The first-ever DeLand Sport Aviation Showcase finished on a high note with a sold-out flock of vendors giving kudos to event director Jana Filip and her team. I spoke to most exhibitors and heard zero complaints. By itself that’s rather unusual. Perhaps they were cutting the new show some slack but more likely their enthusiasm was because the show had indeed been well executed.
At every airshow I’ve attended vendors seem hard to satisfy about foot traffic. By afternoon each of the three days, visitors seemed to thin, nonetheless most airplane vendors reported good qualified visitors. Several companies reported “solid leads” developed at the event and apparently a few sales occurred
Attendees also seemed to enjoy themselves in the abundant sunshine and 80-degree temperatures of early November. The event ran 3-4-5 this year and has already set dates for next year with an expectation of similar weather.
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Torture Testing… Let Freedom Wing!
Most pilots never probably have witnessed the testing a wing endures before designers and regulators will sign off on it, signaling that it has been adequately stressed so that pilots can depend on it. I’ve had the chance to see several such tests and will state that it is two things: demanding and, well …boring (unless something breaks).
Of course, I don’t mean to demean the hard work it takes. Look at the images in this article and you can see that just to set up a wing for testing can involve literally days if not weeks of work. A fixture, sometimes called a “strongbox,” must be built or obtained. An actual wing must be affixed to the structure. Weights in some form — and a lot of them — must be secured to the wing to assure loads are applied in a real simulation; air loads are not uniform across the wing’s span.
SLSA Market Shares Report & Commentary for 2015
Article Updated 8/8/16 — The second chart appearing below for Calendar 2015 results had errors in the spreadsheet formula. They have been corrected below. —DJ
My associate in Europe, Jan Fridrich of LAMA Europe, has been the source for a database search for many years as I seek to report market share statistics in the USA. He scours the FAA registration information and laboriously assembles the numbers. As he and I work to produce accurate info, Jan often makes contact with selected companies when questions arise, as they often do. I also reach out to producers in our effort to make the best possible use of the registration data to create our rankings.
Jan has been one of his country’s representatives in the Czech Republic’s official work with the Chinese to help that nation build its lighter aviation infrastructure. He’s made many trips to China in the last two years.
Sun ‘n Fun 2016 Debrief & Summary
The super-short summary of Sun ‘n Fun 2016: weather was beautiful; even the one night of rain gave way to a sunny day and all other days were as good as it gets. No accidents occurred to my awareness. Crowds were good if not record-setting. Airplanes were sold; I conservatively estimate about 30 sales of light aircraft, based on my inquiries. What’s not to love?
As with any such attempt to cover an event the size and breadth of Sun’n Fun, this article cannot include all deserving aircraft, with regrets to any not mentioned below. We also shot lots video that will follow as the editing can be done (photo).
This article is longer than I prefer but I have plenty to tell you and I was simply too engaged during the event to keep posting. So… let’s get going!
AIRPLANES (three-axis control) — Sun ‘n Fun drew all the wonderful light airplanes we love but a few were touting fresh news not previously reported.
Sun ‘n Fun Preview … 17 Aircraft to Check
Every year before the big shows, I often hear from journalist friends working for other publications. This year as other years, they need advance knowledge to get things started for print publications working on longer deadlines than those of us in the online publishing game. To help my fellow writers, I’ve been keeping a tally of what I expect at Sun ‘n Fun 2016. Here we go…! By the way, these are not order of importance or impact. Please don’t assume.
U-Fly-It, producer of the popular and agreeably-priced Aerolite 103 (ready-to-fly for well under $20,000) is well along in planning for a kit version. While running their facility at or near capacity, this move may help get airplanes to people faster plus allowing those who want features that will not qualify as a Part 103 ultralight to go Experimental Amateur Built.
Thinking of modestly priced aircraft, Quicksilver will be represented at Sun ‘n Fun at the Air-Tech space.
The Brazilians Are Coming … Super Petrel in USA
Older readers may remember, “The Russians are Coming,” a silly movie about a supposed Russian invasion from 1966. It was a comedy set during the Cold War. Here in the new millennia a different sort of aviation invasion appears to be happening. This time it’s the Brazilians and they are not so much invading as looking for a better place to set up shop.
A decade ago, Brazil was riding high, one of the so-called BRIC countries on the rise as new economic powerhouses. Flush with commodities revenue the government was free to dole out public money very generously and things were looking good. Here in 2016, that situation has changed dramatically. The economy is sluggish, President Dilma Rousseff has been earning approval ratings in single digits, and doing business in Brazil is said to have increasing challenges.
Maybe that’s why Brazilian aviation giant Embraer started making bizjets in Melbourne, Florida … or maybe this country is where many of their fancy Phenom jets sell.
Light-Sport Aircraft … Going the Distance
Among the critiques some old school pilots employ when trying to marginalize Light-Sport Aircraft is that these aircraft are not suited to flying long distances. I’ve reported several around the world flights (check this article and here’s another) but that’s hardly all the long flights.
The invitation started out, “Join all of us at Progressive Aerodyne and the City of Tavares on Friday, September 11 for a presentation by Michael Smith about his epic Searey flight from Melbourne, Australia to Central Florida. Michael will give a presentation at the beautiful Tavares Pavilion on the Lake about his incredible journey.” Unfortunately, I can’t attend as I’ll be working the Midwest LSA Expo in Mt. Vernon, Illinois that weekend. However, many readers probably cannot attend either so here’s a bit of Michael’s story.
In the not-too-distant past, documenting a trip like his probably meant appealing to a magazine or publishing a book.
Video Pilot Report: Icon Aircraft A5 LSA Seaplane
The Video Pilot Report below may be one of the most anticipated VPRs my video partner Dave and I have produced. I did the flying at AirVenture Oshkosh 2015 on Lake Winnebago in late July, but because Icon preferred to provide the video footage, it has taken some weeks to put it all together.
Production of one of these VPRs is a two-part effort. First, I invested some time to get to where Icon did their demo flying (away from all the other flying locations associated with Oshkosh). Weather and the company’s desire to take aloft a reported 150 of their waiting owners forced a couple schedule changes. Since returning home, we worked with several helpful folks at Icon to assemble all the right video pieces. Finally, Dave invested many hours editing what you see below (or here).
Our video should show you most of what you want to see about this impressive LSA including water takeoffs and landings, in-flight maneuvering, stalls (such as they are), low flying over the water, and the interior of the airplane including Icon’s highly emphasized Angle of Attack indicator.
SLSA N-Number Registrations in First Half 2015
The U.S. market for Special Light-Sport Aircraft continues to grow at steady pace, modestly better than the trend for single engine piston certified aircraft as reported by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association for the first half of 2015.
SLSA deliveries in the half-year period totaled 97 units, with 91 of those coming from 15 manufacturers, showing that the famous 80/20 rule still generally applies … more than 80% of the market is supplied by less than 20% of the builders. It also implies the majority of those companies who previously earned FAA acceptance for their LSA models are either quite slow or inactive in the U.S. market.
We’d prefer to describe vigorous growth but the so-named Great Recession seems to be lingering on; at least it appears the much-talked-about recovery has left most of aviation still looking for improved business. Evidence of a still-troubled global economy is even clearer when you consider the wild stock market gyrations of recent weeks.
The World of LSA and American Opportunities
Updated 8/21/15 — This article has been updated with a reader comment seen at the bottom.
When the SP/LSA regulation was announced 11 years ago nearly all registered Light-Sport Aircraft originated in Europe. Indeed, the first two accepted as SLSA were the Evektor SportStar and Flight Design’s CT series. For several early years, Europe accounted for more than two-thirds of all LSA brands in the USA.
However, in a decade, a lot has changed.
Now, American companies have had time to shift from kit making (a very different business model) or have developed brand-new aircraft or offer a revised version of an existing model to meet the ASTM standards so they could gain FAA acceptance.
American companies are also starting to make inroads into other countries that accept ASTM standards.
Some countries simply copy FAA regs while others accept the ASTM standards set and then layer on some of their own regulations.
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