500 feet above the ground. More rare is flight at 500 feet or 50 feet. Neither do you tend to fly most light-sport aircraft (LSAs) at these denser altitudes. Most flights in general aviation or LSA planes start out climbing high as quickly as possible. You switch on the autopilot as soon as possible and fiddle with the throttle, prop and mixture controls to squeeze all the fuel economy you can while flying as fast as the machine will manage in the straightest possible line all the way to your destination.
That’s fine for general aviation or LSA flying, and it’s enjoyable in a different way. But it isn’t ultralight flying.
What about just “boating around” the sky at your leisure, turning every few minutes to see the sights only possible from an ultralight aircraft. Your eye catches an alligator off to one side and you bank quickly to check it out.
CGS Pulls Out the Stops
… to keep the Hawk Ultra Light
Genuine ultralights still
have a place. These
aircraft|excuse me,
ultralight vehicles,
the least-FAA-regulated
flying machines,
will not be sent to aircraft boneyards
despite what some light-sport aircraft
skeptics may think. The Hawk Ultra
is proof positive CGS Aviation loves
ultralights and wants you to have fun
in the air.
No matter the pros and cons of
the sport pilot/light-sport aircraft (SP/
LSA) rule, operating a Part 103 ultralight
remains simpler than earning a
sport pilot certificate and buying an
LSA. No certificate, no medical, and
no registration is needed (though, it is
recommended that folks register with
one of the three associations supporting
ultralights-EAA, the United States
Ultralight Association (USUA), and Aero
Sports Connection (ASC). Additionally,
an ultralight can be fully factory built
without FAA inspections. The list of 103
privileges goes on, and the Hawk Ultra
qualifies for all of them.
One-Oh-Three Interest Soars
I don’t know about the “build it
and they will come” premise when
it comes to baseball fields, but I fervently
believe that if enough customers
want a product, someone will supply
it.
Ultralight Trainers for the Future
A more real concern about the
future of ultralights revolves around
the availability of ultralight trainers
to prepare new pilots for flight in
Part 103 ultralights like the Ultra.
Wonderful as many of the new LSA
may be, most are inappropriate aircraft
to train you for flight in a Hawk
Ultra|or almost any other genuine
103 machine. The question ponders
the likelihood of companies building
ultralight trainer-type aircraft as
fully built, fully certificated special
light-sport aircraft (S-LSA), the minimum
standard to which all trainers
must be built once the two-place
exemptions expire on January 31,
2008. (Note: Two-place trainers that
have transitioned to experimental
light-sport aircraft status, E-LSA, can
still be used for training purposes by
the original owner/instructor until
January 31, 2010.)
Even if ultralight manufacturers
do choose to build an S-LSA trainer,
will it be affordable? Again, consumer
demand will play a role in
this decision; CGS is evaluating the
market and may create an S-LSA
ultralight trainer.
World’s Fastest Mustang II?
When most of us think about a fast airplane, we sketch in our minds a sleek and smooth exterior and wings that allow the graceful machine to slip through the air with the least possible resistance. We think the engine is also important and that more power is better than less.
But according to race winner Brian Schmidtbauer, up to 30% of the total drag in an aircraft can be cooling drag, or air movement through the engine compartment.
Because I often review gliders and slower powered aircraft, I’m sure I displayed a slack-jawed response to this comment. The stunned expression stayed on my face as Schmidtbauer described detail after detail about the handling of cooling air.
After an hour-long flight in his blazing Mustang II, I came away a believer. His homebuilt aircraft has beaten the likes of jet-smooth Lancairs and isn’t threatened by speedy RVs. In fact, only his buddy and RV-4 pilot Dave Anders has beaten Schmidtbauer in a race, and they’re so close that the next race might be different.
Back in the Saddle in a Flightstar Ultralight
On a glorious fall day over the undulating hills of northeast Connecticut, I returned to flight after a five-month hiatus. Encouraged and accompanied by my old friend Tom Peghiny we enjoyed an hour sightseeing flight over the verdant countryside surrounding Tom’s Flightstar Sportplanes enterprise at the Woodstock airport. Gosh, it felt great to get back in the air! *** With the first revolution of the wheels I noticed how light the Flightstar seemed. I’ve done most of my flying in Light-Sport Aircraft lately and I guess I’d forgotten just how light ultralights can feel. We left the ground in a couple hundred feet lifted by a HKS 700E four stroke distributed by HPower. In an age of $100,000 LSA, this $25,000 Flightstar IISC certainly seems affordable to plenty of Americans. At 400 pounds less than LSA at gross, turns were pleasant low-gee maneuvers.
Eye On the Sky Watch
There was a time when a company called Beaver RX Enterprises – which produced the Canadian Beaver designs – was among the leading North American ultralight manufacturers.
In particular, the Beaver 550 tandem 2-seater attracted many customers. The company once claimed more than 3,500 ultralights flying. Certainly the model dominated the western Canadian market but also had a presence in the U.S. and other countries.
The old Beaver RX Enterprises company went through a number of leadership changes and, driven by overly-ambitious management goals, finally succumbed.
When I visited the now defunct company, the firm was a publicly-held corporation listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. Even the stock exchange has experienced a transformation, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that Beaver RX Enterprises also lost its heading.
As we’ve seen with other good designs, however – such as Quicksilvers, Phantoms or Drifters – the better ultralights can outlast their ownership. The Beaver line is among those survivors.
Sabre’s New Wildcat
Smoother and More Refined
Sabre Aircraft’s Wildcat is an evolving story of ultralight aircraft development. It also speaks to the increasing maturity of the light aviation industry.
For years, Sabre Aircraft’s sales of their various trike models may have been the largest of any U.S. manufacturer. As 2003 ended the company was reporting delivery of some 700 ultralights.
The company has long offered a good flying, simple trike with a modest price tag. Proprietor and designer Richard Helm made steady improvements to his Sabre Elite and Sabre 340 designs. But he took no major strides forward.
The vigorous pace of Sabre trike sales and the company’s need to stay on top of manufacturing issues can explain a drawn-out development period. Little time was left over for projects such as getting an entirely new trike ready for market.
That didn’t stop Helm. He kept working on elements of what would eventually become the Wildcat.
IndUS – Thorpedo
All Revved and Everywhere to Go
This vintage design with a big Jabiru engine is an impressive performer.
Since its reintroduction to the aviation community by IndUS Aviation, John Thorp’s T-211 is generating more attention than at any time since he first designed the airplane.
While John worked on large aircraft, like the Navy patrol bomber P2V Neptune, he focused most of his career on small, sporty aircraft. He began designing a two-place light aircraft in the 1930s. By the 1950s his T-10 Sky Skooter powered by a 50-hp Franklin 2AC-99 engine evolved into the T-111 with a 75-hp Lycoming engine. Later it became the T-211, with a Continental O-200. It is this last version of the T-211 that IndUS now offers as a standard category aircraft. IndUS is also planning to offer the model as a light-sport aircraft (LSA) with a Jabiru 3300 engine, affectionately named the Thorpedo for its improved performance.
Transitioning?
A primer for ultralight pilots transitioning themselves and their machines
Ultralight pilots flying legal Part 103 single-place ultralights are not affected by the sport pilot/light-sport aircraft rule. The rules of FAR Part 103 remain the same. Current and future ultralight pilots are free to enjoy those freedoms. If they choose to become sport pilots at a later date, any training logged as a registered ultralight pilot can be counted toward the training requirements for a sport pilot certificate. The rule pertaining to legal ultralight vehicles also do not change.
The sport pilot and lightsport aircraft (SP/LSA) rule is now officially part of the American aviation culture. Some of us who fly Part 103-legal ultralights will continue to be ultralight pilots. Others who fly two-place or overweight machines must eventually transition themselves to sport pilot status and their machines to light-sport aircraft status to remain legal.
With the rule now final, we’ll address the requirements for those ultralight pilots and instructors wishing to transition themselves and their machines.