Search Results for : A5

Next month, in April 2013, the Light-Sport Aircraft industry celebrates an anniversary. It will be the eighth year since the first Special LSA approval was granted by an FAA Designated Airworthiness Representative in 2005. Evektor‘s Sportstar was first, followed hours later by the Flight Design CT and then an amazing outpouring of innovation now stretching to 131 SLSA models approved. That’s better than four brand new aircraft every quarter for 32 straight quarters; worldwide aviation’s never seen anything like it. Most of the early brand names in the industry were new, at least to Americans. Yet along the way, some famous aviation names joined the party.
We’ve seen entries from Piper, Cirrus, Cessna, Lycoming, Sensenich, and Wipaire Floats plus the major member organizations embraced Light-Sport in their own way. One multibillion dollar company to serve the sport and recreation community has been Garmin.

Once upon a time, in the early days of Light-Sport Aircraft, way back in 2006 and 2007, new LSA models were being introduced at the torrid pace of two, three, even four per month. Aviation had no prior design outpouring to compare. The rate of development had to slow — such a pace is not sustainable — and it did. Yet the young industry continued on to the astonishing sum of 131 models and it ain’t over yet. Meanwhile, though, a new tsunami is building within the LSA sector. I’ve written about a wave a new seaplanes and as summer 2013 approaches, a tour of the many choices may help guide interest of seaplane enthusiasts.
Current Seaplanes (distinguished from float-equipped land planes *) include FAA-accepted SLSA models: Mermaid, SeaMax, SeaRey, and Freedom. At present all are being offered and have some measure of U.S.

This has been a tough semi-decade for people in the Light Sport industry with big ideas. And for people everywhere with this kind of thinking: ”Hey, let’s throw a few million bucks at this mega-concept and see if it changes the world!” *** Cessna’s Skycatcher endured a couple non-recoverable spins and parachute deployments in its intensive test program en route to earning SLSA certification. The process delayed deliveries by a couple years and no doubt the setbacks cost the aviation giant an uncomfortable percentage of its initial 1,000 pre-orders (Cessna has never divulged just how many orders it lost). *** Not long after the LSA category was made official in 2004, Icon Aircraft writ its name in stars across the promotional universe with one after another high-profile, flashy presentations at major air shows. Its beautiful, all-composite A5 amphibian also garnered a lot of pre-order support from a new customer base dazzled by the A5’s heavily-pitched fun-in-sun, jet-ski-like utility and ease of operation.

Top General Aviation manufacturer *** Cirrus Aircraft, which makes the Cirrus line of four-seat, all-composite aircraft, just announced it’s partnering with another composite company, one that’s had its share of delays in getting to market: Icon Aircraft. *** The Icon A5, a sleek, highly-promoted amphibian SLSA, has gathered several hundred orders although the company, formed in 2005, is still in development testing. Its latest production estimate is another year off. *** Cirrus said it expects to add up to 60 jobs at its Grand Forks, N.D., plant as it manufactures a large portion of the A5. *** ICON says it sought the partnership with Cirrus “because of its reputation for quality composite airframes in its SR-20 and SR-22 planes.” *** For its part, Cirrus, which originally planned to rebadge and market a sleek, European-built SLSA of its own back in the beginning of the Light Sport era (2004), says the partnership will give it a horse in the new category.

This is pretty cool, I have to say: a flying…what, waterbike? Winged pontoon? Powered box kite? Here’s the home page for *** Flynano: and doesn’t this supremely giddy pilot in the illustration remind you of U2′s Bono? Hmmm…backer? Person of Interest? Is Lindsay Lohan going to buy one? Stay tuned… *** A year ago, I wrote about these enterprising and clever folks behind the Flynano project. They made a (cue: drum roll) big splash at Europe’s 2011 Aero show when they introduced the mockup. Frankly, I confess to a tad of private skepticism: it looked like a long shot to ever fly, let alone actually come to market. That’s why I try to curb my public expressions of criticism: it’s so easy to be proven wrong. *** I was concerned that although the boxwing concept — a joined upper/lower wing, tailless design — has been proven, (and even marketed in Europe as the Sunny Boxwing, see video at bottom), the Flynano could easily have been just another blue-sky, briefly-ballyhooed project, like so many that have come down the pike (do the name Moeller Aircar ring a familiar note?) *** Yet how cool indeed ‘twould be if this easy-fly skimmer-bug of a recreational aircraft that only operates from the water could actually fly?