This website was born in 2004 after a few years of laboriously uploading a large number of written pilot reports that had appeared in aviation print magazines over the years before. It was tougher to do then than it is now.
The project started in late 1999, barely four years after the World Wide Web was built on the Internet. Tools were crude then and it proved to be a multi-year project to convert from print to web. Today, such a task is vastly easier and we hope you are enjoying the refreshed ByDanJohnson.com that was launched in spring 2017.
In this new millennium of intense change, print has slowly but steadily yielded to online (aviation magazines have actually faired reasonably well, but print in forms such as newspapers has badly eroded). We got lucky as we were early and we established a solid presence for this website that today reaches most of the owners of the 66,000+ LSA or LSA-like aircraft sold around the world, with the majority of those aircraft delivered since 2000.
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Flying for You … Video Pilot Reports
Sometimes I am told I have the best job in the world. Hmm, could be.
My work entails some of those things no one truly loves, like paying bills, but it also involves flying airplanes for review. That part is indeed quite a pleasure.
In this post, I want to tell you what I flew at the DeLand Showcase 2017 plus a little about how we do these VPRs or Video Pilot Reports.
For many years, I wrote such things for print. That still happens but most of my reporting now goes online and my more detailed pilot reports have significantly — though not exclusively — gone to video …hence “VPR.”
At DeLand 2017, I went aloft six times, five to evaluate aircraft and once on a photo (and video) mission.
Video reporting consumes much more time than an interview, 30 minutes or more simply to attach some or all of our eight Garmin VIRB cameras inside and outside the subject aircraft.
DeLand is Approaching… Video Deluge Brings Attention to Exhibitors You Will See
My video partner must be working around the clock as he prepared a blizzard of videos for release starting November 1st.
As you see in the list below, 20 videos will soon be available. I hope you’ll enjoy them.
Besides giving you info on various aircraft to see at the event, we hope to encourage you to attend DeLand #2. Videos are great and in them we try to ask the questions you would ask and to show you things you’d look for if you attended. Good as videos are, nothing substitutes for you being present to ask and look yourself. I hope you can.
Videoman Dave and I will be on-site all three days of the event. We will likely be a blur in motion dashing from one fetching aircraft vendor to another to gather more article material and video interviews. We also hope to record more Video Pilot Reports, as we did last year.
Midwest Light-Sport Aircraft Expo 2017 — Another Success!
It’s over …yet it’s just begun. I refer to the Midwest LSA Expo, which, you might say, kicks off the LSA show season including light kits and ultralights in addition to LSA. Midwest runs in the first weekend in September, followed by Copperstate in October, followed by DeLand in November, and climaxing with the granddaddy of these shows, Sebring, in January.
Copperstate has more than LSA and light kits but it has a focus on those aircraft. The organizers enjoy such light recreational flying machines so they focus on this segment. That show is coming soon. DeLand will later host the second-annual event. Sebring will be hosting its 14th event. The last is the largest and best established of these and, indeed, has been the wellspring from which the others of these evolved …except for Copperstate, which will celebrate its 45th year in 2017 — impressive!
Light-Sport Aircraft Market Shares for Fleet and 2016
A dozen years after FAA created aviation’s newest sector, we have a new leader among manufacturers of fully built Light-Sport Aircraft. CubCrafters has been moving upward with several years hitting 50 deliveries. In 2016 the west coast builder finally topped perennial leader Flight Design, which slipped to second place. The CT builder had occupied the #1 position since the beginning of Light-Sport Aircraft. Only four aircraft separate the two brands. Note: this article has been updated twice; see at end. —DJ
In the single-year race, Czech Sport Aircraft won convincingly with almost double the next closest producer. The Czech builder performed well in 2015 but significantly increased last year. Congratulations to both companies.
To explain further, our “whole fleet” market share chart — the one we have published going back to 2006 — keeps track of all Special LSA (SLSA) airplanes in the U.S. fleet. Regretfully, we are unable to properly account for weight shift trikes, powered parachutes, gyroplanes, or motorgliders because the database is too variable.
USA Steadily Gained Light-Sport Aircraft Manufacturer Share
April 2017 logged 12 years of Light-Sport Aircraft. The FAA regulation creating the category was introduced in 2004 but it was at Sun ‘n Fun 2005 that the agency presented Evektor SportStar and the Flight Design CT the first and second Special Airworthiness certificates.
My friend and LAMA associate, Jan Fridrich, gave a presentation at Aero 2017 showing many graphs that examine this new airplane sector and how it has developed over the last decade. This article looks at a portion of his analysis.
In those dozen years, the market has developed interestingly.
In the first vigorous years of growth — filling pent-up demand for a two-seat aircraft pilots could fly without a medical — European light aircraft producers dominated the market (chart). Jan’s home country, the Czech Republic, was one of the most prolific, in the early days leading all other countries. Czech designs remain a key player but the field has shifted.
Sky Writing 2.0 — Flight Tracks in the Sky
Almost every year at AirVenture Oshkosh, some pilot or team of pilots performs some sky writing, that is, trailing smoke while flying precisely enough that you can read what they are writing from the ground.
The slow script building of the letters captivates the attention from tens of thousands on the ground; of course, many are pilots who are compelled by their interest to watch any airplane gyrations. I also enjoy these aerial penmanship exercises. However, in the 21st Century and with the looming 10th anniversary of the iPhone, perhaps it’s about time aviation caught up to the tech wave.
In this story two Light-Sport Aircraft went aloft for a whole different sort of sky writing, call it Sky Writing 2.0. In this exercise the scale is vastly larger and the challenge is perhaps greater as the letters cannot be seen, not from the air or on the ground or by the pilot.
VIDEO — Dreams Come True with Harmony
This weekend, let’s watch some video. At airshows (where I seem to spend a lot of time), my video partner Dave and I race around from booth to exhibit and attempt to find new aircraft or products we think may be of interest to our viewers. I’m pleased to tell you that we must do this fairly well measured by a million and a half minutes a month spent watching Dave’s YouTube channel according to Google, which owns the popular video outlet.
In the video below shot at the Mid-West LSA Expo, you hear from Steve Minnich, who operates Dreams Come True, a family-run Evektor dealership in Dayton, Ohio.
Harmony is the evolution of the SportStar, the airplane that launched the Light-Sport Aircraft phenomenon back on April 5th, 2005. Along with Flight Design’s CT, the two were honored at a ceremony at Sun ‘n Fun that year where FAA presented the #1 and #2 aircraft to satisfactorily demonstrate compliance to the ASTM standards.
4 LSA Brands — Low Wing All-Metal
At the 2010 Midwest LSA Expo we did something new. We picked several aircraft of a similar description and pointed out their similarities and differences. This time we look at four all-metal high wing LSA: Rans Aircraft S-19 Venterra; Evektor Sportstar Max IFR, Van’s Aircraft RV-12, and the Breezer Aircraft Breezer II. If you’re searching for a high wing LSA, this video may help show your choices and help you make a purchase decision.
Breezer Gains EASA’s Restricted Type Certificate
A well-worn line is often repeated by those trying to gain approval for an aircraft. The line is typically employed referring to FAA Part 23 type certification because that regulation dictates massive documentation of design, testing, production systems, and more. It is often stated humorously but it’s quite serious.
“When the paperwork weighs more than the airplane, you’re done!” It means an impressive amount of documentation is required to get FAA’s blessing for a new Cessna-Cirrus-Diamond-Piper.
In recent news about the approval of a Light-Sport Aircraft by the European Aviation Safety Agency, Breezer lays claim to a fairly rare credential.
Breezer is only the fourth LSA I am aware of to achieve Restricted Type Certificate approval from EASA, the Europe Union equivalent to FAA. The first two were (in order) PS-28 Cruiser from Czech Sport Aircraft followed by the CTLS-ELA from Flight Design. Both were awarded at Aero 2012.
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