Repatriate means “to restore or return to the country of origin.” That’s exactly what’s happening with the Aeropro EuroFox, an Eastern European-built light-sport aircraft (LSA) based on American design work. It’s coming to this country as a ready-to-fly LSA through importer Rollison Light Sport Aircraft (RLSA).
Just as a car made in Detroit may incorporate a considerable number of parts that were manufactured overseas, LSA can be a combination of United States- and foreign-built parts as well. That’s not unusual in the aviation world. Consider that a new Boeing airplane is likely to have many parts manufactured in other countries. When Boeing competes against Airbus, it may be important to give some work to a country that may buy billions of dollars of airliners. Therefore, even a Boeing aircraft is not 100 percent made in America.
In the LSA world, aircraft manufactured in foreign countries may be delivered to the United States without instruments or other accessory equipment, or that equipment may have been built in the United States and shipped overseas for installation in the aircraft.
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Aeropro EuroFox
His Rollison Light Sport Aircraft (RLSA) company has been building a fleet of aircraft for sale from European sources. Rollison has represented numerous brands over the years he’s been involved in light-sport aviation. First he represented American brands and later European. Recently he’s traveled to South America to see what’s available. Today, Rollison sells the Remos G-3 Mirage, the Ikarus-Comco C42, and the EuroFox. He’s associated with Allistair Wilson who is making his own Astra trikes. Of the fixed-wing models in RLSA’s hangar, the EuroFox is the most modestly priced with the C42 next highest and the G-3 as RLSA’s top-of-the-line model.
More Than Familiar?
Many Ultralight Flying! readers will say the EuroFox looks to be a copy of a Kitfox. In fact, says Rob Rollison, this simply isn’t true.
The EuroFox certainly shares heritage with the Kitfox but is actually a downstream development of the Avid Flyer. In the Slovak Republic, where the four founders of Aeropro live, plans were used to build an Avid.
GT Ultralights: A Versatile Trike Supplier
Ukrainian airframe producer Aeros has risen from complete obscurity in the early 1990s (after the Berlin Wall fell) to wide recognition in recreational aviation. Although powered ultralight and light-sport aircraft enthusiasts may not immediately know the brand, hang glider pilots around the world are very aware of the name. The current reigning world champion hang glider pilot is Oleg Bondarchuck, a Ukrainian pilot who works with Aeros.
This young company emerging from the former Soviet mantel also makes an ultralight sailplane plus two powered aircraft. Aeros produces the Sky Ranger 3-axis airplane (under agreement with its French designer), and it has designed and markets its own trike. The company also supplies trike wings for other producers like Antares. By any normal measurements, Aeros is a versatile company.
Many ultralight and LSA pilots probably know the Aeros Velocity trike, and may recall its earlier name, Venture. In those days, it was sold by Sabre Aircraft alongside the trikes that Arizona company made here in America.
Float-Flying the M-Squared Sprint 1000
“Air in your hair!
Space on your face! A breeze on your knees!” A former colleague of mine used to repeat this short mantra to illustrate the joy of open-cockpit flying. It was catchy and engaging and his customers liked it.
With 15 Light-Sport Aircraft now possessing their FAA Special Light-Sport Aircraft (SLSA) airworthiness certificates, not a single one is open cockpit, though the IndUS Thorpedo, Legend Cub, and Tecnam Sierra can enjoy partially open cockpits.
Special Light-Sport Aircraft will eventually add more of this genre of light aircraft but one of the beauties of FAA’s new regulation is that it does not eliminate two previous categories: Amateur-built 51% kits or Part 103-compliant ultralights.
With 21¼4 years left before operators of 2-seat 496-pound empty weight ultralight exempt trainers must register in FAA’s new Light-Sport Aircraft category, and with 41¼4 years left while these machines can be used for compensated training flights, the segment still has lots of life remaining.
TC’s Trikes and North Wing Team Up on Coyote
Two years ago, I flew and reported on the only model TC’s Trikes offered. Though their line had little depth, the Tennessee company built their own wing and chassis. Many trike chassis builders purchase wings from other sources, much like happens universally in powered parachutes. TC’s Trikes did it all based particularly on their needs as an active flight school operation.
In today’s light aircraft world, a wider product line addresses more pilots, which makes a more viable business. Given the pace of refinements, it can be tough to keep up. Yet TC’s Trikes had a track record in the East, selling more than 100 trikes of their own and other brands. Pairing up with another company, if the fit was right, could be smart business.
A match was found between TC’s Trikes and Washington state-based North Wing Design. TC’s Trikes had something North Wing lacked – a presence in the Eastern USA.
Composite Two-seater (CT)
In the fall of ’01, I wrote in Ultralight Flying!, “The CT is the tip of an iceberg, in my opinion.” When I flew that first CT in the USA, few Yankees had seen the aircraft. I felt the German design represented the beginning of a flow of European aircraft coming to America. What a difference a couple of years make!
Thanks to adept and steady promotion, Americans may best identify the coming breed of proposed Light-Sport Aircraft by pointing to the Flight Design CT2K. While this means no disrespect to trikes, tube-and-rag ultralights, or powered parachutes, the CT’s unusual, smoothly-contoured shape is now well known to many Americans. Though the brand is fabricated in the Ukraine and assembled in Germany, it crosses the Atlantic as a prototypical candidate for FAA’s proposed Light-Sport Aircraft category.
Rollison Light Sport Aircraft imported the first U.S.-based CT I flew. The design is now brought in by Flightstar Sportplanes and HPower HKS engine honcho Tom Peghiny.
AirBorne’s XT 912 Trike
Racing to be the first weight-shift S-LSA
In early January, the FAA accepted the ASTM consensus standards
for weight-shift control (WSC) aircraft, commonly known as trikes.
The agency’s action paved the way for trike manufacturers to certificate
ready-to-fly machines as special light-sport aircraft (S-LSA). Now,
the race is on to see which company will be the first to complete the
steps necessary to show compliance with the newly approved standards.
One company in the running is
AirBorne Australia, and it is already
accepting orders for its S-LSA model,
the AirBorne XT 912. How can it be so
confident this model will comply? Its
machines already meet Australia’s tough
certification standards, so the effort is
primarily one of paperwork. (Though
preparing documents to the FAA’s precise
requirements is no trivial task, as
anyone who has tried to correctly fill
out the sport pilot certificate application
knows.) Interestingly, Australia is
one of two nations-Colombia is the
other-that have accepted the sport
pilot/light-sport aircraft (SP/LSA) rule
as part of their national program.
Quicksilver’s GT500 Qualifier
Quicksilver’s GT 500 is ready for sport pilots
In the automotive world, GT stands for Grand Touring and that may be an appropriate comparison for the GT 500 from Quicksilver Aircraft Manufacturing. With the unlimited view from the front seat of this tandem two-seater, touring in the GT 500 is definitely a treat.
When the sport pilot/light-sport aircraft (SP/LSA) final rule arrives on the aviation scene, this top-of-the-line model from the longtime Southern California ultralight manufacturer may well be one of the first available ready-to-fly light-sport aircraft (LSA). Quicksilver co-owner Carl von Hirsch has indicated the company will build the GT 500 as a ready-to-fly Special LSA. It will also offer the strutbraced MX Sport IIS as a LSA entry.
You might say the GT 500 is preapproved; in 1993 the tandem, two-seat aircraft received both a type and production certificate in the Primary Category (see sidebar). It’s pretty safe to say that the design will quickly pass muster under the FAA-mandated LSA consensus standards under development by ASTM International.
It’s a Winner; CGS Hawk Sport
Given Chuck Slusarczyk’s decades in recreational aviation, I imagine almost everyone in ultralight aviation has heard of the funny, Polish-speaking pioneer with the hard-to-pronounce last name (Slew-Sar-Chick). If Chuck had named his first business Slusarczyk Glider Supplies, pilots would have stumbled and renamed it for him. Knowing his name is a tongue twister, he wisely called it Chuck’s Glider Supplies.
In his early business years, when Chuck was younger and slimmer, he made hang gliders. Lots and lots of hang gliders. I flew one, as did thousands of others. He was one of a handful of east-of-the-Mississippi hang glider manufacturers. Being a long way from the West Coast where hang gliding was centered back in the ’70s, Chuck made the Californians nervous. They couldn’t keep an eye on his developments and he was regarded as unpredictable. Those who knew him thought the word should be innovative.
Then came powered hang gliding, such as it was in those days.
Part 103 Ultralight Trikes
Part 103 ultralight trikes aim at soaring pilots.
Many visitors to Oshkosh AirVenture 2003 expected the FAA to announce its new sport pilot/light-sport aircraft rule. New Administrator Marion Blakey reported signing off on the rule on July 30, but with two other agencies in line to review it, we aren’t likely to see the final version until 2004.
Visitors may not have expected to see more than a few Part 103 ultralight aircraft at AirVenture (some thought they would disappear as LSA approaches). But there were many. Next month I’ll write about two Part 103 rotary-wing aircraft, but this time, the subject is nanotrikes.
Nanotrike is a term to describe extremely light wheeled structures combining powered paraglider engines and contemporary hang glider wings. The idea is to create a low-cost, self-launching ultralight motorglider.
Trike Pod
Minnesota-based Seagull Aerosports debuted its Escape Pod at Oshkosh. Pushed by a single-cylinder Cors-Air engine generating 25 hp, the Escape Pod weighs only 75 pounds.
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