Before Cessna announced its
light-sport aircraft (LSA) prototype,
the Wichita, Kansas-based
aircraft manufacturer investigated the
airplanes produced by Costruzioni
Aeronautiche Tecnam, aka Tecnam.
Cessna’s interest was likely stimulated
by Tecnam’s 50-year history of
aircraft manufacturing. The company
traces its roots to 1950 and the P48B
Astore. You may also be familiar with
its twin-engine Partenavia series of
aircraft that emerged in the 1970s.
The Pascale brothers founded
Costruzioni Aeronautiche Tecnam
just after World War II, but the company
was reorganized in 1986. Based
today in Casoria, Italy, Tecnam is a
large operation with 36,000 square
feet of facilities near the Naples Capodichino
airport.
A second facility is located
in Capua, where the final assembly
line is adjacent to
an airport where flight tests
are conducted. “Professor”
Luigi Pascale, the 82-yearold
patriarch of Tecnam,
remains the guiding light
of the company. He reportedly
still does all first flights of Tecnam
airplanes. The company’s design approach
is backed with the latest Catia
V5 software, wind tunnel tests, and
close associations with Italian aero
institutes and universities.
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FK Lightplanes’ Feature-Laden Fk9 Mk IV
This airplane began life under
B&F Technik Vertriebs GmbH,
a name derived from partners
Dirk Breitkreuz and Peter Funk, who
started the commercial enterprise.
Now, Funk operates the company on
his own and has adopted the worldlier
and less cumbersome name Fk-
Leichtflugzeuge, its English translation
being Fk-Lightplanes. U.S.
distributor Tony Anderson named
his enterprise Fk-Lightplanes USA.
Based in Pembroke Pines, Florida,
Fk-Lightplanes USA calls North Perry
Airport home.
The Funk name is storied in European
light aircraft development,
with more than a dozen original designs
to its credit. Fk-Lightplanes today
produces three airplanes, each
quite different from the other: our
subject airplane this month-the
high-wing Fk9, the low-wing Fk14
Polaris, and a folding-wing biplane
called the Fk12 Comet. I’ve had the
pleasure of flying all three models,
but I think the Fk9 may prove most
popular with American LSA enthusiasts.
Though designed and refined in
Speyer, Germany, the Fk9 and its siblings
are now fabricated in Poland by
workers with decades of experience
building Soviet fighters and transports.
New Look for Xair Import; Xair H
UPDATE 2008: The following article preceded the arrival of the X-Air LS offered by X-Air LSA, certified in 2008 as a Special Light-Sport Aircraft under ASTM standards. The article below appears unchanged from the original, but the airframe is essentially identical. So, while panel changes were made along with a few minor updates, flying qualities reported in the following article should largely match that of the new LSA version.
It was Tax Day, April 15, and I prepared to fly an Xair H (N#929XH) owned by importer Bill Magrini of Light Wing Aircraft. It seemed an appropriate day to forget about what I owed the Internal Revenue Service and to enjoy some ultralight flying. Fortunately, the Xair H didn’t disappoint.
The Xair H isn’t the designer or fabricator’s name for the new plane. When I first saw the then-prototype design at a French airshow in ’02, the new model was named Hanuman, which means little to American pilots.
Jay Kurtz and His RV-9 ELSA!
Jay Kurtz is the owner of South Lakeland airport (X49), where vendors often conduct customer demonstration flights a mere four miles away from Sun ‘n Fun. A longtime participant in ultralight aviation, Jay’s built RANS models, Capella designs, and a “regular” RV-9A. But it’s his second RV-9 that really has him revved up; this one is can be flown by a Sport Pilot! Not possible? Too fast and too heavy? Wrong! Jay’s RV-9 ELSA weighs 906 pounds empty and is headed to 875 pounds with planned weight savings. Powered by a 108-hp Lycoming O-235, speed is prop controlled to reach 134 mph at max continuous power. *** With the required 10 hours now flown off Jay can use the ELSA like any other Light-Sport Aircraft. And he reports the weight reductions to stay under 1,320 pounds gross transformed the ‘9 ELSA. “I approach at 60 mph, 20 slower than the RV-9A!” Jay also raved about handling and slow speed flight characteristics.
Cessna Sport Sports a New Nose Job
Sun ‘n Fun 2007 brought several interesting announcements; you’ll want to keep reading SPLOG in the days ahead. One surprise was what Cessna did with the Sport, their possible entry into the LSA field. Comments ranged from, “Now, that’s the right engine to use” to “What an ugly cowling” to other vivid expressions. Cessna shoehorned a 100-hp O-200 Continental into their proof-of-concept LSA entry (still with a spartan interior). Well, truthfully, it doesn’t look like much shoehorning happened. Instead, to accommodate the Continental, Sport’s nose cowling now bulges like a weightlifter. The O-200 also adds weight — reportedly “only” 30 pounds when Continental releases their Light Sport engine. That will further squeeze useful load but the Continental engine may satisfy a flock of potential Cessna Sport buyers — when and if the Wichita giant decides to produce it. General aviation still has a legion of folks who don’t like the Rotax 912 series that otherwise dominates light-sport aviation.
The Tanarg: Most Deluxe Trike Ever?
When Air Création introduced their beautiful Tanarg trike to American pilots in 2005, it earned a very warm response and, at the same time, shock at its $53,000 price tag – some $10,000 more than the next closest high-end trike.
Pronounced Tan-ARG (rhyme it with “barge,” except the G is said softly, more like TAN-arz), the machine is impressive. Even for those pilots or newcomers who regard weight-shift control trikes as “weird,” or “hard to understand,” the Tanarg design concept earns respect rapidly. This aircraft has received enormous attention to detail while also gaining in strength and ease of use. Air Création engineers built on many successful years of designing and producing lots of trikes – some 2,500 of them – to create a stunning work of aeronautical art. Nothing on the market is quite like the Tanarg.
The last time I wrote about Air Création, I talked about my experience with their wonderful new iXess wing (once again introducing a hard-to-pronounce name).
IndUS Sky Skooter…Proven Trainer with ePod
he proven airframe and modern panel of the Sky Skooter make perhaps the oddest, yet most appropriate of mates. Each from a different age – the T-211’s unique ribbed wing beckons from the 1940s while the ePod streaks ahead in the 2000s – they nonetheless complement each other.
The Sky Skooter is the fun little variant of the T-211 series, including the FAA-certified T-211 and the ASTM standards-compliant (LSA certified) Thorpedo. The company can deliver just about any version of John Thorp’s groundbreaking design, the very one that lead to Piper’s Cherokee, which sold tens of thousands.
Complementing the joyful and innocent Sky Skooter with the most pleasant in-flight handling comes the visitor from the future: IndUS Aviation’s ePod. Putting these together for a flight review shows the past and the future of light-sport aviation.
Long Perspective
The T-211 has a long, rich aviation history. The model dates back to designs studies in the early 1940s that lead to the Lockheed Little Dipper, a single-place light aircraft created by legendary designer John Thorp.
Refined Kolb Mark III Xtra
“Xtra” - a word to make a computer spell-checker stumble – is an appropriate name for this month’s pilot’s report, The New Kolb Aircraft Company Mark III Xtra side-by-side 2-seater. It literally offers extra in several ways pilots will like.
The venerable Mark III has been through a series of changes since original company founder Homer Kolb first brought out a 2-seater called the TwinStar. The latest change does a lot to alter the appearance of the older design.
Kolb designs have narrow noses like a lot of other designs. The new Xtra presents a clean edge cutting through the air, but it now has a wider look – at least from head-on – that imparts a new feel to the occupants. Some will say the “Xtra” comes from “Extra-Wide.” With its bulging doors, the new cabin is 45 inches wide (42.5 at the hips).
Although the design will look bigger and heavier to some, the new shape is one you’ll come to like… if you have a seat.
Co-Developing the Navajo Trike
A couple of years ago, TC’s Trikes owner TC Blyth and North Wing owner Kamron Blevins joined forces in a cooperative arrangement. TC’s Trikes would buy wings from North Wing (rather than continue to make their own), and could better represent North Wing on the Eastern Seaboard. North Wing, headquartered in the northwestern state of Washington, is far from TC’s Trikes’ Tennessee home. It seemed a marriage of convenience and more.
Blyth has been particularly active in training and introductory flight lessons. He’s done many thousands of them at his location near a top Tennessee tourist and outdoorsmen attraction – the Ocoee River, popular for white water rafting, kayaking, and other sports. Blyth has been focused on meeting this need with his own brand of trikes, and all his experience gave him something clear and viable to add to the expertise of North Wing.
North Wing has risen to the top of the U.S.
AirBorne’s Edge X Wizard Trike
For years now, the boys from “down under” at AirBorne Australia, led by co-owner Russell Duncan, have been coming to America. The ultralight they have been showing is the deluxe Edge Executive model. It’s a beauty, but the company lacked a simpler, lower-cost model. No more!
In April of last year, Duncan and crew debuted what they call the Edge X Wizard model. The “Edge X” series refers to the new trike carriage, above which you can have the double-surface Edge wing, making the Executive trike, or you can select the new single-surface Wizard wing. It is this new offering that is the focus of this pilot’s report.
Smoothly finished in all-white powder coating, and lacking the nose pod and aft fairing, the new Edge X trike carriage looks light and basic. At only $11,700 fully assembled, it should find a market in the USA, I feel. (The figure is complete in every way except for an import shipping charge, which U.S.
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