Life is good if you like LSA seaplanes. I’ll review five LSA seaplanes, either on the market or in development. *** Today SeaRey reins as far and away the most successful and proven design with some 600 flying. While SeaRey has been an Experimental Amateur Built (EAB) model, they’ve been working diligently on SLSA approval and will eventually sell SLSA, ELSA, and EAB versions. Priced around $70,000 as a kit, SeaRey is the most affordable seaplane. Owners are intensely loyal to the brand (Progressive Aerodyne) and the model. SeaRey is having a workshop right before Sebring. More about that shortly. *** SeaMax is the next most proven and accepted seaplane. Manufactured in Brazil, about 100 are flying including a handful in the USA. SeaMax America is the new importer for the handsome LSA seaplane from prolific designer (and nice guy) Miguel Rosario. From Great Neck, New York Richard Rofe said, “We have added many new features and have moved to a much larger production facility.
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SeaRey Sales Prove Popularity of Amphibians
Progressive Aerodyne and their popular SeaRey amphibian represent a current-day success sufficient to generate envy in most airframe sellers. Consider these results: Searey delivered 31 kits in 2010, an average 2.5 per month during a lousy year. Plus, in just three weeks since Sebring another 14 SeaRey kits have been ordered, upping the monthly average to 4.0. True those SeaReys are Experimental Amateur Built (EAB) kit models and so don’t compare directly with SLSA sales. *** In less than three years, company spokesman and sales director Darrell Lynds (formerly with SportairUSA) took the company from one kit a month to its current pace, along the way building a list of 1,700 very interested potential buyers. He says his 2011 orders are cash-in-hand and projects a solid year for the amphibious seaplane producer. This adds to a remarkably loyal following of 600 SeaRey aircraft builders. How can the central Florida manufacturer be doing so well?
Best LSA Picks of 2010
More than 20 Top LSA You Can Buy
The light-sport aircraft industry hangs in there, although sales numbers, as with general aviation, still struggle to gain safe altitude in the stormy economic skies. Encouraging item: LSA sales in 2009 represented nearly 25% of all GA piston purchases. Another surprise: Most of the 107 models available for sale here and abroad are still in production with more new models in the pipeline! Nobody’s getting rich (this is aviation, remember?), but most makers believe the turnaround will come. That’s the spirit!
And with the Euro taking heat against the dollar lately as Europe goes through its own econoclysm, U.S. prices for foreign-produced LSA could drop. Many airframe makers lowered prices, but the industry still faces challenges: ongoing dyspepsia imbued by the sluggish recovery; market recognition… many people still aren’t aware of what an LSA is, maybe that’s why 20% of all U.S. sales in the U.S.
So Cal Flyin’
For all you LSA California Dreamers out there, one of the oldest LSA schools in the southwest is worth a closer look.*** San Diego Sport Flyers has been rolling the LSA dice for more than two years now and reports it has grown to 50 members and claims to get “several calls per day pertaining to the Sport Pilot license.” *** AOPA recently praised the LSA school for its “right stuff” — and that was an unsolicited rave. *** The school just added a Legend Cub to the fleet and plans to bring on the Icon A5 once it’s through testing and development, too, sometime next year. *** Already online are the Gobosh 700, SportCruiser and Sting Sport shown. *** Tom Ellery, President of the operation, told Plane & Pilot editor Jessica Ambats recently that two high school students just got their Sport Pilot tickets and a 70-year-old student will solo soon.
Pre-Christmas Roundabout
Ramping up to the big day when that jolly red-flightsuited Sport Pilot in his original LSA -a two-place, roof-landing, 8 RP (reindeer power) flivver – will fly all those XC legs to good little pilot’s chimneys, herewith some stocking stuffer newsies and tidbits to help wind down 2009. *** Kennedy Aircraft Service & Repair serves up a blog with tasty tidbiti about the SeaRey amphibian which is (forgive me) making a splash on the water-fly-sport scene. *** An interesting info site called The FAA Buzz (not affiliated with FAA) has a blurb about Virginia Aviation, provider of FAA-approved E-LSA inspection courses. V.A. is now cleared by the fedgov to conduct an LSA repairman’s course (LSRM) on weight shift control aircraft. *** Speaking of bugs-in-teeth flight, Precision Windsports has a quick-read page on the relative merits of E-LSA vs. Amateur-Built kits. Browse around the site, they’ve got lots of good trike info and pix (as seen here).
Post-Turkey Day Update
“It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Actually, it’s both…and edible!” *** Fresh but larger in girth from the great American pastime of massive calorie infusions and days of leftovers (turkey sandwich/curried Turkey/cranberry yogurt surprise (don’t ask) etc., let’s see whassup around the old info-hangar. *** Looking to e-gab with other light sport enthusiasts? There are some cool sites around with lots of hands-on topics such as training, maintenance, fun flying and more. Here are a couple I’ve come across that seem well-attended: Sport Pilot Talk and South Africa’s AvCom with a look at Light Sport and GA flying in the southern Hemisphere *** Lots of links here to tons of general LSA sites : Light Sport Aircraft HQ *** Flight training resource guide: Pilot Journey *** Experimental/homebuilt and light sport discussions (Jabiru and Rotax forums here): Wings Forum *** BTW: Sebring’s annual Light Sport Aviation Expo is kicking off Jan.
Pix From The Big Show
Today was a beautiful, beautiful day. I kept saying, “This can’t be Oshkosh.” *** Low humidity, balmy 70s temps, lovely breeze…oh yeah. *** Here are some noteworthy pix from the day’s events. *** First up: The Icon A5 flew a very impressive series of demo takeoffs, landings and fast taxis at the Sea Plane Base. An impressive debut performance, with a lot of attendance from folks who motored over from the main event 10 miles away. *** The Airbus A380 wowed the crowds with amazingly quiet, nimble performance turns over the runway. It still amazes me that anything so huge can fly. *** Diamond’s DA-20 has a new panel with Garmin’s G-500 EFIS display. Look for a pirep in a P&P issue soon.
AirMax SeaMax, Elegant Engineering
Let’s consider light amphibious aircraft – the boathull variety, not floatplanes
– but including both freshly designed, fully built light sport aircraft
along with kit aircraft born of the ultralight heritage.
In the last year, the exceedingly handsome Icon A5 has made quite a splash, literally
and figuratively. However, the A5 is more than a year away from first deliveries
and an order placed today might not be delivered until 2011 or later. Another LSA
amphibian called the Mermaid was designed and introduced by Czech Aircraft
Works of SportCruiser fame. Although five are available in the country, sales have
yet to take off.
Another popular American seaplane, the SeaRey, is moving toward ASTM
approval but remains a kit that asks several hundred hours of a builder’s time. The
simpler and faster-build Aventura models also remain available; this design has
been on the market for many years. Either kit is less costly than a fully built aircraft,
but all seaplanes have loftier price tags to cover their ability to operate on land
or water.
“New Wave” LSA, Part 1 — Terrafugia Transition
Recently, I visited three brand-new LSA developments. All are American. All are propelled by young engineers and enthusiasts. All are remarkably sophisticated. All companies have been successful at raising funds. And, perhaps most notably, all projects were started specifically because of the emergence of the Light-Sport Aircraft rule. *** All three are emphatically not reconfigured European microlights or vintage American designs…not that I have any objection to such aircraft. I am simply encouraged by fresh new designs from fresh young faces. Aviation needs that! *** My first example (others soon) is the Terrafugia Transition. Called a “roadable aircraft” rather than a “flying car,” Terrafuguia does what others have done but in a new, far more practical way. Compared to the Transition, Molt Taylor’s Aerocar is so last century. Transition folds its wings without leaving the cockpit. The company has produced a professional video that explains the concept and the award winning people behind it.
Swedish LN-3 Seagull — Tandem-Seating LSA Seaplane …Plus, Breaking News!
LSA seaplanes are a segment all to themselves. [See Breaking News at bottom!]
It isn’t only that seaplanes can offer “triphibian” capabilities (a term once promoted by MVP) because they can operate from land, water, or snow. That makes them versatile but amphibious craft must incorporate retractable gear and since they require a sturdy hydrodynamic boat hull as well as aerodynamic aircraft structures, the engineering task becomes significantly larger than land plane designs.
Icon took years with their A5 and Vickers is still working on their Wave. Both took more than a decade to reach market. Several other LSA seaplane projects required similarly lengthy development.
Now from Svenska Flygfabriken (Swedish Aviation Factory) comes LN-3. This new entry is distinctive because it is a tandem-seating seaplane. Yes, I know lots of Cub-types on floats are tandem but among boat-hulled seaplanes, I’m not aware of any others like this.
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