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On those weekends that I’m hanging out at my newly adopted country airport of Great Barrington, MA (GBR), I always look forward to seeing young Joe Solan. *** Joe’s 12…going on 28, as someone at the airport affectionately quipped. *** Joe is one great kid, the kind I sometimes wish I’d been more like when I was his age. *** When we first greet, whether he’s dutifully dragging a heavy gas pump hose that weighs half what he does, answering the airport office phone or hunting up a charged handheld battery, he’ll flash a friendly smile, say “Hi!”, and stick out his hand like the straight-up little man he is. *** He’s growing up at the airport, mentored in running the business and mentored in life by his dad Rick, a co-owner of the airport with lots of great ideas for growing its prosperity. *** Rick’s also the guy who keeps American Airlines 777 drivers on the straight and narrow as a top-level inspector pilot.

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.

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.

Kids, don’t try this at home… or in the air.  Well, unless you leave yourself no other choice. *** While flying a new LSA on the day after the Sun ‘n Fun airshow, my demo host and I were enjoying the puffy cloud kingdom somewhere not too far from Lakeland Linder Field in central Florida when the Garmin G3 center display went black. *** No amount of coaxing, button pushing, or breaker recycling would bring it back.  We chalked it up to a new installation and the fact we’d sat on the ground for 45 minutes in the heat, in a ridiculously long line of departing airplanes — and a methodically sloooooow tower controller determined to go by the book while 30 airplanes sat watching their engine temps rise …and rise. This guy could learn a thing or two from the boys at Oshkosh about expediting departures. *** Anyway, here we were a few minutes later, tooling around the countryside, not overly concerned about losing the one display, when bip!, the other G3 display coughs, hiccups, and goes down, too.