This website regularly promotes affordable aviation. Can you genuinely find an aircraft you like that is affordable? If so, are the smaller shows — ones I call “sector-specific” — the place to find them?
Those two questions come up all the time on ByDanJohnson.com.
When you read Flying magazine or AOPA Pilot, the odds are low that readers of this website will find something they can afford. Both titles do a high quality job of covering aviation and I am glad they continue (though Flying is scaling back their print magazine to just four times a year). Yet the aircraft these two periodicals cover are almost never something I can afford; you may feel similarly.
The fact is most aviation magazines and the bigger airshows are full of aircraft most of us cannot afford.
DeLand Showcase
Midwest LSA Expo
and Affordability
First the good news. Yes, you can find affordable aircraft (here is a series of examples).
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Ending 2021 — Beginning 2022… What’s Behind and What’s Ahead?
With the DeLand Showcase 2021 ended, we have officially wrapped up the airshow season for 2021.
In retrospect, 2021 improved on surprisingly good results for 2020. Pilots are buying and flying — great! — while producers are maintaining or growing; both are good outcomes we can celebrate.
While much of America and the world were topsy turvy over the pandemic and the sweeping mandates placed on individuals and businesses, Light-Sport Aircraft fared reasonably well. Translation: sales held roughly steady despite Covid fear and talk of FAA regulation change hanging in the air.
The Sport Pilot kit market and Part 103 ultralights had nothing short of a banner year …and all that was 2020!
In 2021, the recreational flying community experienced an ongoing positive trend, but we can happily add into the mix a successful restart to the airshow calendar, lead by our friends at Sun ‘n Fun. From spring through fall, SnF was followed by AirVenture — both stronger than many expected after 2020’s enterprise-threatening cancellations.
Sun ‘n Fun 2021 / Wrap Up — More Airplane News Will Follow, but How Was this Year’s Event?
Everyone has returned home from the first major airshow in too long (other than the wonderful sector-specific event called Midwest LSA Expo). Well… everyone went home except a substantial group of volunteers who stick around for days or even weeks afterward to clean up and prepare for next season. Thanks to all volunteers for their efforts that make these events possible!
However, while we celebrate Sun ‘n Fun 2021 having a worthy success, aviation is not out of the woods yet.
Just today, I learned that Aero Friedrichshafen has been cancelled for 2021 — after twice changing the dates in the effort to schedule a time that works for vendors and pilots plus assures safety for those attending.
Aero will next be held in 2022. Main organizer Roland Bosch said, “We have to postpone the Summer Edition of Aero 2021. It’s hard, but it is the best solution [given these] circumstances, I think.” Europe remains much more locked down and restricted than the USA — certainly moreso than Florida, which has been open for many months.
Sun ‘n Fun 2021 / Day 0 — Putting On the Shine, Ready for Pilots of All Interests
Pilots heading to Sun ‘n Fun 2021 had no real idea what to expect. As evening approached on Sunday set-up day, a big black storm cloud rolled over Sun ‘n Fun’s Lakeland Airport campus, blowing guard shacks and plastic bathrooms around like pieces of paper. An omen? Hardly! The next morning…
The good news is I saw no damage other than a couple cracked-up guard shacks. No airplane damage was obvious to me. The great news is final setup day was gloriously sunny and exhibit airplanes arrived steadily.
By nightfall on Monday as exhibitors finished their preparations, Sun ‘n Fun was looking good and ready for pilots to descend on the Showgrounds.
Several hands pitched in — thanks loudly to a great group from DeLand Showcase — to turn the LAMA LSA Mall into the regular attraction its become over the last 15 years. A fewer number of airplanes will be shown in the LSA Mall but at least one is a machine you’ve never seen before and others are head turners.
Almost Time for the First Airshow in Too Long — Welcome to Sun ‘n Fun 2021!
Can aviation lead us back toward normal? Globally, governments have ordered their citizens to stay at home and all the rest, as you’ve heard ad naseum. Some places — Florida, as a sunshining example — is more open than others but much of civilization remains restricted. • Article updated… see at bottom —DJ
Again I ask, “Can aviation lead us back toward normal?”
Asking Too Much?
Does it seems too much ask that aviation — numbering somewhere around one million pilots globally plus the industry that supports them — provide the path back to better times? I certainly don’t know the future but we’re about to get a first real test of aviation’s resiliency as Sun ‘n Fun 2021 begins on Tuesday April 13th.
Sun ‘n Fun has for years been one of Florida’s largest spectator events so even if attendance is off it still implies a very large gathering.
Airshows in 2021: Better News on the Horizon but Some Early-Event Cancellations
UPDATE 1/14/21 — Regretfully, I must announce that DeLand has cancelled its Flyway to Highway event “due to Covid-19.” —DJ
After a year of great uncertainty, the earliest airshows of 2021 are feeling the pressure. However, by spring, several organizers hope for great improvement. Here’s some review, good news first and then some cancellations.
Flyway to Highway
DeLand, Florida
Lead organizer Jana Filip first rescheduled the November 2020 DeLand Showcase until January, but that got scrubbed by a very cautious city of DeLand. Now, Jana will host Flyway to Highway at the end of this month.
My friends at General Aviation News got the news out early, “DeLand Airport will host a one-day fly-in/drive-in event on January 30, 2021. Co-sponsored by automaker Tesla, anyone who shows up at the DeLand Airport Management Center can take a test drive in a new Tesla.” Quite a few airplane companies will also display.
“Made in the USA” Now Includes Seamax Light-Sport Aircraft Seaplane from Brazil
In the earliest Light-Sport Aircraft days, nearly 70% of available models came from Europe. Slowly but steadily, U.S. producers emerged as did importers for aircraft from other countries. That continues but a parallel development occurred. International manufacturers established American operations that often lead to some level of manufacturing.
Joining the movement, Seamax Aircraft announced the launch of the company assembly operations in the USA. Fabrication remains in Brazil but large and small components are shipped to Datona Beach, Florida, where the company’s U.S. operation assembles the full airplane near the campus of Embry Riddle, the world’s largest aeronautical university.
“In pandemic times, while most businesses are holding tight on their seatbelts, Seamax makes a bold statement to the American market by adding an ‘assembled in the USA’ tag to their superior performance aircraft,” reported U.S. representative Shalom Confessor. The company said they have been planning this move for the past three years, following extensive market research and engineering upgrades.
Did It Work? Midwest Light-Sport Expo 2020 — the Year’s Final Airshow
Lots of doubters expressed their opinions in the weeks and days before Mt. Vernon’s 12th running of this sector-specific event. Did it work? Were the naysayers right or wrong?
I will express one person’s opinion but reflect a number of comments I heard: “Thank goodness for Mt. Vernon airport manager Chris Collins and his contingent of orange-shirted volunteers who hosted this event,” making it another success.
To me, “success” means no accidents (none happened) and a decent turn-out that got pilots in new aircraft and vendors the sales that sustain them (both happened).
Summarizing Midwest 2020
In a typical year, Midwest attracts 1,500 or more pilots for the three days of event. My casual estimate is that 2020 was at least as strong as before and perhaps it was even up a bit. No one knows more. Midwest does not charge a fee to enter and more than one entry gate would make any effort to count heads futile.
Midwest Light-Sport Aircraft Expo — What to See at 2020’s Last Airshow
I hope you can attend 2020’s Midwest LSA Expo — the last airshow in 2020. If you cannot attend, rest assured your trusty reporter will be onsite and gathering all the info on the coolest aircraft I can find.
What will be available? Well, if I am honest, we will have to see when we arrive to be certain. In these virus-impacted times, things have a lousy way of changing at the last minute, however…
Those who attend should see a few aircraft that few Americans have seen before. Here’s a quick take, not forgetting the statement about how arrivals can be altered beyond the wishes of any particular vendor.
Rare and/or New Aircraft
MC-01 by Montaer — We almost didn’t see it. Insurance has been getting harder to find and more costly. That’s true for all aircraft but the situation is especially challenging for a new design (even if it significantly resembles an earlier design).
SHOWTIME! — Airshows in 2021 Return Hope to the New Year (+ 3 Videos)
OK, let me admit right up front that I am something of an “airshow junkie.” I just gotta go.
Some of you may feel the same, I suspect. I don’t suggest you need to go to them all, but if people who do what I do don’t have airshows to attend, you get less cool news about great aircraft and flight gear.
That said, I’ve been able to keep a good flow of recreational aviation news that you readers find interesting. April 2020 set an all-time record. That was eclipsed in July 2020 and August kept the growth going to another record. While pleased about the increasing number of visitors — and while everyone being isolated probably drove more pilots to this website — it nonetheless illustrates the value of journalists attending shows and bringing you the latest and greatest.
Welcome 2021!
Given my obsession with airshows (that hopefully delivers to you the aircraft news and video you seek), it is a great pleasure to announce two new dates.
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