When I wrote about TrueLite a little over one year ago, readers loved the concept pushing the article to one of my best-read pieces of the year. That story had lots of detail, different from what follows.
Now the story is the start of production and preparation of import to the US for final assembly.
Francesco Di Martino is the man behind Zigolo, a superlight Part 103 entry. Zigolo looked so light in construction, relying partly on cable support, some pilots were hesitant about the design. A few years passed and sales were made but behind the hangar door, Francesco was busy with his Aviad company.
As a follow-on to the earlier project, Francesco created the all-metal, much-updated Mg21 as he called it; Zigolo was called Mg12.
When Francesco linked up with Part 103 impresario Chip Erwin of Merlin Lite fame, things started to move quickly.
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Top 50 Video: MVP — “Most Versatile Plane” LSA Seaplane Entry
Long before “Mosaic” was a term anyone used*, one airplane stood out for its highly-original design, innovative features, and amazing versatility. Welcome to the once-wonderful world of MVP, the Most Versatile Plane. I am featuring this aircraft as part of an on-going series of our Top 50 Videos (of 1,500) on Dave Loveman’s Light Sport and Ultralight Flyer YouTube channel.
The bad news is… MVP never made it to market, a shame… yet despite heroic fund-raising efforts, sufficient support never materialized.
The good news… other designers observed what MVP offered. Around the time MVP was actively fund raising, Vickers Aircraft down under in New Zealand had begun work on their Wave that is now nearing market release. Icon’s A5 was already mostly frozen for design but some European entries later showed innovations first promoted for MVP.
Developer Darrell Lynds scoured the world for investors. I went with him and other aviation pioneers to China in 2017 where Darrell worked non-stop trying to raise money.
Got Mosaic Fatigue? — Comments on FAA’s New Regulation from Two Presentations
I don’t know about you, but I can guess that Mosaic Fatigue is setting in to a lot of quarters. Some pilots have done an extraordinary job of digging into this 318-page document to distill essential parts that need to be addressed. Many pilots get exhausted just looking at the NPRM. …Me, too.
I look forward to more reporting on aircraft. Nonetheless…
Mosaic has given us an inside look at how FAA works. Many improvements resulted when industry worked in harmony with government officials. Nonetheless, careful study found areas of concern in the NPRM. Recent articles in other publications hit essentially the same points as I did in my talk (slide). Those points were partly my thinking, but I also relied on other experts to whom I had posed a variety of questions.
Still, some of the best commentary has come from non-experts, regular pilots who were concerned about a certain part of the NPRM and explored it thoroughly.
Mosaic, The Movie — Are You Excited?! Comment Window Is Closing; Please Act Soon!
Recreational flying fans… I don’t know about you but I’m getting pretty tired of studying Mosaic. It’s been on my mind every day since FAA issued it on July 24, 2023, just before EAA AirVenture Oshkosh started.
I’ve studied this pretty closely — thanks SO much to Roy Beisswenger for his effort to make a Study Guide. This is not an easy read but it has much we want plus a few things we question or want changed.
If you want some part changed, you have to comment. I can comment and many others have. That’s good but FAA needs a loud response. With 39 days left at posting time, 389 pilots have commented. YOUR comment is still needed.
To assure my facts were as accurate as possible, I consulted several other experts, each focused in specific areas of interest.
Linked with my own experience — serving on the ASTM committee for many years, going to visit FAA in their government offices in Washington DC (several times), and discussions with the LAMA board plus numerous other aviation leaders — the video below provides the best information I can offer at this time.
With Time Half-Gone Already, Your Mosaic Comment Window Is Closing — Here’s Some Help
Mosaic was a subject of intense conversations at AirVenture Oshkosh 2023. In a surprise to many of us, FAA released the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) for Mosaic ahead of schedule. Lots of people who needed to study it were already en route to the EAA show for a week, 10 days, or more.
If you haven’t been paying attention, MOSAIC is an acronym for a regulation that affects all aircraft with Special airworthiness certificates. Aircraft built by Cessna, Piper, Cirrus, Diamond, and others instead have Standard certificates and are not touched by this Mosaic regulation. In contrast, all LSA, Experimental Amateur Built airplanes, and warbirds have Special certificates. (FYI, I stopped writing Mosaic in all-caps because it looks like shouting.)
If you already know enough, here are the links you need:
Download USUA/LAMA MOSAIC NPRM Study Guide Version 1.0, PDF document with bookmarks and helpful organization
Article on using the Study Guide
Make a comment, direct link to FAA’s comment page
Read what other commenters have said, FAA comment page
The Clock Is Ticking…
FAA offered 90 days to comment on their proposal that started out as 318 pages of text that no one would call fun reading.
Midwest Expo 2023, Zenith’s Homecoming, Aero Showcase, and a New Owner of Jabiru
When AirVenture Oshkosh ends, you can almost hear a national sigh as if to denote the flying season is over. EAA’s magnificent summer celebration of flight leads to Labor Day and into fall.
Fun flying in northern climates might begin to slow but in the southern half of the U.S., flying for fun is entering its best season.
As if to prove the point, coming up soon:
15th annual Midwest LSA Expo,
Zenith’s 32nd Annual Homecoming event follows the Expo, with even larger crowds,
Aero Showcase’s second event is scheduled and being promoted, and
down under — where Australis is exiting winter (yeah, weird, huh?) — big changes for Jabiru
Midwest 2023
I’ve taken to shortening the event name to “Midwest (Year)” because I say or write it so often. This show — as you might expect, in the Midwest USA — has become a foundation of my aviation calendar. I only missed one year due to a hurricane in Florida where I live.
Here’s Some Good News from Ukraine — LSA Manufacturer Aeroprakt Is Building Steadily
We are awash in bad news from Ukraine. Some is honest reporting of the extremely difficult circumstances for many in the war-racked nation. Yet media does not always grace itself, always finding the worst of the news to report in somber tones.
Amazingly, it’s not all bad. While heads of state send troops into harms way, most of a nation’s citizenry merely attempts to live a normal life amid the chaos of war. Doing business and living your life while bomb warning sirens shriek is something most Americans can’t grasp, thankfully.
Aeroprakt, builder of the very successful A-22 and A-32 series of Special LSA, suffered directly when a missile hit their flying club building (report here, scroll to last video). Their main factory remains in the central city of Kyiv, where it has been for many years. I visited this location back in 2003 so they’ve been stable for more than 20 years.
Here Come Mosaic LSA or mLSA — Montaer’s MC-04 and Texas Aircraft’s Stallion
Is this an exciting time for aviation? Have you been one of the many pilots anticipating Mosaic and the promise it brings for more capable aircraft? The new proposal is loaded with ideas we requested.
As with the SP/LSA rule of nineteen years ago, these features of Mosaic are stimulating all sorts of expectations …but also some worry.
One concern is that new four-seat mLSA with all the bells and whistles will be expensive. Well, they will be — compared to current-day LSA. Yet they will still be half the price of a roughly comparable Part 23-certified aircraft. They will also perform better while using less fuel. Plus, they will be new and nicely equipped with the latest in digital instrumentation.
Contrasting that is an entire fleet of legacy GA airplanes that many pilots have been yearning to fly using a Sport Pilot certificate (or using the no-medical feature of Sport Pilot with their higher FAA ticket).
MOSAIC NEWS — FAA Running Ahead of Schedule? Unbelievable? …Proof Here, Now!
Whenever I write about FAA’s Mosaic regulation, especially when I mentioned the date they predicted, a substantial percentage of all readers shrug this off, believing that FAA will never complete it on time.
What if I told you they were ahead of schedule? Is that an unbelievable claim? Perhaps, but the proof is right here, right now! Can’t wait? Check the link below.
Consider the following communication from the ASTM committee working on LSA standards. In case you don’t know what that is, ASTM is an industry standards group that operates privately, creating and getting agreement on standards used by FAA to accept Light-Sport Aircraft into the aviation fleet. (This is different than conventional FAA “certification.”)
BIG MOSAIC NEWS
Honestly, from almost the beginning, FAA has moved faster than most of us imagined. At EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2022 FAA announced they would remove the drone portion of Mosaic, which was delaying the overall regulation as that community works out their issues.
More than Spinning Multicopters, Here’s an In-the-Wing Electric Idea that Recently Won a Patent
Naturally, sharp-eyed ByDanJohnson.com readers already know about Chip’s big idea. See this article; scroll down.
What you didn’t know is that this idea was unique enough to win a patent. That’s uncommon in recreational aviation, though, of course, an idea like this may go far beyond sport flying.
Chip Erwin is one of those restless people who probably lays awake night cooking multiple ideas in his brain at the same time. Many industries have their “Elon Musk” type who moves forward on several fronts despite plenty of people telling him he can’t do what he does every day.
As the mainstream media hyperfocuses on multicopter air taxi ideas consuming vast amounts of money (why media pays attention in the first place), people like Chip have different thoughts about using electric power on aircraft. Depod is one of those concepts.
Depod is not intended for Merlin Lite.
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