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Inside the Transatlantic Crossing of the Risen

By Marc Cook || 16 Comments

We recently reported that the newest version of the sleek, retractable-gear Risen had made a successful transatlantic crossing. From what we could piece together from outside accounts and posts on social media, it went well. But here’s a more first-person look at the crossing, from the perspective of the right seat.

Andrea Venturini accompanied designer Alberto Porto on the epic journey across the pond. Here’s his account.

Ready to depart Voghera in Italy.

It all started last December, with a phone call I received from Alberto Porto. At the time, I was in Australia doing a report at the Gliding World Championship for theItalianTeam. Onthephone Alberto, designer and builder of the fastest ultralight in the world (430 kph/232 knots), with the simplicity that always distinguishes him, says: ”Andrea, keep yourself free for next June, I’ll detail everything when you return to Italy.” 

You can imagine my curiosity in the meantime. A few weeks later, the mystery was revealed: the Risen Superveloce with the brand new Rotax 916 iS must be brought to Oshkosh, to AirVenture, the largest and the most important aviation fair ‘of the Universe.’ I knew well what Oshkosh meant. A strange word in Italian; it’s the headquarters of the EAA, basically an immense display of aircrafts with thousands of people camped under their wings for about a week. The show comprises hundreds of aeronautical displays that take place from 6am until deep into the night. I still remember the flames from a show with a squadron of A10s that made a low-pass. The napalm explosions made my face hot from hundreds of meters away, a huge fireball raised in the night sky. As I have always said, every pilot, at least once in his life, must visit Oshkosh.

The planned routing.

So, if I understand correctly, Alberto wants me to accompany him on the Risen to Wisconsin. Mmm,  but which way do we actually go? I know well that the year before he delivered a Risen Superveloce to the States but he then passed through the “classic” North Atlantic route Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada.

This time, however, the plans are way more ambitious: The idea is to fly the new Risen Superveloce, with a Rotax 916i without stopping to refuel, leaving from Stornoway, Scotland. Basically doing something that only the Risen Superfast can do—fly at speed beyond 300 km/h, with 20 knots of headwind consuming only an average of 18 liters (4.5 gallons) per hour.

Andrea, foreground, dons the survival suit before crossing the Atlantic.

First comments I heard were: “It is not possible.” Instead I thought: Well, let’s see if it’s really impossible. The plane is here, the two “crazy” pilots are here, for me the mission it’s already done….

We still have to do the math properly and analyze the flight data in detail, but the approximate summary is this: we left from Voghera [near Genoa, Italy] with only one straight route, landed at the Outer Hebridean islands, Scotland, to the only refuel before the second important leg.

The ocean route, directly from the Hebrides to Canada, was approximately 3300 km flown in 11 hours. As I said before, at the moment we are still gathering the data, but the average speed estimated in the various sectors for each leg, was between 165 knots (305 kph) and 200 knots (370 kph), covering a total of 4050 nautical miles (7500 km), all of this using just over 100 gallons!

The first sign of civilization after 10 hours over nothing but water.

The ocean crossing, against the wind toward the west, with an aircraft that is truly an ultralight and without stops either in Greenland or Iceland for refueling—it’s now a reality. An incredible flight has just been completed with a recreational aircraft, all this thanks to extremely efficient parameters of the plane. The secret of the Risen relies precisely on this: efficient and clean aerodynamics, like no other aircraft, which allow you to make the best use of the engine. All of this is available to pilots whether you want to break a speed record or just cruise along at 2.1 gallon an hour at speed.

The two-seat all-composite Risen has proven itself a speedster with the normally aspirated 912 and even more so with the turbocharged 915 previously fitted. With the new, more powerful Rotax 916 iS available, this is the first of the Risen to use it. This airplane will be on display at AirVenture next month.

An escort into Canada.

From the customs office in Appleton… success!

Compress Post ...

We recently reported that the newest version of the sleek, retractable-gear Risen had made a successful transatlantic crossing. From what we could piece together from outside accounts and posts on social media, it went well. But here’s a more first-person look at the crossing, from the perspective of the right seat. Andrea Venturini accompanied designer Alberto Porto on the epic journey across the pond. Here’s his account. It all started last December, with a phone call I received from Alberto Porto. At the time, I was in Australia doing a report at the Gliding World Championship for theItalianTeam. Onthephone Alberto, designer and builder of the fastest ultralight in the world (430 kph/232 knots), with the simplicity that always distinguishes him, says: ”Andrea, keep yourself free for next June, I’ll detail everything when you return to Italy.”  You can imagine my curiosity in the meantime. A few weeks later, the mystery was revealed: the Risen Superveloce with the brand new Rotax 916 iS must be brought to Oshkosh, to AirVenture, the largest and the most important aviation fair ‘of the Universe.’ I knew well what Oshkosh meant.

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Advanced Degree in Rotax-erie

By Steve Kessinger || 4 Comments

Trying not to melt in the Florida heat, students take notes. Dean Vogel (right, facing students) combines a wicked sense of humor and encyclopedic knowledge of the engine. He’s passionate about the Rotax and wants us to succeed.

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in KITPLANES magazine but since so much of the LSA world depends on Rotax engines, we thought this was worth a read here.

Thirteen years into my two-year SeaRey build, OspRey finally had its engine mounted. But when I signed on the dotted line for my new Rotax 914, and with little more knowledge than how to change the oil in my car, I was nervous about my abilities to maintain this expensive engine. Because of this, back in 2014, I attended a weeklong service and maintenance class at Canadian Rotax distributor Rotech Motor, Ltd. Thanks to an excellent hands-on instructor, who acted like he had all the time in the world and a bagful of instructor tricks to teach us, by the second afternoon I had dropped my skepticism and distrust of the price/power ratio of the Rotax engine and was (almost) ready to go out and get a Rotax tattoo.

But a mind is a terrible thing to waste. It was nine years later when I finally purchased, unpacked and mounted my Rotax 914, and I found myself struggling to remember the lessons from the class. Rotech was a 5-hour drive from my house but there were no classes being offered until the fall. Luckily, the Rotax Flying and Safety Club (RFSC) is an authorized Rotax training organization, and their website (www.rotaxirmt.com) maintains a list of upcoming classes and locations around the world. Ultimately, I chose Lockwood Aviation in Sebring, Florida, from whom I had purchased my engine.

The demo 912 S is all put back together and read for the next class to tear down. This must be one of the circles of hell for an engine.

Three classes are offered. Service is designed for the basics you’d want as an owner/operator to change the oil, balance the carbs (more on that later) and perform scheduled maintenance. Maintenance is where you get to tear an engine down all the way short of pulling the flywheel or splitting the case in half. The third class, a single day, is dedicated to the fuel-injected engines.

The Prep Work

A week before the class the instructor, Dean Vogel, emailed all of us links to a bunch of documentation, suggesting we familiarize ourselves with it. While I have a 914, the class documentation was all for the Rotax 912, but from the 2014 class I knew the engines were similar enough that about 95% of the material would be the same or similar. Plus when I called and registered for the class, Dean told me to prepare to stay late both days for some extra one-on-one instruction particular to my engine. The material Dean had us download was about what you’d expect: installation and parts manuals, light and heavy maintenance manuals, all stuff Dean said we’d need to take the test to pass the class. Wait, there’s a test? No one said anything about a test.

The classes are primarily designed for mechanics to get or renew their iRMT (independent Rotax Maintenance Training) certification, so recurrent training and testing is required biannually by Rotax to be listed as a certified Rotax mechanic and for access to current documentation. But the class is open to all, homebuilders and owners included. Dean recommends builders attend at least the service course, and I strongly agree with him. There’s nothing like getting excellent, in-person, hands-on instruction from a factory- trained expert to make you feel much better about what you can or can’t do with your engine.

Once On Site

You might be tempted to make the Sebring trip a working vacation by bringing the family down, but I’d advise against it because Sebring isn’t very close to Disney. However, there are several nice hotels in the area ranging up and down the luxury scale, and since it was the off-season I took advantage of an arrangement Lockwood has with the Seven Sebring Raceway Hotel, located on the seventh turn of the Sebring Raceway. It’s a short 5-minute drive or shuttle ride from Lockwood and I got a nice balcony room overlooking the racecourse at a surprisingly good rate because of this.

I had swapped emails before the class with Dean, who is a former F-15 pilot and was a key employee at Cirrus Aircraft before coming to Lockwood in 2006. In person, he appeared to be a grayed version of the Robert Patrick T-1000 in the Terminator 2 movie. A bit intimidating at first, he still has the cold, steely eyes of a fighter pilot, but I was relieved to find he had a wicked sense of humor and often punctuated classes with jokes and stories of terrible things people had done to engines in the past.

In the class, we had a wide mixture of male and female, professional and general aviation pilots, FBO mechanic/owners and mechanics sent by their schools, as well as another homebuilder like me. I felt a bit self-conscious taking the classes for the second time but Dean quickly reassured me that it was not uncommon and was a smart thing to do, reminding me that certified Rotax mechanics are required to take it every other year to stay current. He encourages builders to take the class both before and after acquiring their engines because (as I can attest) learning it on the school’s engine and then going back home and applying the knowledge to your own is a huge gulp moment.

When you consider that the price of a mistake could easily be hundreds or even thousands of dollars and at worst loss of life, the cost to come to a class is trivial. In my case, tech support is now a bit easier when I call in for help since Dean and I have now gotten to know each other and, to be honest, I’ll probably take the class again or see if I can arrange a one-on-one visit before I run it for the first time. It’s cheaper than a ruined engine.

About the Engines

Rotax engines have more in common with motorcycle technology than legacy aircraft engines. This is not better or worse, just different, which of course, pilots hate. Rotax engines are higher revving and geared (like a Continental GTSIO-520 on a Cessna 421), liquid cooled (like a P-51 Mustang’s Merlin engine) and engineered for a higher power/weight ratio. They use a hybrid cooling system, with air-cooled cylinder barrels and liquid-cooled heads. Since the heads are liquid cooled there is no need for huge cooling fins on the cylinder heads, allowing the cylinders to be closer together and the engine to have a smaller frontal section. The liquid cooling of the cylinder heads also results in a more stable thermal environment for the heads.

Gearbox inspection and maintenance is a big part of the course.

One huge advantage is that the engine is designed to run on unleaded autogas. The Rotax will tolerate some use of 100LL, or you can use a fuel additive such as Decalin RunUp to help counter the lead in avgas, but this requires more frequent engine maintenance, not an ideal situation. Rotax owners are in a better place than those with high-compression legacy engines when it comes to an alternative to 100LL fuel. In fact, for the last eight years Lockwood has been running their engines exclusively on Swift’s 94-octane unleaded fuel—and the engines reportedly love it.

Course Work

There is no way I can cover how much I learned in those four days, but I’ll try to give you some highlights. This is not a “death by PowerPoint’’ class. You’re going to get your hands on hardware from day one. Dean started off with classroom work describing the history of the engine and company. The service class is primarily a general overview of the engine and basic maintenance, things like oil changes and general troubleshooting a mechanic would see often at a flight school or as an owner, and the depth of the course is just right. While you get certified as an independent Rotax maintenance technician, the class is not designed to make you an instant expert on the engine, but instead to give you a broad familiarity with it and show you the resources to get help.

The oil system was first, and this system was one Dean emphasized heavily and often came back to all four days. While you could suffer a complete failure of the cooling system for the cylinder heads and still fly a long time without having the engine seize, the high-revving engine and gearbox literally are bathed in and live or die by a healthy oil system. The dry-sump oil system allows a lower frontal area for the engine and a more compact installation resulting in less drag. The oil system is also one of the primary areas where the engine will be affected by running on 100LL. If used on avgas more than 30% of the time, Rotax reduces the oil-change interval from 100 hours to 50. You can see from some of the photos what lead buildup does to the engine.

As the class went on we quickly got into the guts of the engine. No, you don’t need to bring safety glasses or rubber gloves to keep your hands clean, and Dean was generous with passing around parts to examine and using them to illustrate the system he was talking about, telling the story behind a broken connecting rod or dented piston and how to avoid it happening. Training is also done on a “penguin,” a flightless aircraft that had been damaged in a mishap. The engine mounted to it was also non-flyable, making it a perfect training tool for mechanics to practice on an engine that can run, but will not put lives at risk if someone makes a mistake.

One thing that made me nervous about the Rotax is “balancing” the dual carbs. The Rotax engine has sometimes been called two engines connected by a common crankshaft, and that’s one way to look at it. Each side of the engine has its own Bing carburetor. They must be “synced” or “balanced” so they run at the same rpm and manifold pressure at a given throttle setting. Making this happen was probably one of the biggest horror stories I’d been told about the engine, and Dean made sure that we knew he was going to go over the procedure backward and forward until we had it down.

The need to balance carbs is different than what we’re used to in legacy aircraft engines, but it’s one of the many differences that make the engine more efficient. The Bing carburetor has no separate mixture control; instead, in an elegantly simple design it automatically balances the fuel/air mixture as the airplane climbs or descends. Once the operation of the Bing carburetor is understood, you just shake your head at it and go neat!

The carb sync procedure alone was worth the cost of the course, and as Dean promised we went over it until we all felt comfortable with the procedure. The technique he teaches is proprietary so I won’t be able to explain it here, but I can tell you it took a lot of the anxiety away from me about the procedure. Lockwood also sells the tools to do this procedure, and mine came a few days after I got home. Lockwood also rents tools for 30 days, under the caveat “If you break it, you buy it,” reducing the outlay for mechanics to buy new tools.

Making Sparks

Engines are repaired and rebuilt in-house at Lockwood. Here a damaged engine is being torn down for diagnosis and possible repair.

Another thing different about the engine is that there are no magnetos. Instead, the engine has a large flywheel that is a combination permanent-magnet generator and charging coil, and the timing is permanently set via the position of the trigger coils located just outside of the flywheel. Spark is triggered by a capacitive discharge system, and the plugs fire on what’s called a “wasted spark” system, which means they spark on every stroke, be it a compression or exhaust/intake. This may seem counterintuitive for efficiency, but it eliminates the complexity of timing of having the plug fire every other stroke. (This is also how common electronic ignitions for legacy engines work.)

The third day, as part of the maintenance course, we started off with Dean unrolling a tarp and asking us to try not to get oil on his carpeted floor. Laying out a bunch of tools, he pointed to an engine at the front of the classroom and said, “OK, you’re going to take this apart. Who’s first?” The day was spent dissecting the engine, laying the parts out on the table and giving us an intimate look at everything we had talked and read about during the first two days of the service course, with breaks as we examined the beauty of a finely designed and machined oil pump, for instance, and discussing the strengths and weakness of a particular system.

Can you guess what we did on Day Four? Yup, we put it all back together. Because of the rather large hole in the crankcase (another engine that had been abused by an owner), we could not take the engine out and run it, but as a training tool it served its purpose. We got to examine in detail how the engine worked and while I doubt any of us were going to run right out and replace a gearbox or pull a cylinder head, it gave us a considerable insight about how the whole thing tied together.

Is the maintenance course necessary for the builder/operator? Nope. You can do just fine not knowing how to pull a gearbox or a cylinder head; in reality most builders would most likely not attempt to do this repair. However, knowing what’s going on inside the mass of gray metal gives you a solid reason why you should (or shouldn’t) do something flying your plane, and it gives us an appreciation for the precise engineering that goes into it. Every procedure is laid out in the manuals, step-by-step with torque values, specific Loctite application and even pictures.

I had debated buying the fuel-injected 912 iS for OspRey but decided not to be the test airplane for the SeaRey community and stay with the proven track of the 914 in SeaReys. So while curious about them, I didn’t stay for the class on the fuel-injected engine. The introduction of the fuel-injected 912 iS, 915 iS and now the 916 iS has many wondering how long carbureted engines will still be produced. There is still a very strong demand for the carb’d 912 and 914, and Rotax has made not a hint or whisper about discontinuing them. With over 50,000 carbureted 912/914s in use around the world they have earned their keep.

Dean Vogel. “You see this? Don’t do this!” Given his knowledge of Rotax engines, his advice should always be heeded.

One of the big questions now is how the Rotax engines are holding up. I flew a 912-equipped Katana as a CFI back in the early 1990s, so the engines have almost 30 years of being abused by students and CFIs alike, and there has been continual improvement over the years as the engines have accumulated hours, with the last major one in 2006 when the crankcase had a few design changes.  Surprisingly, few flight schools are taking their engines to TBO; instead the trend is for them to sell mid-time engines to homebuilders who are eager to snap up an inexpensive mid-life modern engine—the flight schools just buy new engines. I asked Dean how many engines overall make it to TBO, and he answered “How do you tell? The Experimental guys pay no attention to TBO, they just keep going. So we never see them unless something goes wrong. The Experimental guys who buy new engines might fly 50 hours a year. It’ll take them 40 years to get to operating TBO. I know of 1993 engines that are still going strong. It’s not like I recommend people operate that way, but I know people are doing it.”

The motors are a combination of engineering art, science, and I’m convinced maybe a schmecken of black magic; it doesn’t seem that the tight tolerances in the engines are possible in a mass-produced product but it’s true. I cut my teeth turning wrenches on warbirds and am used to slathering gasket material on, but the one time during the rebuild we did apply gasket material it was put on sparingly, just tapped on with a fingertip so you could see the aluminum through the goo—and even then some of that was squeezed out when the parts were fitted. Incredible machining.

One example of the precision in the engineering is that the piston to cylinder clearance has a tolerance of 0 to 8 ten-thousandths of an inch. That’s less than a human hair. The cylinders have a ceramic coating on the inside—that way the cylinder and the piston can be made from the same material and have the same thermal properties, making this kind of precision possible. You’d think that would make the engine high-strung and fragile, but at the end of the Rotech class when we were running the 914 demo engine, the instructor called me over and had me rapidly run the throttle full travel up and down several times, while I cringed thinking about the rapid heating/cooling effect on the cylinders and turbo. But the instructor chuckled and told us that the liquid cooling protected the head from the temperature cycle, and the engine could do this all day long with no damage.

The class is standardized around the world, so you can rest assured that you won’t miss anything by taking a class at another location closer than Lockwood. I found that taking classes from two separate schools complemented my knowledge, with each instructor and location having their own separate style and training aids. In my case, having bought the engine from Lockwood added to the reasons to take a trip to Florida.

Of course, having bought my engine from Lockwood and being a cheap pilot, I did ask if there was a discount. It’s easy to multiply X number of students by the tuition of the class and think Lockwood is making money hand over fist for a seemingly few days of Dean talking. But remember: You’re not paying for the class; you’re paying for the decades of experience Dean and the Lockwood crew have accumulated and are passing on to you. More than once Dean called me out with SeaRey-specific maintenance or installation instructions, and by the end of the course I lost track of how many potential hours of frustration and thousands of dollars in mistakes Dean saved me.

Note that this is not a “gentlemen’s course” where Dean will stomp his foot for something that will be on the open-book, take-home exam. However, he was also willing to help with the more obscure topics, telling us to wait to answer some questions if we can’t find the answer, and we’d probably hear it from his lecture before the exam. The class is not airline ground school intense, but it did remind me of what a friend of mine says about formation flying: It’s not work, but it is very, very hard play.

There’s an old saying that you get what you pay for. Airplanes are an investment of time and money, and the knowledge you get from this class will save you both in the long run. At a minimum, I think any Rotax builder/operator needs to take the service class and, if possible, hang out and do the maintenance one as well.

Oh, how did I do on the test? Well, let’s just say I passed, but I won’t be hanging out a shingle to do work on Rotaxes. What I have, though, is a license to learn.

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Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in KITPLANES magazine but since so much of the LSA world depends on Rotax engines, we thought this was worth a read here. Thirteen years into my two-year SeaRey build, OspRey finally had its engine mounted. But when I signed on the dotted line for my new Rotax 914, and with little more knowledge than how to change the oil in my car, I was nervous about my abilities to maintain this expensive engine. Because of this, back in 2014, I attended a weeklong service and maintenance class at Canadian Rotax distributor Rotech Motor, Ltd. Thanks to an excellent hands-on instructor, who acted like he had all the time in the world and a bagful of instructor tricks to teach us, by the second afternoon I had dropped my skepticism and distrust of the price/power ratio of the Rotax engine and was (almost) ready to go out and get a Rotax tattoo.

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Buying Used: Flight Design CTs

By Mark Timney || 1 Comment

If you’ve ever shopped for a used sport plane you’ve probably noticed there are almost always a number of Flight Design CT series LSAs up for sale. This shouldn’t be surprising since Flight Design was an early player in our segment of aviation, and in the past two-plus decades the company has sold more than 400 CTs in the U.S. alone.

The planes have proven popular, in part, due to their speed (for an LSA), having a cabin wider than a Cessna 172 and their generous payloads. This article is an introduction to the various CT models, their flight characteristics, and advice for a pre-buy inspection and ownership.

Development

The first CT was produced in Germany by a company that began with hang gliders and paragliders in the 1980s and ultralights in the early 1990s. Now part of LIFT Air Gmbh, Flight Design has faced financial woes over the years, having gone into receivership, and then challenges caused by the war in Ukraine where the aircraft were being built. Money is less of an issue now and production is being done in the Czech Republic. There is a completely different company making the CTLS in China for that country’s market only, according to Tom Gutman, Jr., who imports CTs into the U.S..

There have been a number of CT models/variants over the years. The original CT flew in 1996 and was superseded by the CT2K in 2000. But as Dan Johnson has reported, it was the CTSW ”short wing” developed just after that helped Flight Design become an LSA market leader. While the CTSW proved popular, it had its critics. Flight Design responded by introducing the CTLS in 2008 to make the plane a little more forgiving and to introduce other improvements.

Around the same time, the company produced a slightly heavier and slower all-metal version for flight training, the CTMC (metal concept), and the CTLS-Lite, a lighter and reduced feature/budget model CT. Quick to follow were the CTLE, a version for law enforcement featuring a wing mounted camera, the fuel injected Rotax 912iS powered CTLSi, the CT Supralight for the European ultralight market, and the CTLS GT with a Rotax 914.

If you’re thinking that it’s going to be difficult to decide which model to buy, stop. The odds are good your choice will be limited to either a CTSW or CTLS since these models were made in the greatest numbers. This article will focus on them exclusively.

Features & Flight Characteristics

Specifications for these two CTs and the other models vary. (You can easily find them online.) You can generally expect an empty weight between 700 & 800 pounds, a stall speed between 35 and 40 knots, cruise speeds between 115 and 130 knots and a fuel capacity of 34 gallons. The CTSW is lighter and faster than the IS, but has a higher stall speed. Many models come with a ballistic parachute system. Avionics vary, with older planes sporting round gauges and later models featuring glass. Almost all of the used CTs available will have a Rotax 912ULS.

“I would look for a 2009-2010 CTLS because of the simplicity of its carbureted engine and overall build quality,” recommends Tom Peghiny, EAA Hall of Famer and the man behind the importation of CTs into the U.S. until his retirement in 2022. He says many of the planes from this period came with autopilots and glass avionics, and it’s common to find many have been upgraded over the years.

All CTs feature composite bodies, a blessing or a curse depending upon your viewpoint. (More on this later.) Flight Design uses a carbon fiber-foam-carbon fiber and Kevlar laminate over Rohacell foam for the wings and tail, and over Airex foam for the fuselage core. The LS model introduced composite landing gear.

CTs have a reputation for being challenging to land, according to several CFIs contacted for this article. Some pilots have found them difficult to slow down because of the sleek fuselage, and others have trouble with pitch control at slower speeds. These factors, combined with the springy, aluminum landing gear on earlier models, sometimes meant CTs were bounced down runways.

One advantage of the LS model is its composite landing gear, which helps soak up less than perfect landings. Another possible advantage of the LS over the SW is its slightly longer length and greater wingspan, which reportedly offer better longitudinal stability. “The LS is less squirrely than the SW at lower speeds next to the ground,” contends CFI Helen Woods, owner of Chesapeake Sport Pilot, a Maryland flight school and maintenance center that has considerable experience with Flight Design’s planes.

Review owner comments on the internet and you’ll find that all CTs require solid stick and rudder skills. The planes demand attention to maintain coordinated flight, especially the shorter winged SW. Some critics say the SW is a little too difficult to fly, but others are up for the challenge in return for increased speed and payload.

“It’s possible to teach someone to fly the SW safely,” says Woods, “but it does take specific training and pilots need to fly frequently to remain proficient.” (Those who buy new planes from Flight Design in the U.S. are required to take transition training, according to Gutman.)

Pre-purchase Inspection

Anyone buying a used aircraft should have a pre-buy inspection done by an A&P who’s familiar with Flight Design’s planes, according to Mike Ripley and Hannah Lagno, who oversee aircraft maintenance at Chesapeake Sport Pilot, LLC. They’ve both worked on numerous CTs and know what to look for during a pre-buy inspection.

“We’ve seen a lot of bent landing gear and bent rudder pedals,” said Ripley when asked about CTs and rough landings. “And the composite bodies need to be inspected for delamination, especially if the plane’s been kept outside.”

“Always check the tail area for water,” warns Lagno. “It can collect inside there and cause corrosion which can freeze the controls or, in the winter, split the composite.”

The engines on CTs should also be gone over by someone familiar with Rotaxes. As an early player in Light Sport, CTs were among the first LSAs many A&Ps ever worked on. Woods says some weren’t as knowledgeable about Rotaxes as they should have been.  “Look for specific Rotax maintenance things in the logbook—like rubber replacement and carb floats,” she suggests. “And see if all of the service bulletins have been followed.” (There have been relatively few SBs considering nearly 30 years of production.)

Maintenance & Ownership

Owners seem to be very happy with the reliability of their planes, noting easy access to parts and excellent support from Flight Design in the U.S. Some CTs have logged more than 5000 hours, according to the company.

Ripley and Lagno say concerns about the planes’ composite bodies shouldn’t automatically steer you away from them or other composite planes. They believe this type of manufacturing has come a long way in the past couple of decades, and that it is possible to make successful repairs to composite body aircraft without too much difficulty. They say keeping a CT hangered is the best way to ensure the longest lifespan of the aircraft.

The sleekness of the design made possible by composite construction, however, can occasionally make CTs a little more difficult to work on. The engine’s in a tight space, and getting to the starter, for example, isn’t as straightforward as on conventionally constructed aircraft, notes Ripley.

Peghiny says “once mastered, they are fast and really a hoot to fly.” Guttmann, who owns a CTSW, says their cabins and payload capabilities put them way ahead of other Light Sport planes. “Both my father and I are 300 pounds and 6-foot-5. There’s nothing else we can both get into and fly as comfortably,” he said.

Woods highly recommends flying any CT you’re thinking of buying before writing the check. “Be sure you’re happy with what you’re getting into,” she advises.

 

 

Compress Post ...

If you’ve ever shopped for a used sport plane you’ve probably noticed there are almost always a number of Flight Design CT series LSAs up for sale. This shouldn’t be surprising since Flight Design was an early player in our segment of aviation, and in the past two-plus decades the company has sold more than 400 CTs in the U.S. alone. The planes have proven popular, in part, due to their speed (for an LSA), having a cabin wider than a Cessna 172 and their generous payloads. This article is an introduction to the various CT models, their flight characteristics, and advice for a pre-buy inspection and ownership. Development The first CT was produced in Germany by a company that began with hang gliders and paragliders in the 1980s and ultralights in the early 1990s. Now part of LIFT Air Gmbh, Flight Design has faced financial woes over the years, having gone into receivership, and then challenges caused by the war in Ukraine where the aircraft were being built.

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MOSAIC – A Different Perspective

By Phil Solomon || 12 Comments

A lot has been written about the contents of the MOSAIC NPRM and many people and organizations have been able to comment on it to the FAA. Much of the commentary has been around the extension, or in some cases, curtailing of existing privileges for Sport Pilots, aircraft that can fit into the Light Sport definition and Light Sport Repairman certifications. I don’t plan to re-hash any of that here. This article will focus on what some of these changes could mean, in practical terms, to the market for Light Sport Aircraft and its customers. As you will see, it has the potential to be highly disruptive which not everyone will be happy about but will do so in a way that also opens up opportunities to a wider audience.

Before delving any deeper, let’s dispel the myth held by some in general aviation that Light Sport has been a “failure”. Yes, like pretty much any revolution, its first manifestations probably did not meet the hype, but it has indelibly changed the aviation landscape in positive ways for all aviators. I will briefly hit a few of these:

  • BasicMed would still be a twinkle in the eye of AOPA and others if the hard proof from Sport Pilots not dying en-masse and crashing into houses the moment their medicals expired had not provided the empirical evidence supporting the proposed relaxations.
  • Angle of attack indicators, glass panels, digital autopilots and other aids to safe flight and situational awareness came from the experimental market into the Light Sport market and proved very quickly that compulsory FAA approvals only served to delay and make less affordable, potentially lifesaving technologies.
    Major changes to Part 23 certification for small aircraft to allow them to conform with ASTM consensus standards came directly from the (largely) positive experiences from Light Sport aircraft that were being made to a consensus standard.
  • The number of pilots exercising Sport Pilot privileges far exceeds the number of Sport Pilot licenses issued because every expired medical creates a Light Sport eligible pilot. A very large percentage of pilots exercising Sport Pilot privileges fall into this category. Accident statistics clearly support the notion that expanding the range of potentially eligible planes would likely maintain Light Sport and Sport Pilot safety on the desired continuum of safety—between Experimental and fully certified.
  • As soon as BasicMed came along and had proven to be a success, the medical justification for keeping Light Sport aircraft within a somewhat arbitrary weight, equipment and performance envelope were no longer justifiable or sustainable, but it took the FAA a while to reach that same conclusion.

Having set the scene, this article is going to examine how some of these changes could play out from a fixed wing aircraft and pilot perspective.

Fate of Existing Light Sport-Eligible Aircraft

Many, but not all, of the current Light Sport specific aircraft (S-LSAs) could accommodate higher gross weights and have modifications that would give them adjustable propellers and higher speeds but there is some uncertainty as to whether this would be allowed under the final regulations and whether the current manufacturers would want/be able to make these changes. From a consumer perspective, the desirability of these options is very clear. However, some manufacturers might not have the capability to make these changes while others may see upgrades of existing planes as a detriment to future sales of new aircraft that do meet the new standards. The downside to manufacturers not giving an answer prior to the final regulations coming into effect could be a freezing of sales of current new and used aircraft. Some manufacturers have committed to providing an upgrade path for existing owners. As time moves on, we could see a divide in the market between those manufacturers who have committed and those who have either kept silent or specifically declined to offer upgrades.

Where things could become controversial, is what owners of E-LSAs (Experimental Light Sport) will, or won’t be able to do to modify their aircraft to take advantage of the expected expanded definition of a Light Sport aircraft. E-LSAs fall into two main types—those built from kits based on a model that has been shown to be S-LSA conforming and those that started life as an S-LSA but whose owners chose to re-register them as E-LSAs.

Lets say that an S-LSA manufacturer opts to provide an upgrade path to a higher useful load for its existing models, could E-LSAs that either started life as the same make and model or those built from a kit follow suit? Well, the current E-LSA regulations might suggest not, as E-LSAs must be operated in accordance with the operating limitations issued to the aircraft at the time it receives its airworthiness certification. So, you could have the strange situation where Experimental aircraft are being held to a tighter standard than the one that is being applied to a higher level of aircraft. Basically, a reversal of the FAA concept of a continuum of safety.

The NPRM does little to clarify any of this, but it would not be the first time that there has been this effective reversal of safety logic. Here’s another example.  At the present time, a fully certified aircraft under Part 23 can run over engine TBO when operating under Part 91 but an S-LSA might not be able to, depending on the whim of the aircraft manufacturer. Many of the proposed changes are considered to be beneficial to safety, such as increased weight and controllable propellers, so why would it be in the general interest of safety to create a two-tier market?

About Legacy Aircraft

Something else to consider: How might the expansion of Light Sport definitions affect existing legacy aircraft that will now fall within the Light Sport Eligible category?

Let’s start with a little history lesson. For liability reasons Cessna stopped producing light aircraft in 1986 and re-started production of the Cessna 172 in 1996 following the passage of the General Aviation Revitalization Act, making its first shipments in 1997 at a “typically equipped” price of around $136,000. Fast forward 28 years, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, tells us that the Consumer Price Index has increased by a factor of 1.97 times. So, if all things were equal, which they never are, the same plane would be selling at $267,920 today. It is not easy to find an exact current list price, but full retail is in the region of $650,000 or 4.8 times the 1997 price. Yes, the 2024 plane would come with an incredible suite of avionics in the form of the Garmin G1000 that would command a premium price but it has basically the same engine and airframe as before.

Here is where things get interesting. Part 23 certification can act as a two-way barrier by protecting legacy aircraft manufacturers that have amortized their investments many times over due to the ultra slow/no pace of technological advances in legacy engines while limiting new entrants to the four-seat certified market because of the costs of entry.

The Cessna 172 has effectively set the price expectation for training aircraft which has then increased the profitability and attractiveness for other companies as well such as Piper, Cirrus, Diamond and Tecnam who are able to price at similarly elevated levels due to shortage of capacity and high flight school demand. Product pricing can certainly come from a formula that starts with costs and adds a margin, but in the case of a protected market (which is what certification does) pricing can be whatever the market will bear.

MOSAIC potentially lowers both the barriers and the cost of entry for new four-seat aircraft as they can be manufactured to an agreed standard and use components that have not, themselves, had to go through very expensive certifications. With many traditional legal design burdens lifted, we can reasonably expect to see new aircraft that are lighter but potentially stronger than their legacy colleagues, full of avionics that are a fraction of the cost of the fully certified versions and with engines that are more efficient, use less expensive fuels and weigh less.

It is certainly possible that new entrants will simply follow existing pricing trends, but given volume opportunities and the need to break into a very restricted, brand-conscious market, they are more likely to seek market share through price and features. Most flight schools cannot afford brand new aircraft from any of the current market leaders because a new plane offers no discernible operating cost advantages over the same model that is 20 or more years old, and any ability to price at a premium for new versus old is negligible.

UND’s training fleet is underwritten by school tuition, something that smaller flight schools can’t bring to bear.

The new aircraft market for training aircraft is currently limited to a very few, very large flight schools who are often part of a college program so can cross subsidize through tuition fees for academic courses. New, four seat Light Sport aircraft built to the new ASTM Light Sport standards could easily be sold profitably for half of the price of a legacy aircraft while offering engines that could decimate operating costs and avionics that are at least comparable, if not better, in functionality and ease of use.

Taking the Cessna 172 as an example, this plane would now be Light Sport eligible but still constrained by certification limitations and a price that could be double that of new competition. Is that a sustainable position? Only time will tell but the legacy models could potentially be re-tooled and equipped in line with ASTM standards and relaunched as a Light Sport. This would bring certain costs down but require new investment in manufacturing practices which may leave the net costs of production unchanged but pricing at a potentially much lower level in line with new generation Light Sports.

How Will MOSAIC Influence Flight Training?

The answer is probably in multiple parts. The first, and immediate, answer is that it will boost the attraction of holding a Sport Pilot license or exercising Sport Pilot privileges. The vast majority of flight schools and rental fleets do not offer any Light Sport aircraft for rent and do not see the benefits of having multiple training options just to cater for this audience. With existing aircraft in the fleet becoming Light Sport eligible, schools could well see a fast expansion in Sport Pilot training and rentals. Existing Sport Pilots who downgraded from full private and above certifications will get rapid check outs in legacy aircraft and owners who had previously needed to sell aircraft because they did not feel comfortable with full medical renewals or BasicMed, will likely keep them. The possible downside of this could be a further restriction on the supply of affordable used aircraft as owners choose to retain them plus more people looking to rent.

Secondly, for others, the Sport Pilot license would become a more affordable and accessible option to get into flying as more airports would now have planes they could fly once they achieved their Sport Pilot Certification. However, there is a certain stigma still attached to both Light Sport Aircraft and Sport Pilots probably due to lack of understanding and some of the myths discussed above.

Thirdly, and potentially most importantly, this would be an opportunity to expand the pilot population and increase the proportion of successful completions from the 20-30% (for a Private Pilot License) highlighted in AOPA’s 2010 study to something significantly higher. With a Sport Pilot license theoretically achievable in 20 hours compared to 40 for a Private Pilot License it could and perhaps should be the starting point for all aspiring pilots. However, there are barriers to this including the current lack of Light Sport aircraft in flight schools and the need to take another written test and check ride to move up from Sport to Private. The former will change almost overnight with the publication of the final regulations following the NPRM but the latter is not impacted by MOSAIC. However, this would open up one of MOSAICS many opportunities for productive change.

At the present time the content of a Sport Pilot check ride and Private Pilot check ride is effectively the same with no difference in expected performance or maneuvers. The oral exam would have some differences concerning limitations and privileges that come with the certification. Currently a Sport Pilot could, through experience and with an instructor, gradually add-on the capabilities and training that would be required for Private Pilot privileges—3 hours of instrument training, 3 hours of night, airspace clearance, towered landings and additional solo time. Ironically, none of these “add-ons” are actually specifically tested during a second flight test for Private Pilot beyond what had already taken place under the original Sport Pilot check ride. Consequently, a Sport Pilot moving to Private Pilot is being tested twice for the same skills with the same performance requirements but having to pay for both an extra written test and flight test.

Not surprisingly, this acts as a disincentive for people to start with the more affordable and swifter option of a Sport Pilot license if their ultimate goal is to add ratings later. The obvious solution to this would be to make Sport Pilot the starting point for all aviation certifications with a formal DPE conducted check ride and then gradually move up to Private Pilot through adding endorsements with one CFI and a final endorsement from a different one, as is currently allowed for moves between Light Sport Categories. The endorsements would cover both knowledge and flight skills/experience. This would increase the number of pilots who are able to complete something and give them the incentive to continue to add skills and experience knowing that there is not another massive expense waiting for them to be able to move up. As with many aspects of the Light Sport/Sport Pilot revolution, the success of this low-risk modification could also provide data for whether non DPE instructors can be relied upon to safely transition these pilots.

In conclusion, MOSAIC is going to have a major positive effect on aviation accessibility and affordability but not just because of the obvious changes but also from its direct consequences on related matters that might not, at first sight, even be in play.

Compress Post ...

A lot has been written about the contents of the MOSAIC NPRM and many people and organizations have been able to comment on it to the FAA. Much of the commentary has been around the extension, or in some cases, curtailing of existing privileges for Sport Pilots, aircraft that can fit into the Light Sport definition and Light Sport Repairman certifications. I don’t plan to re-hash any of that here. This article will focus on what some of these changes could mean, in practical terms, to the market for Light Sport Aircraft and its customers. As you will see, it has the potential to be highly disruptive which not everyone will be happy about but will do so in a way that also opens up opportunities to a wider audience. Before delving any deeper, let’s dispel the myth held by some in general aviation that Light Sport has been a “failure”.

Expand Post ...

“Icon in Flat Spin,” UK’s Flyer Reported — Here’s the Latest

By Dan Johnson || Leave a Comment

Icon Aircraft, creator of the A5 LSA seaplane, is in the spotlight again as bankruptcy proceedings finally come to a close.

Short story: Icon will continue making aircraft, after the bankruptcy heard from a new buyer — not the buyer mentioned before in this recent article. The court sought a change in ownership and an effort to grapple with a large amount of debt.

From beginning (in April 2024) to an end in mid-June, this proceeding moved very swiftly. Here’s the final settlement.

“Icon In a Flat Spin
as Bankruptcy Looms”

Earlier in the day on June 18th, 2024…

Britain’s Flyer magazine reported online that Icon found a buyer but not the one mentioned in the prior link.

“Buy an aircraft manufacturer with a certified product and also selling in the Light-Sport Aircraft class for, what? …£100 million? Try again and aim low: just over £12m ($15.3 million),” wrote Flyer staff.

The UK magazine reported that was the winning bid for the assets of Icon but continue reading.

“£134m ($170m) worth of debt was written off during the bankruptcy case for Icon Aircraft when it came before Judge Craig Goldblatt in Delaware last week,” wrote Flyer.

Earlier, a Chinese buyer was going to absorb the prior debt while paying slightly less for the company. The supposed Chinese buyer never explained how they would earn such a large amount to cover that debt service.

“The winning bid came from a unit of 160-year-old German textile machinery producer Dürkopp Adler. Hang on… why would a manufacturer of textiles want an amphibious aircraft maker? It’s a complicated story,” continued Flyer. 

Dürkopp Adler Group describes itself as “a global innovation and technology leader in the field of industrial sewing. We develop, produce and sell high-quality sewing machines and equipment.”

ByDanJohnson.com readers will already know the prior Chinese buyer was also a sewing machine producer. Do you find it odd that two sewing machine companies would vie for Icon? Here’s more…

“Icon Aircraft had already selected SG Investment America Inc. as the stalking horse bidder – the back-up in case of no better bids,” wrote Flyer.

“However, SG Investment is a newly formed subsidiary of Dürkopp Adler GmbH, now owned by ShangGong Group based in Shanghai, China, which also makes sewing machines.” So… these two companies are already affiliated.

Flyer reported the opposition, “According to Law360, a legal reports website, a group of Icon investors — including former directors, officers and founders and other equity holders — filed legal claims against the company’s Chinese majority shareholder in the bankruptcy court, urging it to halt the company’s proposed sale. The group said the stalking horse bidder is indirectly controlled by the debtor’s current majority holder.

“The group of equity holders had asked the court to evaluate what they called ‘insider relationships in play,’ said Law360.

“They alleged that the majority shareholder, Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Investment Co. Ltd., which has been the controlling equity holder of Icon since 2017, seized control of the management, operated the company as its own property, and systematically dismantled it to expropriate Icon’s intellectual property to China.

“In other words,” Flyer summarized, “Icon has been bought for a song from its main shareholder, writing off its debts in the process and ending up with the intellectual property of the aircraft producer. The Delaware court is due to approve – or not – the deal this week.”

It Is Done

Later in the day,  a headline said, “Icon’s Chapter 11 Sale Cleared With Higher Price”

Law360 (paywall) reporter, Vince Sullivan wrote later in the afternoon of June 18, 2024, “Light-Sport Aircraft producer Icon received a Delaware bankruptcy court’s approval Tuesday for a nearly $15.8 million sale of its assets after securing an agreement to increase the price by $250,000, just hours before a hearing on the transaction.”

So settles another chapter in the exiting life and times of Icon Aircraft and their handsome A5 LSA seaplane.

Compress Post ...

Icon Aircraft, creator of the A5 LSA seaplane, is in the spotlight again as bankruptcy proceedings finally come to a close. Short story: Icon will continue making aircraft, after the bankruptcy heard from a new buyer — not the buyer mentioned before in this recent article. The court sought a change in ownership and an effort to grapple with a large amount of debt. From beginning (in April 2024) to an end in mid-June, this proceeding moved very swiftly. Here’s the final settlement. “Icon In a Flat Spin as Bankruptcy Looms” Earlier in the day on June 18th, 2024… Britain’s Flyer magazine reported online that Icon found a buyer but not the one mentioned in the prior link. “Buy an aircraft manufacturer with a certified product and also selling in the Light-Sport Aircraft class for, what? …£100 million? Try again and aim low: just over £12m ($15.3 million),” wrote Flyer staff.

Expand Post ...

Risen Completes Transatlantic Leg

By Marc Cook || 5 Comments

On June 14, a Porto Aviation’s Risen completed the transatlantic leg of its journey from Milan, Italy, to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The company posted on social media: “We made it!!! I have been reluctant to post anything here before accomplishing this epic flight , being Italian I guess makes me more superstitious.A page in aviation history has been written by Alberto Porto and Andrea Florence (Venturini). 1900 nautical miles, average speed [of] 165 kts, with just over 43 gallons of fuel!!! We left this morning early in rainy Scotland and landed in the afternoon at Goose Bay the same day without refueling.”

The company announced its cross-the-pond plans this May to bring the newly re-engined Risen to the U.S. While many versions of the retractable-gear Risen use the Rotax 912, the company had been fitting the turbocharged 915 iS. But this example has the newer, more powerful Rotax 916 iS. The turbo Risen normally carries around 32 gallons of gas (120 liters) but this example has longer-range integrated tanks with 50 gallons’ capacity; Porto and Florence did not carry special auxiliary fuel tanks.

The total distance is more than 5100 nm from Milan to AirVenture, but the Risen seen here has only 1200 nm to go, all of it with land beneath the slender, efficient wings.

Compress Post ...

On June 14, a Porto Aviation’s Risen completed the transatlantic leg of its journey from Milan, Italy, to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The company posted on social media: “We made it!!! I have been reluctant to post anything here before accomplishing this epic flight , being Italian I guess makes me more superstitious.A page in aviation history has been written by Alberto Porto and Andrea Florence (Venturini). 1900 nautical miles, average speed [of] 165 kts, with just over 43 gallons of fuel!!! We left this morning early in rainy Scotland and landed in the afternoon at Goose Bay the same day without refueling.” The company announced its cross-the-pond plans this May to bring the newly re-engined Risen to the U.S. While many versions of the retractable-gear Risen use the Rotax 912, the company had been fitting the turbocharged 915 iS. But this example has the newer, more powerful Rotax 916 iS.

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Grassroots Success Story — Dunnellon’s X35 Attracts New, Younger Aviation Businesses

By Dan Johnson || 1 Comment

If I’ve heard one lament repeatedly over a long career, it is that current pilots don’t see enough new pilots coming into aviation. Are you one who worries a little or a lot about that? If not, you are a rare pilot.

Marion County Airport attracts a wide variety of aircraft.

Is it any wonder, though? The price of aircraft is way, way up. This applies to used aircraft and new — just like it does with your groceries or gasoline. The cost of maintenance is high and rising. Insurance is very expensive (for airplanes as well as cars or houses). Hangars are unavailable with years-long waiting lists at many airports.

More than ever it can seem, aviation is an activity for those with fairly thick wallets. The squeeze on modest budgets has rarely been this demanding.

Marion Main Men — X35 airport is managed by Mike Grawe (L), supported by industry experts Troy Townsend and Roy Beisswenger (R).

Yeah, all that, but this website nonetheless discovers the affordable end of aviation. In that pursuit, I was drawn to an airport with an encouraging twist on the affordability squeeze play.

This story is about an airport but it focuses on affordable aviation and the aircraft serving that market.

Dunnellon’s X35
Marion County Airport

Have you ever heard of Ocala, Florida in the central-northwestern portion of the state? If you aren’t into horses, maybe not. If you are, you probably know this area bills itself as the “Horse Capital of the World.” Drive around Ocala, in town, or by handsome country estates and you’ll notice this is quite the affluent area.

Dunnellon is in Marion County, not Ocala but the close proximity helps both. Under airport manager (and pilot) Mike Grawe‘s leadership through the last six years, X35 has become a thriving facility with energetic new businesses sprouting up.

What may be most important is the presence of new, younger businessmen entering affordable aviation. People like me with decades of experience fill a useful role but we’re like disappearing airline captains. We’ll be moving on and entry-level aviation needs fresh blood. X35 put out the welcome mat… and it’s working.

Placid Lassie takes on fuel at X35.

Led by Mike, Marion County Airport, X35 is backed up with some local OG (“Old Guy”) talent. First, I’ll mention that Mike has engineered the construction of 40 new T-hangars. Although he still has a waiting list, those new quarters did two things: they relieved the prior need somewhat, and they provided a drawing card to new enterprises. An airport on the move is an attraction and Mike has the engine running.

Mike and I talked briefly about hangar challenges. I’ve visited more airports than I can remember. Management at every single one said essentially the same thing, “If we could get (insert main need here), we could fill more hangar requests.” Most airports have plenty of square area but permitting and financing on leased land presents major challenges. Constructions costs have risen sharply so hangar owners must charge substantial rent to recover investments.

Troy Townsend shows off his RV-10 project. His Icarus C42 is in the background.

Mike can be rightly proud of his new T-hangars and this impetus has attracted more enterprises who want to be part of something happening. Some of the talent surrounding Mike Grawe has been around longer. Others are new. All are supportive.

Airfield entrepreneur, Troy Townsend, while not old is certainly one of the original OGs at X35. He became well known working for ITEC, the enterprise that created the Maverick flying dune buggy for use in their South American missionary work. Maverick was a rough and tumble ground vehicle that could hoist a large powered parachute wing up high on a long mast allowing it to launch from a surprisingly short field. As a dune buggy, it scooted energetically.

Since his Maverick days, Troy has built his Pilot Examiner business, FliteChek.com, especially catering to the Light-Sport and light kit crowd in America’s southeast employing his deep knowledge of this segment. He flies an Icarus C42 (Germany’s most popular light trainer), which he uses to help Sport Pilots, Privates, and beyond earn their FAA certificate. Oh, and on the side, he’s building an RV-10 kit, an aircraft with which he is also very familiar. I could fill an entire article with his exploits but this gives a taste.

Roy Beisswenger poses by his growing fleet of flight training aircraft housed at X35. He also occupies a corner office in the airport terminal building where he produces video and books.

Roy Beisswenger is another highly accomplished light aviation entrepreneur who gravitated to Dunnellon and X35 as he searched for an ideal place to operate his powered parachute flight training enterprise during fall, winter, and spring — in the summer months Roy operates from the Greenville, Illinois airport. After designing a soup-to-nuts professional training system and having literally written the Bible of powered parachuting, EasyFlight is the country’s leading provider of PPC instruction.

At X35, Roy Beisswenger’s EasyFlight consulted on testing for SkyRunner’s PPC.

That’s what Roy is doing now but what preceded that would take two or three articles to cover. Among them: Ultralight Radio, a very early online news outlet; Powered Sport Flying magazine for the rest of light aviation; his leadership at U.S. Ultralight Association and Light Aircraft Manufacturer’s Association; a growing YouTube channel. I’m getting tired typing all this yet I’m only skimming the surface.

Troy and Roy make a solid backup to Mike Grawe’s management. Yet… now they have more.

Welcome, Newbies
…the Aircraft Producers

As I wrote earlier, Randy Dorsey has brought back to Florida an iconic aircraft sought after around the world for its very particular flight qualities. Randy purchased the rights and tooling to Dragonfly, an affordably priced LSA or kit specially built to tow hang gliders but which is enormously fun to fly around for low-and-slow aerial sightseeing.

Randy has taken over an existing operation, is preserving the originator’s names BaileyMoyesDragonfly and he’s getting the supply line geared up for new production at Marion County Airport. He may start deliveries later this year but parts to existing owners are a present priority, a mission dear to most of the 150 Dragonfly owners/operators.

A little further down the development timeline will come Nick and Charlotte Jones SkyKicker Aviation operation. This is a brand-new business (see recent article) by new entrepreneurs, a husband and wife who bring solid experience to the task. Nick and Charlotte are setting up to build the former Belite Chipper 2, originally created by James Weibe.

Screenshot

James had created strong interest for his Chipper project but a fire took him out of the game. Nick and Charlotte rescued this design after being drawn to it in one of those I-liked-the-product-so-much-I-bought-the-whole-company stories. They are currently improving the builder manuals and working to simplify the kit-building effort as much as possible while they renew relations with James’ former suppliers.

These two new businesses join the veterans at X35 adding to the success Mike Grawe has been building.

Central-northwestern Florida and its fancy equestrian ranches exist alongside a vibrant X35 airport that is attracting new businesses and fresh faces. I think this is worth celebrating and I trust you agree.

Compress Post ...

If I’ve heard one lament repeatedly over a long career, it is that current pilots don’t see enough new pilots coming into aviation. Are you one who worries a little or a lot about that? If not, you are a rare pilot. Is it any wonder, though? The price of aircraft is way, way up. This applies to used aircraft and new — just like it does with your groceries or gasoline. The cost of maintenance is high and rising. Insurance is very expensive (for airplanes as well as cars or houses). Hangars are unavailable with years-long waiting lists at many airports. More than ever it can seem, aviation is an activity for those with fairly thick wallets. The squeeze on modest budgets has rarely been this demanding. Yeah, all that, but this website nonetheless discovers the affordable end of aviation. In that pursuit, I was drawn to an airport with an encouraging twist on the affordability squeeze play.

Expand Post ...

Hot-Rodded Rotaxes? That’s What Edge Performance Is All About

By Eric Stewart || 3 Comments

Editor’s Note: Recent commentary on the future of Rotax engines brought out a few comments that high-spec versions of the 900-series engines already exist, just in the aftermarket. For a deeper dive into the topic, here’s a story that ran in early 2023 in KITPLANES from Eric Stewart, a regular contributor to that magazine. Prices for Edge’s modified engines run from 26,000 Euro for the 108-hp EP912i to 45,000 Euro for the 180-hp EP917Ti.

Edge Performance of Notodden, Norway, has been around for little more than a decade, but their EFI and Rotax upgrades have quickly become popular, setting a high bar with race-quality components. I’ll be putting the EP912sti in the SR-1 race plane—not only does it have exceptional power to weight (important given the 661-pound weight limit for the SR-1’s record category), but racers go best when it’s hot and high—and the EP912STi’s turbo ensures we can still make power in those conditions. Wanting to know more about the engine I was buying, I recently traveled to Notodden (a 90-minute drive west of Oslo) to learn more about the company’s background and processes.

Thomas Hauklien installs a cylinder head on a Rotax 900-series engine.

Edge CEO and founder Thomas Hauklien has a long history with both Experimental aircraft and engine modification. He’s been an engineer for 15 years, having graduated with an electro-mechanical degree. His first plane was a RANS S-5 with a Rotax 503 two-stroke that he flew for about a year and a half. “I got to overhaul that engine. It seized up on me like most two-strokes.” This was followed by a Kitfox Model 4 he restored and flew for a couple of years with a Jabiru 2200 that he’d converted to a turbo. “That was kind of stretching it at the time, no one had ever done anything like that.”

This was followed by a Sonex with an AeroVee that Hauklien bought from the U.S., followed by another Sonex that he built himself. “Coming from a racing background, it bothered me that the engine produced too little power. So the first thing I did was get bigger-bore cylinders, bigger pistons, ported the heads and did regular tuning stuff to get a bit more horsepower.” This was followed by fuel injection and, finally, a turbo.

Appreciating that he’d pushed the Volkswagen-based engine too far—making a claimed 120–140 hp—Hauklien’s next step was to acquire an at-TBO Rotax 912. “Doing a full turbo and fuel injection for that one as well was only natural,” he says. Friends who were struggling with notoriously finicky Rotax carbs started to ask Hauklien to retrofit their engines as well, and from there word spread. In 2010 Edge attended AERO Friedrichshafen (think of it as Europe’s version of Oshkosh), “and that is when it really started to kick off,” says Hauklien.

Hauklien welding the crank for an EP912STi conversion

“We got a lot of exposure [at Friedrichshafen]. At the time neither Rotax nor any of the other major brands were offering fuel-injected engines, so understandably enough there was a lot of skepticism among pilots. My argument was always if you go to the auto dealer today and buy a new car, would you have it fuel injected or would you want carbs that you have to maintain? The answer is simple. The next obvious question is how often does your car break down on the highway because the fuel injection system fails? It’s next to none. A lot of people approached us and said the Rotax has redundant dual ignition, and it has dual redundant fueling because it has two carburetors. Well clearly that isn’t the case. Basically you end up with double the risk of getting a carburetor failure and engine out because you have two carburetors, which both need to function perfectly in order to have an operating engine. If you lose one injector, it will still run on three cylinders. It will vibrate but you will maintain altitude. But if you lose one carburetor you lose one cylinder bank,” or half the engine, he says. Plus, injection eliminates the possibility of carb icing.

A Menu of Mods

Edge has clearly gone beyond just fitting fuel injection to Rotaxes. The table on Page 52 shows Edge’s available kits and upgrades, starting with straightforward big bore/EFI kits up through highly experimental mega-hp conversions of 1000cc motorcycle engines. (Note that although EP’s conversions start with a factory-new Rotax engine, its mods void any Rotax warranty and Rotax no longer considers these engines as Rotax.) The common thread among Edge’s engines is a conversion to its EFI, substitution of the intake/throttle body and for the relevant models, a turbo upgrade. The invisible part of the upgrade though is equally important: tuning.

“We have our own optimized intake and induction system that has been flow optimized, trying different runner diameters and lengths,” says Hauklien. “Inside the plenum the velocity stacks use a trumpet mouth to accelerate the airflow and keep it laminar, all of which has been meticulously tested on the dyno. But it’s always a compromise with tuning, regardless if it’s header or intake tuning. So rather than just focusing on making peak power, which is easy, we’ve always tried to focus on the rpm range where the engine typically operates. This is also really evident in dyno testing: We took a stock 100-hp carbureted 912 and it made 100.2 hp on our dyno. We then bolted on our intake and EFI system and it made almost 109 hp. With carburetors you have the venturi, so you get a pressure drop. But running EFI with a shaftless throttle body, we have no pressure loss whatsoever,” he says.

Here to Stay

Hauklien says that to date EP has sold approximately 300 engines, 2500 fuel injection kits, 300 big bore kits and approximately 30 EPeX Yamaha conversions (with North American dealer Jason Busat of BadAss PowerSports having assembled a handful of Epexes as well). Clearly, the company is expanding (they added their fourth employee in June), but it’s still relatively young and it’s not unreasonable to ask if they’ll be around in another 10 years to support these custom engines.

Hauklien preps the engine for dyno testing in Edge’s SuperFlow test cell.

On the other side of the dyno: The left screen monitors engine parameters while the screen to the right is where Hauklien inputs changes to the programmable ECU map.

So where does Hauklien see the company heading? “If we can make it faster, stronger, lighter, we’ll continue to do so. The big question mark is the electrification of aviation in the future,” he says. “What is that going to do to our existing market? There are 60,000–80,000 Rotax engines flying worldwide, and they’ll continue to do so for decades. It’s not like people are going to throw out mid-time engines and replace them with factory fuel-injected engines, because they are getting so expensive now that it makes more sense to retrofit a fuel injection kit even if it’s a midlife engine. So I think there is a huge aftermarket for decades ahead for us.”

While support is important to customers and a steady business in core modifications is key, that’s not all that Hauklien is about. “What drives me now and motivates me to come to work in the morning is working on the R&D projects. We’ve done one-off helicopter engines, gyrocopter engines and UAV engines. I’m really dedicated to working on R&D and the engineering side of things. Hopefully as we continue to grow with increased staff, I can step back and spend more time on what I enjoy doing, which is development, improvements, testing.”

When asked if Edge was married to the Rotax core, Hauklien pointed out that for him, it’s the only engine that makes sense to be modifying or
servicing. Edge offered turbo kits for the Jabiru four- and six-cylinder engines but discontinued them due to anemic demand (though he still stocks parts to service existing customers). There are only a couple of ULPower engines in Norway, and Hauklien doubts that there’s much he could offer on an engine that is already EFI and has a turbo version as well. Yes there is a decent market in EFI retrofits on conventional, large-displacement aircraft engines, but he sees SDS and FlyEFII (for which Edge is a European reseller) as already doing a good job supporting that market.

One Big Question

So let’s get to the elephant in the living room: How does Rotax feel about Edge modifying their engines? “We get asked that a lot,” laughs Hauklien. “It’s a funny story. Until three or four years ago, we had a quite intense relationship with Rotax. They obviously didn’t fancy what we were doing because they were obviously afraid of us hurting their brand and reputation for reliable engines with our modifications, which is understandable. What was funny, though, was that every time we went to an exhibition the Rotax salespersons would give us the most intense stares. Meanwhile the young engineers from Rotax came by and really appreciated the work we had put into the engine. They would say, ‘Why didn’t we think of this, what clever solutions!’ That was always fun for us to watch. I think Rotax just got fed up with all the local NTSBs approaching them who would say, ‘We have a Rotax engine with this serial number and there was a crash, it had an engine failure, we need you to investigate it, we need a statement from BRP [parent company Bombardier].’ And obviously as soon as Rotax got pictures from the site or the wreckage, they could see that it was a modified engine.”

The solution was straightforward. “Eventually what we agreed with Rotax in order to buy engines and parts unrestrained was that we remove any part from the engine that clearly states Rotax, like the valve covers and the Rotax serial number plate, and we install our own plates,” continues Hauklien. “However, we do maintain the original Rotax serial number so that the owner is able to follow up in terms of service bulletins. That took out the headache from Rotax if ever there were an accident. I’m not sure if they really like what we are doing, but it’s gotten to the point where we’ve gotten so much recognition and proven that we can make stuff reliable.”

Which raises the question: Why doesn’t Rotax just make these improvements themselves? “Well, they kind of have,” says Hauklien, pointing to the 912 iS and 915 iS. “But it probably doesn’t make sense for them financially to make retrofit kits. I think it has a lot to do with cost. It is directly comparable with the automotive industry. Making high-performance racing parts is tedious, time-consuming and expensive. It is exactly what OEM manufacturers want to avoid.”

Interestingly, even though Edge is not an official Rotax dealer, they receive discounts, support and training from the Rotax dealer in northern Europe. Hauklien ventures that they are one of Rotax’s biggest customers. He sees this as beneficial, since it gives Edge the freedom to work on engines as they see best. And he sees an advantage for Rotax as well. “Because we acquire a new engine from Rotax and modify it, it’s not like they are losing out on sales. We are in a way beneficial to them. From Rotax’s perspective, they get a sale but they get to take out liability, because we are carrying the liability now, it’s an Edge Performance engine. So that is an easy-money, trouble-free, no-liability sale [for them].”

Beyond the Mods

The Edge workshop accommodates engine mods and other maintenance.

It should be noted that engine modifications are only half of Edge’s business. They also perform annual inspections, maintenance and repairs for European ultralights (a category akin to Experimental in the U.S.), teardowns and overhauls of Rotax engines, and are resellers for a number of European brands such as Shark.Aero, TL-Ultralight, Eurofox and Zlin. They are also authorized dealers for Garmin avionics, Beringer wheels/brakes, and quite a few propeller brands including Airmaster, Woodcomp, Duc and Noah. “We do everything. It’s not Aircraft Spruce, exactly, but we are the only ones who keep those parts in stock here in Norway,” says Hauklien.

Even with the growing success of his business, Hauklien remains an avid pilot. The Sonex was followed by a 200-knot Shark, a glider license, an instructor’s license for both gliders and ultralights as well as multiple other ratings. Since those humble RANS S-5 beginnings in 2006, Hauklien has racked up 3500 hours of flight time in all manner of aircraft. He was Norway’s aerobatic Sportsman national champ in 2019 and just won the 2022 Intermediate national championship flying the Extra 300; his current ride is an RV-4 with inverted oil. Hauklien is also building an Experimental Norden Cub with the 300-hp EPeX300Ti and also has on order a Shark Turbo to be powered by his EP912STi. Which is all to say that Hauklien is not just an engine builder, he is an avid pilot who flies—and test flies—behind the engines he’s built.

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Editor’s Note: Recent commentary on the future of Rotax engines brought out a few comments that high-spec versions of the 900-series engines already exist, just in the aftermarket. For a deeper dive into the topic, here’s a story that ran in early 2023 in KITPLANES from Eric Stewart, a regular contributor to that magazine. Prices for Edge’s modified engines run from 26,000 Euro for the 108-hp EP912i to 45,000 Euro for the 180-hp EP917Ti. Edge Performance of Notodden, Norway, has been around for little more than a decade, but their EFI and Rotax upgrades have quickly become popular, setting a high bar with race-quality components. I’ll be putting the EP912sti in the SR-1 race plane—not only does it have exceptional power to weight (important given the 661-pound weight limit for the SR-1’s record category), but racers go best when it’s hot and high—and the EP912STi’s turbo ensures we can still make power in those conditions.

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Checking in With Sonex’s Mark Schaible — Update on the High Wing and Will it Be a MOSAIC Design?

By Marc Cook || Leave a Comment

Light Sport enthusiasts who appreciate light, simple, inexpensive airplanes have been watching Sonex Aircraft develop the High Wing model for a couple of years now. It’ll first come out as an Experimental/Amateur-Built version but the company is very much open to considering an E-LSA and even, with some outside help, an S-LSA version. (Or whatever we’re going to call that once MOSAIC is real.)

Company owner Mark Schaible joins us to talk about the airplane’s gestation and expectations for performance and when it might fly. Hint: You’ll be able to see a cabin mockup at AirVenture this year at the least. In general, Sonex is hoping for performance similar to the low-wing Sonex designs and will be building the first example as a taildragger with a 130-hp ULPower engine. Schaible also discusses changes to the design now that MOSAIC is closer to reality. Expanded Sport Pilot rules could allow Sonex to give the High Wing a gross weight above the current 1320-pound maximum for LSA.

By expanding the max-weight envelope, Schaible hopes that the High Wing will have even better useful load and will be a better option for those owners and builders who inevitably want more stuff in the airplane that ultimately adds weight.

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Light Sport enthusiasts who appreciate light, simple, inexpensive airplanes have been watching Sonex Aircraft develop the High Wing model for a couple of years now. It’ll first come out as an Experimental/Amateur-Built version but the company is very much open to considering an E-LSA and even, with some outside help, an S-LSA version. (Or whatever we’re going to call that once MOSAIC is real.) Company owner Mark Schaible joins us to talk about the airplane’s gestation and expectations for performance and when it might fly. Hint: You’ll be able to see a cabin mockup at AirVenture this year at the least. In general, Sonex is hoping for performance similar to the low-wing Sonex designs and will be building the first example as a taildragger with a 130-hp ULPower engine. Schaible also discusses changes to the design now that MOSAIC is closer to reality. Expanded Sport Pilot rules could allow Sonex to give the High Wing a gross weight above the current 1320-pound maximum for LSA.

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Building the Affordaplane, Part 2

By Jon Croke || Leave a Comment

The front fuselage with the landing gear mounted.

In a previous post,  introduced our video project for building the Affordaplane. To review, this is the plans-only project I demonstrated on YouTube for building an ultralight from raw materials. (You’ll find this free 50-part series here.)

My objective was to build an “FAA-legal” ultralight using approved aircraft materials and techniques. This month, I will review some of the challenges encountered while building. My approach on making these videos was to show and explain to first-time builders how to take a set of plans and translate them into a series of steps for completing the project.

From a construction standpoint this ultralight design is quite unusual in some ways and very traditional in others. The designer, Dave Edwards, had a goal of making sure the aircraft could be built by an amateur with common shop tools and readily available materials. Most of the aircraft is made from round and square 6061-T6 aluminum tubing. The square tubing is used primarily for the fuselage; the round tubing is used for the wings and other flight surfaces.

Weighing the fuel tank before installation.

The fuselage is unique in appearance as it resembles a ladder turned on its side. Yes, it is a thin, flat fuselage that the pilot straddles while sitting in an attached seat. The fuselage is fashioned from a dozen various lengths of 2-inch square aluminum tubes. These straight, square tubes are joined to one another by ⅛-inch-thick aluminum gussets attached on each side of the ends where they connect to the next tube. A set of AN-4 bolts pass through each “sandwich” of tube and gussets on either side to hold them tightly together. The construction skills needed to build this fuselage consist of cutting the square tubes to proper length, along with using a band saw to shape the gussets to match the full-size templates included in the plans. As holes need to be carefully drilled through the gussets and square tubing for the AN bolts, I show a technique for match drilling these items so that everything lines up when finished. You should get the idea that there are no difficult tasks required—just some easy techniques and careful use of drills and saws.

Due to the two-dimensional ladder-type fuselage design, there can be enormous stress developed at each square tube and gusset junction. These in-flight stresses include tension, shear and twisting (torsion) between the connected tubes. The AN-4 bolts that hold these joints together provide more than enough strength to do the job. A problem that arose was that many builders inquired about substituting the AN bolts with rivets, and others wanted to just weld the gussets to the tube! It is reasonable and encouraging that builders question construction alternatives—maybe for saving weight or cost. However, I felt it was my job as a teacher to address these desires by new builders to divert from the plans so that the aircraft can remain safe and strong, as well as communicating the reasons for these decisions.

The tail end of the fuselage braced with diagonal tubes .

One of the Facebook forums used for information about the Affordaplane seems to entertain modifications to the plans. (I refuse to participate in this forum.) On repeated posts, “professional” welders explain how their welding expertise and industry experience results in an aluminum welded joint that is superior in strength compared to using AN bolts as depicted in the plans. Forum moderators have tried to explain that eliminating the bolts, regardless of how perfect a weld might be, will drastically reduce the joint strength that comes from the side-to-side load transfer that the bolts provide with their clamping strength on each side of the tube.

Simple, wire-braced landing gear with nylon wheels.

The same issue is found with substituting rivets. While most builders can understand this and respect the decision to never weld or rivet, others are vocal about not agreeing and telling the community that they know better. My concern about this forum is that future new builders will read these comments made by “professional” welders and believe that it is OK to skip the bolts. It is certainly OK to experiment with your own butt on the line, but giving life to the idea that this might work well for others is not something I want my project to be associated with! This is the nature of public forums. But when it comes to building airplanes, we should take special effort to guard the facts that ensure safety. Remember—ultralights do not get inspected by the FAA. This places a huge responsibility on the builder.

The desire to eliminate AN bolts is just one example of the many requests to modify the Affordaplane design on this forum. I am genuinely surprised at how often the topics of changing things come up—everything from making the wings longer for better performance to adding reinforcements to make the landing gear “better.” It seems like a full-time job for the moderators to explain that it is best to build the plane properly first before changing things!

Learning to respect the plans while building an aircraft seems to identify which builders will have a future for more complex aircraft projects. Desiring to make changes and questioning a design is a hallmark of Experimental aviation, but only when done responsibly by way of researching known principles first and then testing.

Some components of this design are left to the builder. For example, the pilot seat, wheels and gas tank are to be of the builder’s choosing. It is in selecting these items where too much weight can creep into the final project. Take, for example, the wheels. We know the weight and size can vary widely. I made some choices that I thought would provide a good compromise. You cannot know in advance if your choices will bust the 254-pound final weight limit. I did weigh each of these “optional” components for later reference in case I needed to choose something lighter.

The tailwheel spring is from a small utility trailer.

With the fuselage on its wheels, it was now time to construct the tail section along with the wings. Lots of round tubes of various diameters are used for these assemblies. However, these tubes need to be bent into shape following templates drawn on the table. We will discuss this building process in our next installment. Here, stainless steel rivets will now be our main choice of fastener. Plane and Simple! J

Compress Post ...

In a previous post,  introduced our video project for building the Affordaplane. To review, this is the plans-only project I demonstrated on YouTube for building an ultralight from raw materials. (You’ll find this free 50-part series here.) My objective was to build an “FAA-legal” ultralight using approved aircraft materials and techniques. This month, I will review some of the challenges encountered while building. My approach on making these videos was to show and explain to first-time builders how to take a set of plans and translate them into a series of steps for completing the project. From a construction standpoint this ultralight design is quite unusual in some ways and very traditional in others. The designer, Dave Edwards, had a goal of making sure the aircraft could be built by an amateur with common shop tools and readily available materials.

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A Seaplane You Can Afford; Aero Adventure Begins a New Chapter for the Aventura Line

By Dan Johnson || 4 Comments

Here’s the backdrop of today’s update on the LSA seaplane sector as summer approaches.

According to Law360, an online legal news source, “Light-Sport Aircraft manufacturer Icon Aircraft filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware bankruptcy court with more than $170 million in debt and plans for an asset sale and liquidation.” You may have read (here) that Icon got an initial offer of $13.5 million. As an industry contact told me for the earlier report, “That would hardly make a dent in their liabilities.” The person was right, it appears. A proposed new buyer referenced in the earlier article agreed to take on Icon’s debt but the sales must still go through an auction process, I was told.

OK, let’s come back to Earth… or water perhaps …or either. Aero Adventure continues to fly as it has for three decades (though management has changed at least three times over the period). For a tiny fraction of $13.5 million, much less $170 million, Aero Adventure has built a line of aircraft, including kit versions and an SLSA version. They’ve also offered the S-17 with (for that time) extraordinary horsepower.

Looking to the Global South

Recently editor Marc Cook offered news from Aero Adventure. His article spoke to new leadership but couldn’t go into much detail as little was provided. I reached out to  Alex Rolinski to fill in some blanks. He was traveling but we spoke a few days later.

The Big News — Aero Adventure is moving all production of the Aventura line to Brazil. If that sounds like a rather big move somewhat out of the blue, it’s really not.

As part of Aero Affinity — a group including several different enterprises in light aviation — one of the founding partners was Montaer Aircraft USA representing the MC series from Brazil. Aero Adventure, now in the business several decades, has made contact with people in many countries and found fertile ground in Brazil.

Alex Rolinski has been the leader of Aero Adventure for more than a decade; photo taken in 2013.

The country has been deep in aviation for many decades so it has a supply of experienced workers, engineers, and aviation-grade suppliers who work for less dollars than their counterparts in America. The so-called “global south” is rising in most standards but wages and salaries lag behind Europe or the USA. Aero Adventure is merely taking advantage of this asymmetry.

Alex Rolinski (L) partnered with Bristell importer Lou Mancuso when Lou wanted to add a seaplane. Photo taken in spring 2020 right before Covid hit.

Aero Adventure was able to snare several light-aircraft technicians due to the financial woes at Seamax (whose problems are covered in this article). A number of workers freshly employed are no doubt pleased.

They’ll be lead in Brazil by American Wesley Queiroz aided by sales manager Shawn Morgan, Alex informed me. They will manage a facility and personnel aiming for 12 kits a month in 2024, stepping up to 18 kits a year in 2025. These numbers sound very realistic and achievable yet insure a supply of much more affordable LSA seaplanes than anyone else. More on affordability below.

“We will also have a new operations person, however, we will be releasing the name at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh,” Alex finished.

The U.S. operation of Aero Affinity ranges widely through the light aircraft space and has entered somewhat larger aviation, no doubt a good direction to be going as we contemplate Mosaic LSA that require new expertise for equipment like retractable gear, adjustable props, alternate propulsion systems, and more. Last year Alex took factory training by Continental to perform service work on the Alabama company’s diesels as part of an agreement to assist Tecnam Aircraft with service for their broad lineup. The Italian company offers an aircraft with a diesel powerplant.

Meanwhile Aero Affinity also includes partner Doma Andreka of Magnus Aircraft. His Hungarian supplier this week announced a new deal to build aircraft in China though for what market these aircraft will be was not specified.

As to affordability, a regular focus of this website, Alex noted that a new Aventura fully-built SLSA model remains about $150,000,  significantly modest at a time when almost everything else you buy has gone higher. As we can all see at our grocery store or a gas pump, inflation has driven everything considerably higher in the 2020s. Honestly, though may not fit your budget, $150,000 qualifies as a bargain. Seriously, go price any other seaplane anywhere. You probably know an Icon A5 lists for more than $400,000. Then we have Mosaic LSA coming, but that’s another story…

Affordability in this age of inflation is a challenge not only for the consumer but for the producer. Their material costs have gone up. The challenge of finding labor is surprisingly difficult for many American businesses. This predicament is partly why Aero Adventure made the decision they did.

To hold prices from soaring even higher, this move by Aero Adventure makes economic sense. I’d bet they can also add new sales from South America.

Regardless of price questions, Aero Adventure appears to be one of the steadiest producers in the LSA seaplane sector along with Scoda Aeronautica and their Super Petrel XP.

Perhaps we’ll learn even more about this company on the move at AirVenture in just seven weeks!

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Here’s the backdrop of today’s update on the LSA seaplane sector as summer approaches. According to Law360, an online legal news source, “Light-Sport Aircraft manufacturer Icon Aircraft filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware bankruptcy court with more than $170 million in debt and plans for an asset sale and liquidation.” You may have read (here) that Icon got an initial offer of $13.5 million. As an industry contact told me for the earlier report, “That would hardly make a dent in their liabilities.” The person was right, it appears. A proposed new buyer referenced in the earlier article agreed to take on Icon’s debt but the sales must still go through an auction process, I was told. OK, let’s come back to Earth… or water perhaps …or either. Aero Adventure continues to fly as it has for three decades (though management has changed at least three times over the period).

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Chip Erwin and the TrueLite Mow the Lawn — And Then Go Flying! (UPDATED AGAIN!)

By Marc Cook || 2 Comments

 

In our original post, we linked to video of the TrueLite performing taxi tests. Now it’s done better: flying! See the new videos below as Chip Erwin documents the first flights of the TrueLite happening now in Florida.

Those of us looking for pure flying in lightweight form can’t help but be intrigued by the TrueLite ultralight, marketed here by Chip Erwin’s Aeromarine company. “The taxi test went fine. I didn’t have any airspeed reading so I’ll have to see what’s going on there,” Erwin says in the video. While the 36 hp Vittorazzi Cosmos 300 ran a bit hot during the taxi tests, he feels it was because it sat idling for 5 minutes before the test, saying that it cooled down once he got moving.

Here’s a sampling of videos related to the TrueLite.

 

 

 

Compress Post ...

  In our original post, we linked to video of the TrueLite performing taxi tests. Now it’s done better: flying! See the new videos below as Chip Erwin documents the first flights of the TrueLite happening now in Florida. Those of us looking for pure flying in lightweight form can’t help but be intrigued by the TrueLite ultralight, marketed here by Chip Erwin’s Aeromarine company. “The taxi test went fine. I didn’t have any airspeed reading so I’ll have to see what’s going on there,” Erwin says in the video. While the 36 hp Vittorazzi Cosmos 300 ran a bit hot during the taxi tests, he feels it was because it sat idling for 5 minutes before the test, saying that it cooled down once he got moving. Here’s a sampling of videos related to the TrueLite.      

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Crystal Balling — What Will Rotax Do Next?

By Marc Cook || 19 Comments

The Rotax 916 on the Carbon Cub UL (Jon Bliss photo).

Untethered prognostication is what you do waiting for the rain showers to blow through and the sun to reemerge on your long cross country. Me? I sorta do it for a living. (Such as that is.) And I get to do it often enough in front of people who work deep in the industry to see if I’ve landed close to the truth. Like playing Battleship with engineers and PR people.

My latest prognostication jag centers on what’s next for Rotax. And it’s driven by a feeling that there’s no time to waste moving up the horsepower ladder. Here’s my argument.

First, the traditional engine manufacturers have still not recovered from what they say are pandemic-related supply-chain issues, which causes huge delays in deliveries and helps drive prices quite high. In the Experimental realm, where I also live, new engines have become exceptionally more expensive, leading some builders to reassess their budgets and stop their projects where they stand.

Second, Rotax has scored a big hit with the 916. Yes, it’s also expensive, but that extra increment from 141 to 160 hp has opened the door to new performance in several designs that were good on the 915 but are significantly better with the newer engine. Some of those airplanes would be even better with more power.

Third, Rotax takes the world view that its products have to work around the globe, which means they can’t depend on 100-octane fuel. In the next slot up, which I’ll call the 200-220 hp range, we basically have traditional aircraft engines that require big octane to make power. You could, of course, run an even bigger Lyconsaurus at a lower compression ratio but the power-to-weight figures get even uglier. So a Rotax product at this power level that could use, say, the equivalent of a high-octane auto gas (as the 916 does) would be a huge win and provide owners with the option of using auto gas, the currently available 94-octane unleaded avgas that’s sparsely available or something else. Point being that any future engine should be not designed to require 100LL.

Some Perspective

It’s worth looking at where the Rotax line currently fits to help see a potential future. Of course, the 900-series engines are small four-stroke, flat-four engines with a gear reduction drive and liquid-cooled heads. The gear drive allows these small engines, which displace just under 83 cubic inches, to rev higher and make more horsepower. Our traditional engines, unburdened by gearboxes are, in effect, burdened by the inability to rev much higher than 2700-2900 rpm with any usefully sized propeller. As anyone who bases at an airport with a Cessna 185 present, as I am, you know that a big Continental spinning 2850 rpm for takeoff with a large propeller is a gloriously noisy thing. But it’s not something you’d aim for with modern sensibilities or worldwide acceptance in mind.

Continental’s IO-520: Big, slow turning.

By gearing the 900-series engines, Rotax allowed them to make more power than their displacement suggests but also to turn their propellers more slowly, which is good for noise and, to some extent, aerodynamics. The downside is weight and complexity, but the relative simplicity of the 900-series engines and their small size more than makes up for it. More advantages to the 900-series designs include modern combustion chambers—especially compared to the ancient chambers found in parallel-valve Continental and Lycoming engines, a good reason these engines need high-octane fuel to make decent power—and liquid cooling. In short, you can run a modern design harder—more compression ratio, more turbo boost—before destructive detonation begins to impact power and the liquid cooling further adds to the detonation margin.

So, What Should Rotax Build?

Let’s get back to the assumption that Rotax needs to build an engine in the 200-220 hp range. (I’ll set aside for now the need for a 300-hp-class engine but not completely ignore it.) I believe the 900 series as we know it has reached its limits. Consider this: The 912 iS makes 100 hp without a turbo on just under 83 cubic inches, which is 1.2 hp per cubic inch—itself more than double the power density of a Lycoming. It needs to make 91 pound-feet of torque at 5800 rpm to do so, and that requires a BMEP (brake mean effective pressure) in the combustion chamber of 165 psi to get there. While the horsepower-per-displacement number seems impressive, that’s actually a modest BMEP, or about what a 180-hp Lycoming runs. Clearly the 912 iS isn’t working all that hard.

Everyone’s fave: The 100-hp Rotax 912 iS.

But the 916 is. With 160 hp on tap for takeoff (limited to 5 minutes, then it’s 137 continuous), it’s working really hard. First of all, power-per-cube is a really impressive 1.93 hp/cubic inch. For that power, the engine has to make 145 foot-pounds of torque at 5800 rpm, a big jump from the 912’s figures, and that requires a BMEP of 263 psi. That is a huge number, one that really stresses the engine’s ability to resist detonation, which it surely only does through strict electronic control. If you’re old enough to remember the Cosworth DFV Formula 1 engine, you may be surprised to know it made its 500-ish-hp on a BMEP of just 230 psi. Oh, how our heroes have fallen. (And, yes, I know the DFV was not turbocharged…)

Where do we go from here if the current 916 is right on the hairy edge of power production from its displacement? Well, you make it bigger. We’ve all seen the April Fool’s photos of the 912 Photoshopped into a six-cylinder but I personally think Rotax will go with a bigger four. Why? Parts count, mainly. Yes, there are good reasons to have six smaller instead of four larger cylinders, mainly for smoothness. But the manufacturing cost difference in cylinder assemblies of different dimensions is virtually zero. So the fact that the six-banger has one-third more of them only adds to weight and cost. (Though it should be said that if you’re thinking of retrofitting aircraft originally designed for Lycoming engines, weight isn’t quite the enemy you think it is.)

The Lockwood 915-powered RV-9A required a long nose for weight and balance.

No, I think it’s going to be a bigger four. And knowing that Rotax is a naturally conservative company, I’m thinking incremental from the 900 series. Back-of-the-napkin thinking has a four-cylinder flat engine with a 4.0-inch bore and 2.85-inch stroke. Why? Because this is close to the bore/stroke ratio Rotax uses in the 912 and because the shorter stroke allows the engine to continue to be geared. And if you take the average piston speed seen in the 900-series and apply that to our hypothetical 143 cubic inch engine, you’d have to limit max rpm to 5200.

I’m already way out on the limb so I might as well continue. This hypothetical engine could make 180 hp naturally aspirated on a bit more BMEP than the 912 iS musters. But turbocharged, 220 hp seems easily achievable and even, if you ran this engine as hard as Rotax does the 916, it could theoretically make 250 hp running the same BMEP of 263 psi.

Of course, not everything scales the same way. There’s more internal friction in a larger engine even if the average piston speed is the same—you have more ring area to drag around. And there are countless other interactions that people who do this for a living know about, can predict with the help of a computer and eventually discover when they actually build and test prototypes.

It’s worth noting that Rotax is not the only player in this space. The ULPower 520T engine is impressive in its own right. It’s a 321 cubic inch six-cylinder engine with, like the Rotax, two pushrod-operated valves per cylinder. (Truly, until you decide you need high revs, a two-valve head is plenty; until then, you’re just adding weight and complexity.) The 520T uses a modest amount of boost, just 38 inches for takeoff, and makes 220 hp at 2700 rpm. To do so, it’s making a phenomenal 428 pound-feet of torque from an almost-square bore/stroke ratio of 1.056:1. Heck, even a Lycoming is more “over square” than that, with a bore/stroke ratio of 1.717:1.

The ULPower’s BMEP is a modest 201 psi, above the naturally aspirated Rotax 912’s but well short of the turbo Rotaxes. I think in part this has to do with the ULPower being air cooled. No matter how nice the fins and effective your air-cooling scheme is, it’s really hard to beat the efficiency of liquid cooling. The offset is the weight and complexity of a cooling system, of course, but you have the opportunity to make much more power from any given displacement.

All this discussion is merely educated guessing. I’m 100% sure Rotax is working on an engine in the next horsepower class up. Maybe two classes up. And for all I know they could design the next engine with a more conventional up/down intake and exhaust system that would allow them to make both four- and six-cylinder versions with the same cylinders. I’m also fairly sure Rotax will take a careful approach. The 900 series has been around for more than three decades, carefully developed and curated in that time to double the power output. I don’t see a 400-hp, fire-breathing, flat-eight breaking cover, but I’d be mighty impressed if they did it.

What are your thoughts? 

 

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Untethered prognostication is what you do waiting for the rain showers to blow through and the sun to reemerge on your long cross country. Me? I sorta do it for a living. (Such as that is.) And I get to do it often enough in front of people who work deep in the industry to see if I’ve landed close to the truth. Like playing Battleship with engineers and PR people. My latest prognostication jag centers on what’s next for Rotax. And it’s driven by a feeling that there’s no time to waste moving up the horsepower ladder. Here’s my argument. First, the traditional engine manufacturers have still not recovered from what they say are pandemic-related supply-chain issues, which causes huge delays in deliveries and helps drive prices quite high. In the Experimental realm, where I also live, new engines have become exceptionally more expensive, leading some builders to reassess their budgets and stop their projects where they stand.

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Looking Back to See Ahead — Dan Johnson Recalls the Beginning of the LSA Movement

By Marc Cook || 7 Comments

As we move toward MOSAIC as a new reality in the Light Sport/Sport Pilot world, it’s worth knowing how we got here. MOSAIC does, after all, leverage right off of the success of the LSA category. In this casual conversation, I chat with Dan Johnson about the early days of LSA and get some questions answered on how some decisions came to be made.

 

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As we move toward MOSAIC as a new reality in the Light Sport/Sport Pilot world, it’s worth knowing how we got here. MOSAIC does, after all, leverage right off of the success of the LSA category. In this casual conversation, I chat with Dan Johnson about the early days of LSA and get some questions answered on how some decisions came to be made.  

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New Buyer for Icon Reported — What Happens Now?

By Dan Johnson || Leave a Comment

Icon is a global enterprise. While its headquarters remains in Vacaville, California, fabrication is done in Mexico, and ownership is in China. For some years, this American start-up has benefitted from Chinese investment.

How much investment has this California company attracted? Numbers I’ve been quoted vary enormously but all estimates run into many millions of dollars. If these guesses are even close to accurate, Icon has generated more investment funding than nearly any LSA producer. Only one outstrips them. That was a reported $200 million sale of Pipistrel to Textron, owner of Cessna and other aviation brands. I hope the aerospace conglomerate got all they hoped for because that is a super-premium valuation for any LSA company, even one as tech-savvy as Pipistrel.

Icon has performed reasonably well in recent years (“200 Delivered” report) but prior investments in the company require sales volumes that are difficult to reach, especially with a $400,000 price tag. The drag of all that debt caused the company to stall, financially.

This lead to Icon entering bankruptcy (see “stalking horse” article).

A Buyer Emerges

In a fairly short time, a new buyer emerged, one still headquartered in China. A $13.5 million bid was reported by Yicai Global, a Chinese news source (original article in English).

Yicai reported on May 22, 2024 that “shares of stock in Shang Gong Group soared to the exchange-imposed limit after the Chinese sewing machine maker and logistics service provider said that it will invest $13.5 million to buy insolvent US light airplane maker Icon Aircraft and take on its debt.”

Yicai reported, “Shang Gong set up a subsidiary in the US as a stalking horse bidder to negotiate an asset purchase agreement with Icon Aircraft.” The Shanghai-based stock company said that funds would be used “to acquire selected assets from the Vacaville, California-based company and its three affiliated firms.” The “affiliated” firms were not identified and the news source did not respond to an email inquiry.

“As the assets will be sold by auction, Shang Gong will bid against any other competitors and the actual transaction cost may be higher than the current offer price,” Yicai continued.

This picture gets more convoluted.

“Icon Aircraft, whose main production base is in Mexico and which employs 313 people, is owned by a shareholder of Shang Gong called Shanghai Puke Feiren,” Yicai reported. The shareholder is an investment company with a diverse portfolio.

Shang Gong Group manufactures sewing machines. Image from Yicai Global

“The takeover will help Shang Gong branch into the manufacturing of carbon fiber products … and carbon fiber structural parts,” Yicai wrote. Similar to Textron admiring the pioneering work Pipistrel had done with electric propulsion, Shang Gong may prize Icon’s knowledge of working with carbon fiber, used to fabricate most of an A5 LSA seaplane. Since it was established in 2006, Icon has designed and produced using carbon fiber to keep weight light.

Icon’s carbon fiber fabrication experience combined with Shang Gong’s “world-class technology in the stitching and cutting of carbon fiber composite materials,” allows the Chinese firm to provide “a one-stop solution integrating design, development and production,” surmised Yicai in their article.

Great, but what about Icon A5 aircraft?

Too Like Textron?
Why Conglomerates Buy…

The production and sale of Icon A5 aircraft will likely remain primarily an American activity. As I researched this story, an always-reliable contact, Chi-Tai Hsieh of AeroJones Aviation, informed me, “The whole of China is very keen on the so-called low-altitude economy at present.” However, he clarified, “China is basically focusing on eVTOL. Traditional aircraft do not really attract too much attention.”

The market for recreational aircraft like Icon A5 is very small in China. The country leans toward practical solutions like transportation rather than leisure flying, although any opening of the lower-altitude airspace might quickly change that situation.

“Since the end of last year, the Chinese government has incorporated low-altitude economy into its policies, so now almost any company wants to have something to do with aviation,” Tai explained.

In our exchange, Tai and I agreed that the idea of eVTOLs may be technically achievable now, at least to some range of operation, but public acceptance of this aircraft development may still take years.

Meanwhile… Icon and its sleek A5 will continue in operation, the company has assured. Other sources I consulted were dubious about the $13.5 million investment being enough to rescue Icon, given the weight of servicing all prior investments. Only in time will we know for sure.

Americans who own an A5 aircraft are in no jeopardy, Icon assures. Sales and service will continue.

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Icon is a global enterprise. While its headquarters remains in Vacaville, California, fabrication is done in Mexico, and ownership is in China. For some years, this American start-up has benefitted from Chinese investment. How much investment has this California company attracted? Numbers I’ve been quoted vary enormously but all estimates run into many millions of dollars. If these guesses are even close to accurate, Icon has generated more investment funding than nearly any LSA producer. Only one outstrips them. That was a reported $200 million sale of Pipistrel to Textron, owner of Cessna and other aviation brands. I hope the aerospace conglomerate got all they hoped for because that is a super-premium valuation for any LSA company, even one as tech-savvy as Pipistrel. Icon has performed reasonably well in recent years (“200 Delivered” report) but prior investments in the company require sales volumes that are difficult to reach, especially with a $400,000 price tag.

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So, You Want to Build An Ultralight?

By Jon Croke || 8 Comments

Ever consider what it might be like building an ultralight? But first, how do ultralights fit into the arena of “regular” Experimental airplanes like the ones featured in KITPLANES Magazine and other Light Sport Aircraft found on this website? For those not familiar with the technicalities of an ultralight, allow me to briefly summarize the details of what defines an ultralight. Then we’ll consider how they complement their larger brothers.

Printed plans and manual with a completed ultralight on the cover.

While you may hear pilots and builders use the term ultralight to describe a small, light aircraft in general terms, the FAA has very specific rules as to what constitutes an ultralight. Full details are spelled out in Part 103 of the FARs, but here are the highlights.

An ultralight has a single seat (pilot-only capable), an empty weight of no more than 254 pounds and a maximum speed of 63 mph. So, if you ever see a small plane with more than one seat, or one that obviously weighs more than 254 pounds, that aircraft does not meet the legal criteria of an ultralight.

In addition, an ultralight does not receive an airworthy certificate from the FAA (so it is never inspected) and does not require a pilot’s certificate to fly. (Be careful with that rule!)

I think the idea of an airplane you can build without FAA involvement and fly without a license is very appealing. The ultralight regulations are truly an amazing privilege in the U.S. and allow many people to experience and experiment with flying.

Gussets are cut from aluminum sheet stock using actual-size templates included in the plans.

This brings me to how ultralights fit in with other aircraft. I contend that ultralights are a gateway for people who are toying with the idea of building and flying larger kit aircraft. Many an ultralight enthusiast has gone on to build a full-size Experimental. At the other end of the spectrum, ultralights allow experienced pilots and builders to fly inexpensively without medicals, licenses or yearly condition inspections. It’s flying—just for fun.

While there are many ultralight kits available, there are not a lot of plansbuilt choices. After some research, I settled on a design that offers a complete set of plans on paper or electronically in PDF format. It is called the Affordaplane and it was created by Dave Edwards.

You can learn about the Affordaplane at www.affordaplane.com, and more research can be done via Google. I was attracted by the evidence of more than 20 years of flying history, along with YouTube demonstrations. I admit that I did not invest too much effort in researching this choice, but the $20 cost for the set of plans allowed me to dive right in for the purchase. What followed was an order to Aircraft Spruce for some tubing and the start of a journey of building. Raw materials, along with my prior kitbuilding experience, allowed me to scratch build a flying ultralight just like the plans promised within a year.

A stack of raw materials ready for inventory.

I had a secondary purpose for taking on this build. You see, I began my own flying and building skills by way of the ultralight. I had built and flown two ultralight kits before obtaining my private pilot ticket back in the 1990s. I was aware that others could also benefit in this manner and eventually move on to bigger and more challenging avenues with Experimental planes. I felt that if I could show others how to assemble an ultralight aircraft using the same materials and techniques that an FAA-inspected Experimental aircraft needs to earn an airworthy certificate, then I would be providing others with an example that could pave the way to building larger flying machines.

For instance, as the Affordaplane is not a kit and fasteners are not supplied, it is easy for the novice builder to consider using hardware store nuts and bolts. The plans do specify AN hardware—but a new builder may not know or consider why this is critical. My experience with Experimental aircraft construction could allow me to explain and demonstrate proper parts and techniques required at each step of this ultralight build.

Gussets are bolted together on both sides of a 2×2-inch square aluminum tube.

How best to share my construction techniques and demonstrations while building this ultralight? The answer was YouTube! I made it a goal to film and explain every step of building, which created a series that anyone could follow if they also wanted to build this machine. About one video per week was my pace (I was building behind the scenes in real time) and then I summarized and demonstrated the effort needed for each step. In approximately one year, the entire ultralight was finished and flown (just a crowhop; I am not a flight instructor and that was the extent of flying demonstrations from me). This 50-part series is free of charge to watch on YouTube.

The fuselage is constructed on a table. A full-size layout is drawn on the table prior to assembly.

Perhaps the most important requirement of any plansbuilt ultralight is meeting the legal weight requirement of FAR Part 103—less than 254 pounds. It is both a building and design challenge to make sure things are created strong and light. It wasn’t easy, but I always kept this goal in mind. There was no way to know in advance if I was successful until the last part was installed and the weight and balance recorded.

In future columns I’ll discuss some of the problems I faced while building the Affordaplane. Whether you have time to watch the videos or just fast-forward through several of them, you’ll get an idea of the skills needed to complete the project. Drilling, cutting, riveting, crimping, fabric covering and lots of AN hardware assembly are all required. These tasks are no different whether building an ultralight or a complex Experimental aircraft. Plane and simple!

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Ever consider what it might be like building an ultralight? But first, how do ultralights fit into the arena of “regular” Experimental airplanes like the ones featured in KITPLANES Magazine and other Light Sport Aircraft found on this website? For those not familiar with the technicalities of an ultralight, allow me to briefly summarize the details of what defines an ultralight. Then we’ll consider how they complement their larger brothers. While you may hear pilots and builders use the term ultralight to describe a small, light aircraft in general terms, the FAA has very specific rules as to what constitutes an ultralight. Full details are spelled out in Part 103 of the FARs, but here are the highlights. An ultralight has a single seat (pilot-only capable), an empty weight of no more than 254 pounds and a maximum speed of 63 mph. So, if you ever see a small plane with more than one seat, or one that obviously weighs more than 254 pounds, that aircraft does not meet the legal criteria of an ultralight.

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Amphib Dreams — Aero Adventure To Get New Leadership

By Marc Cook || 8 Comments

Editor’s Note: This news release came across our (virtual) desks today and we feel it’s of interest to provide this update now. However, our man Dan Johnson has arranged to speak with current CEO Alex Rolinski in the next few days to get more detail on these changes and what to look for from Aero Adventure in the near future.

Change is coming to Aero Adventure, maker of the Aventura amphibs. According to the company, “this month, our company will be under…new leadership. With a highly experienced and respected professional team, the company is about to enter a new era of innovation and expansion.”

The company has already been making progress. “Since the beginning of 2022, we have focused on solidifying and accelerating our production process, our new team has taken us to the next level. We changed the production process, adding state-of-the-art CNC equipment. Today, we have a production capacity of 18 kits per year and plan to expand to 24 kits by 2025.”

Modifications to the Aventura are on the way as well. “We will soon be launching updates such as: a new wing for the AVENTURA SLSA version, with ribs, a fiberglass leading edge, and complete covering,” the company says. “This will increase aerodynamic efficiency by reducing drag. The tail will also undergo significant modifications, as well as the windshield!”

Aero Adventure has also “expanded our operations around the world, with representatives in Europe (Poland), Asia/Oceania (Australia), and South America (Brazil).”

 

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Editor’s Note: This news release came across our (virtual) desks today and we feel it’s of interest to provide this update now. However, our man Dan Johnson has arranged to speak with current CEO Alex Rolinski in the next few days to get more detail on these changes and what to look for from Aero Adventure in the near future. Change is coming to Aero Adventure, maker of the Aventura amphibs. According to the company, “this month, our company will be under…new leadership. With a highly experienced and respected professional team, the company is about to enter a new era of innovation and expansion.” The company has already been making progress. “Since the beginning of 2022, we have focused on solidifying and accelerating our production process, our new team has taken us to the next level. We changed the production process, adding state-of-the-art CNC equipment. Today, we have a production capacity of 18 kits per year and plan to expand to 24 kits by 2025.” Modifications to the Aventura are on the way as well.

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Like Phoenix Rising, Belite Chipper Returns to Production by SkyKicker Aviation

By Dan Johnson || 2 Comments

Welcome back to the airplane equivalent of an old friend. As you can see at the bottom of this post, Videoman Dave and I did many video interviews with Chipper creator. James Weibe (view at bottom). Pilots seemed always to enjoy hearing about his latest development.

James came to aviation from the computer business, where the pace isn’t fast — it’s furious! Over the years Dave and I covered James and his output, we’d make a new video at every airshow, it seemed, as he had moved on from the last design to the next. That’s what they do in the world of computers but it made pilots’ heads spin.

It also probably slowed sales because, as with computers, why buy this airplane when the next one will be even better?

It Began with Kitfox Lite

James started out with the Kitfox Lite single place Part 103 ultralight vehicle. Current Kitfox owners did not plan to pursue the single seater that Kitfox founder Dan Denney had created years earlier. So when James came calling, they sold that particular design.

James founded Belite and began with ideas about carbon fiber tube airframes. It was a marvelous, modern, even exotic idea but it was quite unorthodox for most builders. Plus, in those days, carbon fiber was expensive and a Part 103 aircraft needed to be affordable.

James went on to variations on the theme changing so frequently that he produced few or none of the development models. While he may not have sold large numbers, his fast progress kept the curiosity of pilots sky high. He regularly drew crowds at events.

A caffein-stimulated fury of designs finally seemed to settle down when Pipper came out.

“Pipper,” you ask? Yep, that was the original name until Piper Aircraft sent him a letter on expensive lawyer office stationery. He wisely renamed the design Chipper; problem solved (and it’s a better name, most agreed).

Even then, James kept making changes, ever improving the product like an engineer does. Images with this article reflect Chipper STOL, although Chipper 2 coming later this year will have all of James’ last refinements to the aircraft.

As Belite and James began to gear up for Chipper production, a most unfortunate fire destroyed costly inventory and lots of intellectual property while damaging tooling. It was a devastating loss. Ever the professional, James forged on for a while but the blow had been heavy. Eventually, he chose to exit the airplane business and that’s where SkyKicker comes into the picture.

Welcome SkyKicker

On my visit to Dunnellon airport (X35), I met and got to know Nick and Charlotte Jones. This attractive, young couple have merged their skill sets in an intriguing manner and got so excited about Chipper that they decided to buy not just one kit, but the whole company.

Nick and Charlotte Jones of SkyKicker Aviation

They have set up shop in one of Dunnellon’s 40 new T-hangars and are at work to prepare the design for production, sale, and kit-builder support. Although the design had been well developed, assembly manuals need work and the couple has various plans to make the builder project easier and faster.

A typical acrobatic scene from Cirque du Soleil (photo courtesy). Nick performed for 20 years, retiring at age 35.

For Cirque du Soleil, Nick performed acrobatic acts and physical feats for more than 20 years. Now that tremendous bundle of energy is being poured into aviation. His enthusiasm and broad smile are infectious.

His wife Charlotte brings strong business skills to the partnership that will set them apart from many other “mom-and-pop” enterprises in recreational aviation. No question, these two are in it together and they form a complimentary team.

The pair is at an early stage of the development in this project. SkyKicker’s website is in process. However, given a design that has already proven itself, and adding the high level of energy Nick and Charlotte are bringing to the task, I doubt it will be long before Chipper becomes a product on the market.

Until their business is fully established, you can contact them by email or phone: 352-322-4520.

Meanwhile, the video below will tell you more about Nick and Charlotte and what they plan for SkyKicker Aviation.

Just For Fun

One of the most fascinating stories from James Weibe’s efforts lead to a starring role on the Myth Busters TV show. This article tells more.

The episode discussed how an Alaska pilot had repaired his aircraft after a bear attacked it and clawed the fabric covering in several places (see simulated bear claw). The pilot made repairs with — you guessed it! — duct tape, and flew home successfully.

To test this pilot’s claim in their characteristic manner, the Myth Busters team got one of James’ airplanes and covered every cloth surface using duct tape (genuine image, not Photoshopped). James successfully flew it for them, though “not very long and not very high.”

The show generated so much interest that Belite’s website crashed for a few hours.

ARTICLE LINKS:

Here’s a fresh video about SkyKicker Aviation and their plans to return Chipper to production, recorded in late April 2024.

Going back to James Wiebe’s development of Chipper, following are two of the most popular videos from Light Sport and Ultralight Flyer, Videoman Dave’s YouTube channel.

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Welcome back to the airplane equivalent of an old friend. As you can see at the bottom of this post, Videoman Dave and I did many video interviews with Chipper creator. James Weibe (view at bottom). Pilots seemed always to enjoy hearing about his latest development. James came to aviation from the computer business, where the pace isn’t fast — it’s furious! Over the years Dave and I covered James and his output, we’d make a new video at every airshow, it seemed, as he had moved on from the last design to the next. That’s what they do in the world of computers but it made pilots’ heads spin. It also probably slowed sales because, as with computers, why buy this airplane when the next one will be even better? It Began with Kitfox Lite James started out with the Kitfox Lite single place Part 103 ultralight vehicle. Current Kitfox owners did not plan to pursue the single seater that Kitfox founder Dan Denney had created years earlier.

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Reorganization Approved: Van’s Emerges From Chapter 11

By Marc Cook || 3 Comments

While the world of LSAs is diverse enough that the trials of Van’s Aircraft, which put itself into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late last year, aren’t quite the foundational matters they are among the homebuilt crowd, the fact that Van’s is represented with the popular RV-12 and companies that support it are also part of the LSA ecosystem suggests more than a little spillover. In the background, Van’s has been working hard to reset its business and emerge from Chapter 11. And on May 15 the company received good news in the form of an Oregon judge approving the company’s reorganization plan. While it seemed unlikely, there was always the possibility that the court would reject or modify the company’s proposal.

In the proposal, Van’s has agreed to repay unsecured creditors 55% of the money they’re owed over three years on top of an “immediate” repayment of $3350 for those in the unsecured creditor class. It’s important to note that this class of creditor mainly includes customers who had deposits with the company when it began Chapter 11 protection and who also declined revised purchase agreements that came with an increase in kit and component costs of about 30%. According to filed documents, around 82% of those affected builders agreed to the new agreement, which dramatically reduced the pool of unsecured creditors.

In the reorganization plan submitted to the court, Van’s said it “must show that it will have enough cash over the life of the Plan to make the required Plan payments and operate its business. Debtor’s [Van’s] primary revenue sources for the next three years will come from the sale of its eight different kit airplanes, one model of production ready-to-fly plane, and one future backcountry airplane kit.”

The ready-to-fly airplane is the RV-12, of course, and the backcountry model is the RV-15, which the company also feels could make an excellent MOSAIC airplane down the road. Van’s has also committed to a corporate reorganization and implementation of a scalable MRP (material requirements planning) software suite that will give it much better visibility to real costs than it had before—all key requirements of a company projecting gross revenues of $69.5 million to $73.5 million per year between now and mid-2027.

It’s interesting to note that Van’s had begun increasing the RV-12’s production rate through the 2021-23 time period (it filed for Chapter 11 in October 2023), fr

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While the world of LSAs is diverse enough that the trials of Van’s Aircraft, which put itself into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late last year, aren’t quite the foundational matters they are among the homebuilt crowd, the fact that Van’s is represented with the popular RV-12 and companies that support it are also part of the LSA ecosystem suggests more than a little spillover. In the background, Van’s has been working hard to reset its business and emerge from Chapter 11. And on May 15 the company received good news in the form of an Oregon judge approving the company’s reorganization plan. While it seemed unlikely, there was always the possibility that the court would reject or modify the company’s proposal. In the proposal, Van’s has agreed to repay unsecured creditors 55% of the money they’re owed over three years on top of an “immediate” repayment of $3350 for those in the unsecured creditor class.

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Affordable Aeromarine Merlin LSA — What’s New?

By William “Bill” Ramey Jr. || 4 Comments

When thinking of affordable aviation, it’s impossible not to talk about the Aeromarine Merlin LSA. This aircraft is a familiar design for many, as it made its premier in 2016. We’ve talked about it here several times. There have been some exciting changes and updates, a few of which we learned about last month at Sun ’n Fun.

The Aeromarine designed and built 60-hp V-twin liquid cooled four-cycle engine now comes as the standard powerplant. This is a modern engine with electronic ignition, electronic fuel injection and an electric starter. Merlin says this engine will cut fuel consumption at cruise to an average of 2.5 gph, approximately 50% less than the Rotax 582. The Rotax engine is still available as option for those builders that prefer.

The Aeromarine Merlin LSA will also feature as standard a deluxe MGL 8.5-inch EFIS with ADS-B In and Out (FIS-B) avionics panel, elevating your flying experience to the 21st century. Aeromarine designs and builds all of the switches, circuit boards, wiring, and breaker panels; all of which are included in the build.

Even with all the updates and changes, the Aeromarine Merlin is still designed for easy assembly. Aeromarine uses precision-matched holes with their Merlin kit, which means that all aluminum skin parts come pre-drilled, so the builder simply begins pulling rivets. Additionally, you get a complete kit with everything you need to build you dream aircraft! The aircraft is designed as a quick-build kit, allowing customers to assemble it themselves in the least amount of time with the least amount of complexity. The Merlin quick-build kit (E/A-B) has already been inspected and approved by the FAA and posted to the approved kit list showing that it already meets the 51% kit build standard. This should streamline the FAA (or DAR) inspection processes.

Aeromarine also offers a builder’s assistance program that can help customers assemble the aircraft in just one week, even with all the new and exciting solid-state upgrades. This program is a great option for those who want to complete their build quickly while still getting hands-on experience, and with expert guidance and direction during construction, while still enjoying the experience and satisfaction of building their aircraft.

In terms of performance, the Merlin has a cruising speed of up to 104 kts, with a VNE of 130 knots, making it suitable for recreational flying, sightseeing trips, and even short commutes. Even with a full fuel load of 12 gallons (72 pounds), the Merlin can accommodate a reasonable-size pilot of up to 228 pounds with the standard configuration. At 2.5 gph of fuel consumption with the Aeromarine V-Twin engine, this aircraft will likely out-endure your bladder, even at less than maximum fuel load. The Merlin is even equipped with a BRS Parachute recovery system, adding an extra layer of safety and peace of mind for the pilot and their family.

Overall, the Aeromarine Merlin is an excellent choice for pilots seeking an affordable, easy-to-fly, and high-performance LSA. The combination of affordability, ease of operation, and strong performance make it a compelling option for a pilot looking for a modern and affordable aircraft.

The complete Merlin package, including the builder-assistance package, is $55,250.

Compress Post ...

When thinking of affordable aviation, it’s impossible not to talk about the Aeromarine Merlin LSA. This aircraft is a familiar design for many, as it made its premier in 2016. We’ve talked about it here several times. There have been some exciting changes and updates, a few of which we learned about last month at Sun ’n Fun. The Aeromarine designed and built 60-hp V-twin liquid cooled four-cycle engine now comes as the standard powerplant. This is a modern engine with electronic ignition, electronic fuel injection and an electric starter. Merlin says this engine will cut fuel consumption at cruise to an average of 2.5 gph, approximately 50% less than the Rotax 582. The Rotax engine is still available as option for those builders that prefer. The Aeromarine Merlin LSA will also feature as standard a deluxe MGL 8.5-inch EFIS with ADS-B In and Out (FIS-B) avionics panel, elevating your flying experience to the 21st century.

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