Before Cessna announced its
light-sport aircraft (LSA) prototype,
the Wichita, Kansas-based
aircraft manufacturer investigated the
airplanes produced by Costruzioni
Aeronautiche Tecnam, aka Tecnam.
Cessna’s interest was likely stimulated
by Tecnam’s 50-year history of
aircraft manufacturing. The company
traces its roots to 1950 and the P48B
Astore. You may also be familiar with
its twin-engine Partenavia series of
aircraft that emerged in the 1970s.
The Pascale brothers founded
Costruzioni Aeronautiche Tecnam
just after World War II, but the company
was reorganized in 1986. Based
today in Casoria, Italy, Tecnam is a
large operation with 36,000 square
feet of facilities near the Naples Capodichino
airport.
A second facility is located
in Capua, where the final assembly
line is adjacent to
an airport where flight tests
are conducted. “Professor”
Luigi Pascale, the 82-yearold
patriarch of Tecnam,
remains the guiding light
of the company. He reportedly
still does all first flights of Tecnam
airplanes. The company’s design approach
is backed with the latest Catia
V5 software, wind tunnel tests, and
close associations with Italian aero
institutes and universities.
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FK Lightplanes’ Feature-Laden Fk9 Mk IV
This airplane began life under
B&F Technik Vertriebs GmbH,
a name derived from partners
Dirk Breitkreuz and Peter Funk, who
started the commercial enterprise.
Now, Funk operates the company on
his own and has adopted the worldlier
and less cumbersome name Fk-
Leichtflugzeuge, its English translation
being Fk-Lightplanes. U.S.
distributor Tony Anderson named
his enterprise Fk-Lightplanes USA.
Based in Pembroke Pines, Florida,
Fk-Lightplanes USA calls North Perry
Airport home.
The Funk name is storied in European
light aircraft development,
with more than a dozen original designs
to its credit. Fk-Lightplanes today
produces three airplanes, each
quite different from the other: our
subject airplane this month-the
high-wing Fk9, the low-wing Fk14
Polaris, and a folding-wing biplane
called the Fk12 Comet. I’ve had the
pleasure of flying all three models,
but I think the Fk9 may prove most
popular with American LSA enthusiasts.
Though designed and refined in
Speyer, Germany, the Fk9 and its siblings
are now fabricated in Poland by
workers with decades of experience
building Soviet fighters and transports.
New Look for Xair Import; Xair H
UPDATE 2008: The following article preceded the arrival of the X-Air LS offered by X-Air LSA, certified in 2008 as a Special Light-Sport Aircraft under ASTM standards. The article below appears unchanged from the original, but the airframe is essentially identical. So, while panel changes were made along with a few minor updates, flying qualities reported in the following article should largely match that of the new LSA version.
It was Tax Day, April 15, and I prepared to fly an Xair H (N#929XH) owned by importer Bill Magrini of Light Wing Aircraft. It seemed an appropriate day to forget about what I owed the Internal Revenue Service and to enjoy some ultralight flying. Fortunately, the Xair H didn’t disappoint.
The Xair H isn’t the designer or fabricator’s name for the new plane. When I first saw the then-prototype design at a French airshow in ’02, the new model was named Hanuman, which means little to American pilots.
Jay Kurtz and His RV-9 ELSA!
Jay Kurtz is the owner of South Lakeland airport (X49), where vendors often conduct customer demonstration flights a mere four miles away from Sun ‘n Fun. A longtime participant in ultralight aviation, Jay’s built RANS models, Capella designs, and a “regular” RV-9A. But it’s his second RV-9 that really has him revved up; this one is can be flown by a Sport Pilot! Not possible? Too fast and too heavy? Wrong! Jay’s RV-9 ELSA weighs 906 pounds empty and is headed to 875 pounds with planned weight savings. Powered by a 108-hp Lycoming O-235, speed is prop controlled to reach 134 mph at max continuous power. *** With the required 10 hours now flown off Jay can use the ELSA like any other Light-Sport Aircraft. And he reports the weight reductions to stay under 1,320 pounds gross transformed the ‘9 ELSA. “I approach at 60 mph, 20 slower than the RV-9A!” Jay also raved about handling and slow speed flight characteristics.
Sky Ranger Defines a New Niche
Listening to the aviation media drumbeat about Sport Pilot/Light-Sport Aircraft, you could be excused for thinking ultralights had “vanished” and that it now takes $55,000 to $95,000 to buy a light recreational aircraft. Fortunately, this just isn’t so.
We’re beginning to identify the emergence of a middle ground and the Sky Ranger is positioned in this space. According to my Sky Ranger check pilot Ryan Gross, our test plane could be supplied by Sky Ranger Aircraft Company for $40,000 in ready-to-fly form. While this is significantly more than the Sky Ranger 503 kit I flew four years ago, it is about half the cost of the average new 3-axis light-sport aircraft (LSA), though some models, like the Fantasy Air Allegro 2000, are only $15,000 more than the Sky Ranger.
Regardless of how the Sky Ranger Aircraft Company may elect to supply fully-built aircraft versus kits, the design of this airplane was optimized to be a quick and easily-built kit.
The Tanarg: Most Deluxe Trike Ever?
When Air Création introduced their beautiful Tanarg trike to American pilots in 2005, it earned a very warm response and, at the same time, shock at its $53,000 price tag – some $10,000 more than the next closest high-end trike.
Pronounced Tan-ARG (rhyme it with “barge,” except the G is said softly, more like TAN-arz), the machine is impressive. Even for those pilots or newcomers who regard weight-shift control trikes as “weird,” or “hard to understand,” the Tanarg design concept earns respect rapidly. This aircraft has received enormous attention to detail while also gaining in strength and ease of use. Air Création engineers built on many successful years of designing and producing lots of trikes – some 2,500 of them – to create a stunning work of aeronautical art. Nothing on the market is quite like the Tanarg.
The last time I wrote about Air Création, I talked about my experience with their wonderful new iXess wing (once again introducing a hard-to-pronounce name).
An Introduction to Light-Sport Aircraft
Sport pilot and light-sport aircraft,
what’s it all about?
If you’ve ever thought about
learning to fly, returning to
flying, or resuming flying lessons
that you started years ago,
congratulations; your timing is
just about perfect! This rule provides
new opportunities for you as well as
anyone who has dreamed of owning
an aircraft.
This article will summarize how
SP/LSA affects you. We’ll keep it simple;
when you’re ready for more,
EAA offers many ways to become
more informed (see “For More
Information”). Like many activities,
flying has its own language with
abbreviations, acronyms, forms, and
numbers to make discussing it faster.
Veteran pilots throw this lingo around
casually and often baffle those who
aren’t involved. We’ll avoid such jargon
in this article, and we’ll only use
abbreviations after we’ve explained
them.
Let’s Get Started!
SP/LSA has two basic components:
“Sport pilot” refers to a new pilot
certificate you can earn (the FAA calls
them certificates as opposed to licenses);
“Light-sport aircraft (LSA)” refers
to a new category of aircraft.
IndUS Sky Skooter…Proven Trainer with ePod
he proven airframe and modern panel of the Sky Skooter make perhaps the oddest, yet most appropriate of mates. Each from a different age – the T-211’s unique ribbed wing beckons from the 1940s while the ePod streaks ahead in the 2000s – they nonetheless complement each other.
The Sky Skooter is the fun little variant of the T-211 series, including the FAA-certified T-211 and the ASTM standards-compliant (LSA certified) Thorpedo. The company can deliver just about any version of John Thorp’s groundbreaking design, the very one that lead to Piper’s Cherokee, which sold tens of thousands.
Complementing the joyful and innocent Sky Skooter with the most pleasant in-flight handling comes the visitor from the future: IndUS Aviation’s ePod. Putting these together for a flight review shows the past and the future of light-sport aviation.
Long Perspective
The T-211 has a long, rich aviation history. The model dates back to designs studies in the early 1940s that lead to the Lockheed Little Dipper, a single-place light aircraft created by legendary designer John Thorp.
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.
Have it your way…CH-601 XL or XLi
The strongest interest in readyto-
fly special light-sport aircraft
(S-LSA) to date has come
from pilots operating Cessna, Piper,
Mooney, and other general aviation
(GA) aircraft. It is estimated that more
than 100,000 currently certificated pilots
are looking at their prospects for
maintaining an up-to-date second- or
third-class FAA medical and considering
the LSA option. Many are concluding
that LSA are worthy airplanes
and recognize that downsizing to an
LSA two-seater can meet their flying
goals, a fact that has driven a good
share of LSA sales thus far.
Thousands of those pilots have private
or higher certificates with instrument
ratings. They’re accustomed to
having a full panel and want one even
if flying in instrument meteorological
conditions (IMC) isn’t in their plans. In
fact, flashy dual-screen plus electronic
information and navigation panel
layouts have proven quite popular in
many S-LSA, even though they add tens
of thousands of dollars in cost.
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