As the recreational flying season slows and northern states button down for winter, one Florida LSA supplier is headed further south, much further. As he prepares for the upcoming 2024 season, Deon Lombard is headed to South Africa where he will work with the Whisper factory for three months as manufacturer and importer prepare to launch the product in the USA.
Deon is not the first to go after the Whisper prize in America but he is taking a different approach. Here’s the update on Whisper, which looks remarkably like an RV made out of composite.
As spring arrives, look for Deon and Whisper at Sun ‘n Fun 2024 when the famous Florida event celebrates its 50th anniversary.
With wait times exceeding a year for most fully-built LSA and even for many kits, Whisper looks more interesting with faster delivery predicted plus Mosaic-rule top speeds.
Article Updated 11/13/23 — see area captioned with **
Why “Whisper?”
This is not a battery electric aircraft so why call it Whisper?
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2023 Is a Wrap! — Aero Showcase at DeLand Airport Colorfully Closes the Airshow Year
Is a Showcase an airshow? Or is it a trade show? Is this the same as an event once called the DeLand Sport Aviation Showcase?
To these questions, you could reply, “Who cares?” This year’s Aero Showcase displayed a worthy selection of handsome airplanes. What more do pilots want? Entry and parking were free. Amenities were good.
Aero Showcase 2023 was like that fantasy where a rich friend with a collection of cool airplanes gets them all out for you to look at and perhaps fly.
Sector-Specific Shows
Interested pilots could and did take demo flights at DeLand 2023 in one of the aircraft for sale. This is a very easy and welcoming airport to such flight activity. Aero Affinity and Aero Showcase partner Doma Andreka took several prospects aloft in his Magnus Fusion 212. This is the lone LSA model that offers aerobatic capability (article), assuming you select the UL Power engine approved for inverted flight.
A Song to Lift Your Spirits — Clever, Sleek, and Part 103-Capable from Future Vehicles
You know this airplane and you know this company, although a refresher might be in order.
You can be excused if this one slips you mind. The airplane in the nearby images was from years ago when you probably first saw it with an electric motor developed by Randall Fishman, one of the original pioneers in the electric aircraft space.
He was so far ahead of his time that a market for electric had yet to develop. When Randall flew his first battery-electric-powered trike 16 years ago at Oshkosh 2007, no one was using the terms “air taxi” or “multicopter.”
Electric Aircraft Corporation didn’t complete many sales but Randall’s developments were ground-breaking.
Now the handsome Song returns with a new producer, Future Vehicles. Earlier I wrote about the charming biplane Dingo, a modern-day follow-on to Hovey’s Whing Ding and worthy entry in the Part 103 space.
Ups and Downs of LSA Seaplanes — Who’s Hot and Who’s Not in Fall 2023
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Summer is over, we’re into fall and looking at winter. Surprisingly, that means that in a couple months the sale of boats and other watercraft begins to ramp up. Marine shows are commonly scheduled for the dead of winter. If that seems odd, think of it this way: When it’s cold and ugly outside, why not think about boats and bikinis?
Being pilots, of course, we think about seaplanes.
This article focuses on two bits of good news for relative newcomers to this aviation sector, shifts to challenges facing two longtime suppliers of LSA seaplanes, and ends on a positive note. Let’s get into it…
What’s Hot?
Icon Aircraft — “We have some exciting news in the Icon world today,” started a news release from the A5 LSA seaplane producer. “Our 200th production just rolled off the assembly line!” The Vacaville, California company reported starting deliveries to customers in early 2018.
Ahead of Its Time, Rainbow’s EMG — Electric Motor Glider — Proved Idea of Electric Part 103
Nine years ago, in 2014, electric aircraft were mostly experiments and the beginning was challenging. Several ill-fated projects attempted to electrically power airplanes that were inappropriate for such a powerplant. Batteries of the day had lousy power-to-weight ratios. Enough juice to lift and fly a two seater, much less a four seater, by an electric motor made for very short duration flights, measured in minutes not hours. An electric Cessna 172 project never succeeded; hardly a wonder.
Similar challenges face more than 350 air taxi start-up businesses. Sure, someday you might zip around big cities using UberAir but I think that remains years in the future. Range anxiety felt in electric cars becomes much more intense in an aircraft.
On the other hand, electric Part 103 aircraft enjoy two enormous advantages: (1) they only need to fly 30 minutes to an hour to deliver all the fun their owners have in mind; and (2) since Part 103 aircraft are the lightest in powered aviation, lifting them by electric power and batteries is far more achievable with today’s technology.
Here’s Some Good News from Ukraine — LSA Manufacturer Aeroprakt Is Building Steadily
We are awash in bad news from Ukraine. Some is honest reporting of the extremely difficult circumstances for many in the war-racked nation. Yet media does not always grace itself, always finding the worst of the news to report in somber tones.
Amazingly, it’s not all bad. While heads of state send troops into harms way, most of a nation’s citizenry merely attempts to live a normal life amid the chaos of war. Doing business and living your life while bomb warning sirens shriek is something most Americans can’t grasp, thankfully.
Aeroprakt, builder of the very successful A-22 and A-32 series of Special LSA, suffered directly when a missile hit their flying club building (report here, scroll to last video). Their main factory remains in the central city of Kyiv, where it has been for many years. I visited this location back in 2003 so they’ve been stable for more than 20 years.
A Return to 2004 LSA Prices in 2023 As SkyRanger and Nynja Return to Market
I write about affordable aviation whenever interesting material is available. This website will eventually (probably by August or September) move to the AffordableAviation.com domain that I purchased many years ago. It’s important to me that pilots can actually afford to own and fly their own aircraft because I am one of you.
I maintain you’ve always been able to find affordable new airplanes but you had to accept something other than a 150 knot four seater.
Part 103 has always been a choice — no medical, N-numbers, or pilot certificate needed — yet not everybody wants that. A great many pilots desire a two seater, even if they nearly always fly it solo. You usually pay more for a two seater, making it less likely to be affordable.
One modestly-priced two seater is available, fortunately.*
A Genuine Bargain?
One flying machine made flying affordable some years ago but it rather quietly slipped from the American market.
More than Spinning Multicopters, Here’s an In-the-Wing Electric Idea that Recently Won a Patent
Naturally, sharp-eyed ByDanJohnson.com readers already know about Chip’s big idea. See this article; scroll down.
What you didn’t know is that this idea was unique enough to win a patent. That’s uncommon in recreational aviation, though, of course, an idea like this may go far beyond sport flying.
Chip Erwin is one of those restless people who probably lays awake night cooking multiple ideas in his brain at the same time. Many industries have their “Elon Musk” type who moves forward on several fronts despite plenty of people telling him he can’t do what he does every day.
As the mainstream media hyperfocuses on multicopter air taxi ideas consuming vast amounts of money (why media pays attention in the first place), people like Chip have different thoughts about using electric power on aircraft. Depod is one of those concepts.
Depod is not intended for Merlin Lite.
Sparker to Ignite Mosaic’s Energy? New and Upgraded mLSA from TL Ultralight
At Aero Friedrichshafen 2023, visitors saw numerous aircraft that could qualify as Mosaic Light-Sport Aircraft or mLSA. In nearly every aisle of the several large halls of Aero, visitors and journalists could see entry after entry apparently made-for-Mosaic. Indeed, so many entries potentially qualify for this coming new segment that I ran out of time to examine all of them.
We are headed into an interesting period of aircraft development and the subject of this article is a perfect example. Welcome to TL Ultralight’s enhanced Sparker.
The model was introduced to the European 600 kilogram (1,320 pound) standard but over the last year it has gone through an extensive evaluation and upgrade to carry a 750 kilogram load (1,653 pounds). It was also revised to accommodate Rotax’s 915iS and 916iS engines.
With greater capacity and with 160 horsepower available, I’d call this a mLSA or Mosaic-ready Light-Sport Aircraft.
Super-Efficient Electric Flight — Ego Trike with ATOS Wing Shows How E-Propulsion Works Today!
From dawn to dusk, we hear how electric propulsion is going to save the Earth. Whatever your belief about the hazards of fossil fuel, electric propulsion is coming. When is another matter.
Air taxi ventures based on multicopter designs are drinking up funds by the tens or hundreds millions of dollars, probably billions by now. I don’t have a shred of doubt that these will lead to genuine changes in transportation… but I would not hold my breath until such services become common. I suspect it will be many years yet.
However, today, electric propulsion for ultralight aircraft works quite well, especially when it serves a purpose. For soaring pilots, power is about getting to altitude where they can explore ridge, thermal, or wave lift. Those who love such flying, like me, seek out the best machine that might deliver that capability. Ultralight Design’s Ego trike can.
High-Tech Composite
Anyone who knows hang glider wings will admire both the construction and substantially higher performance of what’s called a rigid wing — more common hang gliders are called flex wings.
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