One of the most common questions I got at Oshkosh 2016 was the title of this article. I’m only one person with an opinion, but since I work with many airframe producers in the LSA space, I heard this question fairly often, several times from airplane sellers who were curious what other producers thought.
Just shy of five years ago, EAA and AOPA caught the LSA industry off guard by announcing plans to push FAA to drop the Third Class medical. Most LSA professionals likely agree with the basic idea that FAA ought to keep their noses out of the recreational end of aviation. Many feel that the medical requirement has prevented almost no accidents. Nonetheless, this new initiative took aim at the primary reason LSA builders were then selling airplanes like crazy. If you wanted to fly without a medical you had ultralights (Part 103… and still do), or sailplane motorgliders, or Light-Sport Aircraft.
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Mainstream Media Awakens to Flying Cars
Perhaps like many of you, I read the newspaper most mornings. Today I was reading the Wall Street Journal. In one of their special sections was an article about flying cars. As regular readers know, I try to keep up with this niche within our niche of aviation.
Major publication reporters are finally catching up with what we have been observing for several years. People talk about the “mainstream media” disdainfully for a reason. Even though they provide the “news,” their realization of all things new is not necessarily that timely. So much is happening in so many fields that mainstream media reporters cannot be expected to keep up with all developments. A website like this one is laser-focused on Light-Sport Aircraft, light kit aircraft, and ultralights. Even a billion-dollar news organization can’t stay up on the latest like we can.
In fact, today’s “Journal Report” — a subsection of the daily newspaper — was all about aviation.
Toyota May Be Thinking Differently about Aerocars
Maybe you haven’t heard enough about electric-powered aircraft, flying cars, and automobiles on autopilot (presuming you’re aware of Tesla’s fatal accident in May). How about a shape-shifting aerocar? Huh?! I know it sounds rather crazy but Toyota, being the world’s largest car manufacturer, is not a name to be dismissed when they may choose to delve into the flying car business… twice, in a few months!
Nope, I’m not kidding. The Japanese car company was awarded a patent for a “Shape Morphing Fuselage for an Aerocar.” The illustrations — typical patent artwork — might fool you. This is not some 1930s silliness. The U.S. Patent office published this very recently, on June 23rd, 2016.
Perhaps it’s no more than a publicity generator, much like Amazon’s drone delivery aircraft — about which, by the way, Amazon claims to be sincere. Or, maybe Toyota is afraid Terrafugia might beat them to an interesting market, something like Tesla did to the big boys of auto manufacturing.
Flying Car Racing Event & Terrafugia New Weight
If my title confuses you, regrets. The two are related in my mind but not in present-day fact. Nonetheless, I found both interesting and hope you do, too.
First, the fact. Terrafugia, of current Transition Roadable Airplane or flying car fame, won a weight exemption up to 1,800 pounds. This blows past the 1,680 pound exemption won by Icon Aircraft for their A5 LSA seaplane (only 1,510 pounds of which they chose to use). Earlier Terrafugia was granted an exemption to the seaplane LSA weight of 1,430 pounds but that didn’t prove to be enough.
A problem, perhaps the major problem, for Terrafugia is contained in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (and let’s be just as government as we can be to go with the inescapable abbreviation of FMVSS). You cannot take to the air with any airplane heavier than an ultralight vehicle (254 pounds empty plus certain exceptions) without satisfying lengthy FAA regulations and you cannot put a non-kit car on the road without meeting the considerable requirements of FMVSS.
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.
A Powerful Wave Is Headed Your Way!
Unless you’ve had your mind on other pursuits — oh, for example, preparing to head to Sun ‘n Fun 2016 next week (the show runs April 5-10) — you could hardly miss the growing buzz surrounding Icon. A soft whistle of air escaping the cabin turned into a deafening roar as Aero-News.Net (always fast with news), AOPA online, AVweb and others piled on to a story about Icon’s 40-page A5 purchase contract.
Credible journalistic work was done by Jim Campbell, Jim Moore, and Paul Bertorelli (respectively of each of the publications mentioned above) in documenting the behemoth contract. I have an opinion too — one part respectful of the California company’s wish to protect their brand and their investment and and one part saying, “What the…?” I see no reason to delve into further than the lengthy stories my fellow writers already posted.
Instead, I like following what’s new in Light-Sport Aircraft, light kit aircraft, and ultralights.
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.
CGS Hawk Has Found a New Florida Home
In the beginning … the light aviation world was void and without form. Those were the earliest days of light powered aircraft that people could truly afford. I refer way back to the late 1970s following a period when hang gliders were the darlings of the affordable aviation world. Hang gliders evolved in various dimensions, among which was the addition of an engine to a previously unpowered type of flying machine.
In those formative years one man stood large. Not only a big man in physical form, he was big in stature and bold in his goals. Some readers already know to whom I refer — the always impressive and irrepressible Chuck Slusarczyk. History about him goes back far enough that much of it precedes the World Wide Web. The earliest articles about Chuck and his enterprise never made it into the digital universe but see this link for a number that did, including some videos.
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.
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