Every pilot loves a P-51 Mustang, right? The World War II fighter with gutsy lines and a thundering engine turning a giant prop consistently ranks as one of the most desirable airplanes of all time.
Don’t even think about affording a real P-51 unless you win the lottery. Warbirds may be the biggest attraction at AirVenture Oshkosh year after year but only a few pilots have sufficiently deep pockets to own and fly one of these historic machines.
SW-51 is breathtakingly priced as well, many readers may think. Nonetheless, SW-51 is an awesome-looking flying machine that some will figure out how to afford.
Even more rare than a Ferrari, SW-51 is a very-limited-production design. The company forecasts a dozen aircraft per year. At that rate and given SW-51’s exquisite detail, I’ll bet they can sell out year after year.
Mount Your Mustang
You can watch a video below from Sun ‘n Fun 2022 that provides additional and fairly recent detail.
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Flight of the Phoenix (Motorglider) — Top 50 Video Star Is Back with News
The Top 50 video series has gone over very well and continues with this post about the Phoenix LSA motorglider. If you thought it disappeared and were unhappy about that, have I got good news for you!
I am aware of a very positive development regarding Phoenix that I am working to confirm. As soon as I have fuller details I will update this article but the prospects for LSA motorglider look promising.
In North America, Phoenix Air USA is run by Ed Babovec (email) and he is excited about 2024. …more as it unfolds.
Motorgliders as a subset of all aircraft enjoy some very special privileges that endear them to the recreational flying community. In particular, motorgliders do not require an aviation medical. That alone makes them desirable but long-gliding capabilities make them safer to some pilots and simply more enjoyable to others. Let’s look a little more deeply.
First One in the USA — Flying TL’s Luxurious, Mosaic-Ready Sparker Aircraft
Some pilots can hardly wait for Mosaic. It takes all kinds, of course.
Many aviators want to use Sport Pilot’s no-medical aspect to fly a Cessna or Piper that they can buy inexpensively (or already own). That makes sense. These affordable aircraft are familiar and proven, even if they are products of the 1950s with mostly analog instruments and powerplants that burn 10 to 15 gallons per hour of 100LL.
Another group, owners of modern LSA, wants a little more weight than allowed by current regulation. Still others may want to fly at night or in IFR or to use an economical LSA for some form of aerial work.
Then we have what I’ll call the Mosaic LSA crowd. These are pilots with larger budgets — perhaps they sold a Cirrus or Bonanza and have equity to put toward a new aircraft. These experienced pilots are accustomed to well-equipped aircraft with generous cruise speeds.
Top 50 Video Review: Lisa Akoya, an Innovative, Sleek LSA Seaplane
“Lisa Akoya: You’ve Never Seen Anything Like It,” trumpeted the lead image. Ten-year-on translation: “You’ve never seen it.”
Inspired design, cutting edge ideas, elegant sleekness, and unique features set the French LSA seaplane apart and may inspire successive designs but Lisa’s Akoya never made it to market.
No wonder,” exclaimed some! More than a decade back, they approached a retail price of $400,000. After ten years of dollar inflation, that number would be way past $500,000 today.
Remarkable as it may be to those of us with normal incomes, buyers for high-end products seem often to emerge. Cirrus and their steady sales of million-dollar-plus four seaters is proof of that. To appeal to such well-heeled pilots, a company better deliver a beautiful, functional, well-supported aircraft. Doing that expertly at a premium level gets expensive.
Here’s Looking at Lisa
Lisa Akoya dates to the very beginning of Light-Sport Aircraft. In 2004, two aviation enthusiasts, Erick Herzberger and Luc Bernole, established Lisa Airplanes in the heart of the French Alps.
Affordable, Fun, and a High Payload… What’s Not to Love about Powrachute’s AirWolf?
Last summer, when EAA AirVenture Oshkosh exploded with news that FAA released Mosaic, nearly all the attention was on increased weight and speed, and capabilities like retractable gear, controllable props, even multiengine or turbine aircraft. Christmas in July, I called it, so plentiful were FAA’s gifts to pilots and industry.
While all these items will add capability, they also increase prices. Is that what you want? Let me guess not for most readers. This website thrives on affordable aviation. Features that add substantial cost limit affordability.
Mosaic will trigger a bifurcation within the LSA community and it goes something like this: If you like the airplane you have now, you probably will not like the price of a Mosaic LSA. However, if you feel constrained in weight-carrying capacity or speed or if you want multiple engines, then Mosaic may address your wishes.
The great news? You can have it both ways.
Composite Whisper Resembles an RV; Offers Quicker Build, Faster Delivery, and Speedy Performance
As the recreational flying season slows and northern states button down for winter, one Florida LSA supplier is headed further south, much further. As he prepares for the upcoming 2024 season, Deon Lombard is headed to South Africa where he will work with the Whisper factory for three months as manufacturer and importer prepare to launch the product in the USA.
Deon is not the first to go after the Whisper prize in America but he is taking a different approach. Here’s the update on Whisper, which looks remarkably like an RV made out of composite.
As spring arrives, look for Deon and Whisper at Sun ‘n Fun 2024 when the famous Florida event celebrates its 50th anniversary.
With wait times exceeding a year for most fully-built LSA and even for many kits, Whisper looks more interesting with faster delivery predicted plus Mosaic-rule top speeds.
Article Updated 11/13/23 — see area captioned with **
Why “Whisper?”
This is not a battery electric aircraft so why call it Whisper?
Latin for Eagle, Aquilae is A New Kit Entry in the STOL space from North American Eagle
Let’s get that name dealt with right away — say “ACK-will-lay.” The model name looks more awkward than it is and sounds more graceful than it looks. The word translates from Latin as Eagle. Though unusual, Aquilae is a worthy name for a light aircraft.
When you glance at the photos nearby, do you get the feeling you’ve seen this before? You should, but you may be wrong.
Popular Design Configuration
Aquilae looks very much like but is not the G1 STOL seen earlier (see this article). Some years before G1 arrived here in America, I’d written about French-produced version after seeing it equipped with hand controls and with its wings folded compactly on a trailer at the German Aero Friedrichshafen show. The basic design has been flying for close to 25 years.
Originally developed as the Yuma by Alisport, a French company, the design was later taken over by G1 Aviation, another French company that does extensive machine shop work for several aircraft builders.
Got Mosaic Fatigue? — Comments on FAA’s New Regulation from Two Presentations
I don’t know about you, but I can guess that Mosaic Fatigue is setting in to a lot of quarters. Some pilots have done an extraordinary job of digging into this 318-page document to distill essential parts that need to be addressed. Many pilots get exhausted just looking at the NPRM. …Me, too.
I look forward to more reporting on aircraft. Nonetheless…
Mosaic has given us an inside look at how FAA works. Many improvements resulted when industry worked in harmony with government officials. Nonetheless, careful study found areas of concern in the NPRM. Recent articles in other publications hit essentially the same points as I did in my talk (slide). Those points were partly my thinking, but I also relied on other experts to whom I had posed a variety of questions.
Still, some of the best commentary has come from non-experts, regular pilots who were concerned about a certain part of the NPRM and explored it thoroughly.
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.
EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2023 — Set-up Day Tour to Whet Your Aviation Appetite
Do you know when you’re an airshow junkie, ‘er… enthusiast? Answer: When you actually enjoy observing the set-up process. I’ve made the following observation many times.
The night before opening, with literally hours before the show starts, the place appears in a state of chaos. Pandemonium reigns. Vehicles, crates, equipment of every kind is seemingly strewn about as if by a storm (which did do some damage on Saturday night, ironically most affecting those who started earlier).
Every show I think, “No way can they get this or that exhibit ready in the 10-15 hours before the main gates open to hundreds of thousands of visitors.”
Yet every show on opening day, I find myself saying, “What?! It’s all done!” Did they work all night? Even if staff was willing to work all night, it seemed unlikely to get the job done mere hours earlier. Maybe it’s magic or Santa’s Elves.
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