Search Results for : Flight Design

Looking out the window, I see cold gray clouds and possible precip. Of course, it’s late Fall and this is the Northeast, so we call this Situation Normal. *** Which means it’s never too early to imagine warm weather and blue skies…which naturally leads our daydreams to the LSA kick-off aviation event of the year: U.S. Sport Aviation Expo, AKA Sebring: the pre-eminent happening for us sport flyin’ types since it debuted in 2005. *** It’s only 66 days until the show, which runs Jan. 20-23, 2011. Start making those travel plans, flyfolk! *** Sebring’s founder and head honcho, Robert Wood, is already busy wrangling the exhibitor lineup. *** “We actually have a waiting list for inside exhibit spaces and have very few outside spaces remaining for the January show,” he said just a few days ago. *** Many of the top makers are already signed up, including American Legend, Flight Design, Cessna and Piper.

One of the interesting speculations in a recent Wired magazine article on the E-Spyder electric ultralight being developed by Flight Design USA‘s (and FlightStar Aircraft‘s) Tom Peghiny invokes turning the lemony limited range of current early electric aircraft into the lemonade of broadly-applied commercial use — specifically in flight schools. *** The first production E-Spyder, soon to be sold for around $30K, will have no more than 30 minutes of range. Yuneec’s two-seat E430, now scheduled for 2012 debut, aims for a 2 hour flight endurance. *** But two hours clearly is more than enough for the typical local flight lesson. And with spare — and charged — battery pack modules ready to go to quick-swap out of electrical “fuel tanks”, flight schools could run training ops as easily as their current gas engined counterparts. *** No distracting engine noise and frame vibration; no lean/enrich fuel settings; no starter motors or smelly exhausts to deal with.

*** Everyone interested in electric flight will want to know that the E-Spyder electric-powered ultralight is poised to enter the marketplace. *** A few days ago Tom Peghiny invited me out to Woodstock, CT, about three hours drive from my house, to fly the latest prototype (v. 3) of the venerable FlightStar ultralight. *** I had to pass since I was prepping for a family visit to Germany. *** Checking in from Hamburg, I found a post on his website from my pal and LSA colleague Dan Johnson, who scooped me on the following info: *** The E-Spyder will be marketed by Yuneec, which bought the rights to produce the design from Tom and continues development on several other projects: the graceful E430 S-LSA which has won several prizes already; E-PAC power backpack for paragliders; and electric motor systems for a variety of aviation applications.

Recovering from the mud soup floods that crippled arrivals a few days ago (so many airplanes typically park on the grass), things began to dry out enough yesterday to bring robust opening day attendance, helped in large part by the beautiful weather.  Humidity was manageable, temps were in the mid-80s. *** A great start for EAA (which reportedly draws 45% of its yearly revenue from Airventure), with lots to see and talk about. *** Highlights: *** Yuneec, (which seriously needs to update its website), is the Chinese electric aircraft company that blew open the hangar doors of everybody’s electric flight dreams last year with the debut of the beautiful E-430 all-electric S-LSA.  They’ve guarded some tasty secrets since, which came to light yesterday. *** I spent a half hour with Managing Director Clive Coote to get updated, here are some highlights (more details down the road, and in my electric flight article which will run in a P&P issue this fall).