Long before “Mosaic” was a term anyone used*, one airplane stood out for its highly-original design, innovative features, and amazing versatility. Welcome to the once-wonderful world of MVP, the Most Versatile Plane. I am featuring this aircraft as part of an on-going series of our Top 50 Videos (of 1,500) on Dave Loveman’s Light Sport and Ultralight Flyer YouTube channel.
The bad news is… MVP never made it to market, a shame… yet despite heroic fund-raising efforts, sufficient support never materialized.
The good news… other designers observed what MVP offered. Around the time MVP was actively fund raising, Vickers Aircraft down under in New Zealand had begun work on their Wave that is now nearing market release. Icon’s A5 was already mostly frozen for design but some European entries later showed innovations first promoted for MVP.
Developer Darrell Lynds scoured the world for investors. I went with him and other aviation pioneers to China in 2017 where Darrell worked non-stop trying to raise money.
Search Results for : Icon
Not finding exactly what you expected? Try our advanced search option.
Select a manufacturer to go straight to all our content about that manufacturer.
Select an aircraft model to go straight to all our content about that model.
Ups and Downs of LSA Seaplanes — Who’s Hot and Who’s Not in Fall 2023
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Summer is over, we’re into fall and looking at winter. Surprisingly, that means that in a couple months the sale of boats and other watercraft begins to ramp up. Marine shows are commonly scheduled for the dead of winter. If that seems odd, think of it this way: When it’s cold and ugly outside, why not think about boats and bikinis?
Being pilots, of course, we think about seaplanes.
This article focuses on two bits of good news for relative newcomers to this aviation sector, shifts to challenges facing two longtime suppliers of LSA seaplanes, and ends on a positive note. Let’s get into it…
What’s Hot?
Icon Aircraft — “We have some exciting news in the Icon world today,” started a news release from the A5 LSA seaplane producer. “Our 200th production just rolled off the assembly line!” The Vacaville, California company reported starting deliveries to customers in early 2018.
Making a Study of Mosaic Easier and Faster — LAMA & USUA Join Forces to Help You
FAA proposed regulation has powerfully captured the attention of many pilots. Pilots have tons of questions. We have some answers. Everyone has a lot to read.
But… uggghhh! Who wants to read this stuff? If it doesn’t put you to sleep, it might infuriate you.
Overall, FAA’s proposal has been warmly received as it opens the door to more capable aircraft that a Sport Pilot can fly. That’s good but the document has problems, too. Following are four examples…
This article is a longer, more challenging read than one about an aircraft.
If you prefer to listen or watch, I recommend the podcast and a video below.
Mosaic’s language invigorated many readers when the NPRM expressed support for a Sport Pilot (certificate holder) to fly at night — with proper training and a logbook endorsement. Yet then the proposal refers to other FAA regulations that require BasicMed or an AvMed. If you must have a medical, you are not exercising the central privilege of Sport Pilot.
The Early Bird Gets the… Jenny — Enormous Vintage Appeal, Rapid Build, and a Modest Cost
Think about this. If you land your Timber Tiger Jenny at any GA airport and taxi up to the ramp, you might have trouble getting out of the cockpit for all the admirers that will assemble around you.
Take a close look at this example built by John Youngblut. You are quickly charmed by fond images of an earlier period in aviation. Then you look deeper, noticing its shaped wood struts, leather trim, and classic analog guages. This draws you in further and I watched people get closer and closer as they examined the detail.
All that leaves out how well it flies, which developer Nick Pfannenstiel reported was the #1 appeal of the airplane. So after enjoying an easy, relaxing flight in your Jenny, you land to be swarmed by people who believe they’ve just witnessed a piece of history fly into their lives.
Jenny began life as a Curtiss, was recreated in scaled down form by Early Bird Aircraft (Gen 1) and kits are now manufactured by Timber Tiger Aircraft, which has reimagined again in slightly larger scale, better fitting modern Americans.
Streaking through the Sky — Speedy Risen Continues our Top-50 Aircraft Series
When this series started, Icon’s shapely A5 LSA seaplane topped the list. Handsome as it is and like most seaplanes, A5 is not particularly fast. The subject of this second in the series of 50 aircraft is Porto Aviation’s Risen. You might say it is on the other end of the speed spectrum Risen rips!
This one challenges all others in the speed contest for LSA (and later, mLSA).
Our #2 video on Videoman Dave’s immense library has garnered 700,000 views. That’s particularly satisfying as Dave was able to use footage from my first solo video effort.
I was at Aero Friendrichshafen 2015 when Risen made its debut. Videoman Dave was not able to attend that year but I hit it off with developer Alberto Porto and he consented to work with me. I was just learning how to shoot a video so for this one to go over well speaks loudly about how much pilots love Risen.
Announcing a New Series — 50 Most Popular Light Aviation Videos of the Last Decade
My most ambitious series ever is a showcase of the best of the best. In this series beginning right now, I will explore dozens of top videos made by my partner-in-movies, Videoman Dave, known properly as Dave Loveman. The videos aren’t my picks or his, though. They’re yours!
In each article, I will go beyond a short description and a video link. I’ll also update the information on the subject aircraft (a few engines are included). My goal is to celebrate video success stories while also providing fresh, useful details.
Dave and I started doing videos together back in 2007, shortly after Light-Sport Aircraft arrived on the scene. Since I joined him we’ve produced close to 1,000 videos while tripling our audience.
My series will touch on the top 50 most-watched videos on Videoman Dave’s Light Sport & Ultralight Flyer YouTube channel. In all we’ll review dozens of aircraft, three engines plus electric, an ultralight review, and a Mosaic update.
GONE FLYING! — Affordable Aviation to Spread More Widely via Flying Magazine Channels
For a long time, my entire focus has been recreational aviation news. Normally, the news is about an aircraft, a new engine, or some innovative flying product. The news is rarely about the messenger, ByDanJohnson.com.
As many who attended Sun ‘n Fun 2023 learned and even more discovered via online news — Flying Media has acquired the ByDanJohnson aviation brand and all of the written, photographic, or video content created under the tagline, “By Dan Johnson.”
This content dates to 1976. Since the mid-1990s, much of this work migrated from print to the web. Work on the website began in 1999… a mere four years after the World Wide Web was birthed by the Netscape browser.
Building a website was very challenging then — we called it “stick-built,” as every line of code to make it work had to be written essentially from scratch. WordPress, which today delivers ByDanJohnson.com and about one-third of all websites worldwide, did not exist in 1999.
CubCrafters Votes for Rotax — New Carbon Cub UL Model Is First-Ever 916iS Installation
CubCrafters has never made an aircraft powered by Rotax. Images accompanying this article portray their very first example using the 9-series engine in a model intended for production. Most of their factory pilots or dealers have never flown behind a Rotax.
Yet Carbon Cub UL is also the first aircraft in the world to be fitted with the Austrian engine maker’s newest 916iS powerplant. Why did the Washington state company do this?
One main reason given by Brad Damm, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing, is because customers asked for it. However, Brad has several other good reasons, which he shared in the video below.
916iS Launch Customer
At Sun ‘n Fun 2023, CubCrafters introduced a new variant of its Carbon Cub aircraft line. Being developed with a special eye for international markets, the west coast company named it “Carbon Cub UL.”
“We invested in several new technologies to make the Carbon Cub UL even lighter and better performing than its predecessor, the Carbon Cub SS,” stated CubCrafters.
George Jetson Flying Machine — Now a Reality and a Qualifying Part 103 Ultralight?
Air taxis — eVTOLs — UAVs — UASs — UAMs. I like “multicopters,” but the name game continues.
Maybe these new-fangled flying contraptions have numerous (indecipherable) names because they’re still deciding which way they’re headed?
I believe aircraft like these are nearly inevitable and I not only don’t resist, I’m rather enthusiastic about them. I’d love to get picked up from my driveway and whisked by air to an appointment across town in minutes, free of clogged roads. C’mon, UberAir!
However, that dream may be years in the future. Oh, the technology is nearly ready now. It hasn’t been proven to be in-the-field robust yet but engineers know today most of what they need to make air taxis viable. Their much bigger challenge? Gaining public acceptance and winning regulatory approval. That could take a long time. Meanwhile…
What’s Here TODAY?!
Air taxis may be fuzzy in the distance but another class of these machines is nearly ready for market.
A Tale of Two CTLSs — AeroJones Reaches a New Benchmark for LSA
Sun ‘n Fun 2023 means spring and helps kick off a season of recreational flying. As the year progresses and Oshkosh arrives, we have our fingers crossed for FAA to issue the Mosaic Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). At AirVenture 2022, we were promised the draft proposal by August of this year.
The following month FAA’s Sport Pilot / Light-Sport Aircraft regulation will celebrate its 19th birthday. That means LSA will turn 20 years old in 2024 and by the end of the year we should have Mosaic.
It has been a fast and furious twenty years!
In those two decades, LSA have arrived and flown in nearly every country on Earth.
A few years ago, I evaluated total worldwide market size — see this article or this chart — for LSA or LSA-like aircraft and found more than 66,000 aircraft worldwide. Eight years later, that number may be 80,000 aircraft although I made no attempt to repeat that time-consuming global survey*.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- …
- 28
- Next Page »