In the fascinating LSA seaplane sector-within-a-sector, we find both good news and bad news today, though the latter can be overcome. That’s the shortest possible story. More detail follows.
The Good
“It is with great pleasure we can report that Equator Aircraft Norway achieved first fully balanced flight with the P2 Xcursion prototype aircraft over the newly painted runway 22 at Eggemoen Technology Park in Norway,” reported the company. Here’s our earlier report on this fascinating project.
Tested by Eskil Amdal, Equator reportedly accelerated to 70 knots before leaving the ground and flying down the runway at 100 knots at nine meters (about 30 feet, at the edge of ground effect), before landing smoothly. Amdal reported stable flight with good controllability in all axes. Two more flights were performed the following day, further establishing confidence in the flying characteristics.
“The aircraft is a prototype developed by Equator with very limited means since 2010,” explained the company.
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Pipistrel Update — 900 Virus, “House Organ,” and Oshkosh Splash
In the world of Light-Sport Aircraft, we have more than 90 manufacturers and 145 Special LSA (see our whole list) accepted* by FAA. This huge diversity of design has given recreational pilots around the world a large number of ready-to-fly aircraft choices beyond anything we have seen in aviation since the beginning.
However, the old 80/20 rule still applies where (approximately) 80% of the aircraft sold are built by 20% of the manufacturers. It is a credit to this 14-year-old industry that even the smaller companies can remain viable enterprises. Very few of the 90+ manufacturers have left the business. However, most of the airplanes are made by a few top producers, which you can see in our market share charts.
Pipistrel is One of the Leaders
“Serial Number 900 leaves the factory headed for Australia,” glowed Michael Coates, the longtime distributor for Pipistrel aircraft in Australia and the United States.
Get Your Walter Mitty On — SW51 Coming At You Soon!
Many pilots who first set eyes on the SW51, a precisely faithful 70%-scale imitation of the famous North American Aviation P-51 Mustang managed to utter a single word: “WOW!”
Can you blame them? Look at this bird. The shape is classic and the detail is exquisite, finished down to the last rivet to mimic the famous World War II American fighter. Except, it’s a kind of fake. I better explain.
We’ve seen this spectacular execution of Hans Schwöller before. It was then called FK51 and we reported it earlier in more detail as to its construction. Now welcome ScaleWings Aircraft.
Thanks to his youthful associate, Christian von Kessel, SW51 has been refunded and reenfranchised, bringing it to reality. The earlier producer group stumbled and this amazing construction never reached market.
Can you handle a machine that looks this awesome? As you hear Hans and Christian state in the video, SW51 is easy to take off and land and docile in flight.
Tecnam the Magnificent — from Light-Sport Aircraft to Well Beyond
The big Italian company that LSA enthusiasts know very well through models such as P92, Sierra, and P2008 has a large and growing presence in global aviation. Their developments are broad and delve into aviation segments large and small. They are also getting ready to celebrate a benchmark birthday.
This year Tecnam Costruzioni Aeronautiche — most pilots simply say “Tecnam” — will celebrate its 70th birthday.
Born in 1948, the company has changed names but the Pascale brothers kicked off their flying enterprise with the original Astore in 1948.
If you are a Tecnam fan, you probably recognize Astore as one of their newest LSA models. Here’s our video with Tecnam boss Paolo Pascale celebrating what was then their 65th birthday, which they honored by releasing their most luxurious LSA so far …naming it after the brothers’ first airplane.
Paolo is the current director of Tecnam but he follows in the shoes of one of the founding brothers, “Uncle Luigi” (Professor Luigi “Gino” Pascale).
Shhhhhh… Could a Whisper Be In Your Future? Are You Sure About That?
UPDATE (5/28/18): Since this article was published, we’ve added our video interview from Aero 2018.
For your holiday reading about flying machines, I want to veer off into the weeds for one article. Don’t worry; lots more conventional reporting will follow.
After the Uber Elevate conference, mainstream media was all over eVTOLs like bees on flowers in spring. Breathless stories abound regarding how we will soon all take autonomously-flown taxis around our big cities, saving time and restoring the planet’s environmental health. Yeah, maybe… we’ll see about all that.
Imagine this…
What if you had guests over for the holiday and one arrives in the bright blue machine pictured nearby. Would you go look at it? More importantly, what if the owner said, “Let’s go for a short flight; you can see your home and neighborhood from above and it will only take a few minutes.”
Indeed, what if he threw you the keys and said, “You can go by yourself if you like.”
“But I don’t know how to fly a helicopter,” you plead, knowing the machine in your driveway is not a helicopter.
Swan Ultralight — “Big Little Airplane” in a Tiny Box (Trailer)
For three years at Aero Friedrichshafen, the wonderful April show in the south of Germany, I have admired one genuine ultralight called Swan.
Yes, “ultralight!” Swan may not look like a U.S. “ultralight vehicle” as Part 103 rule writers deliberately named the type. Yet I use the term with care. So does the Swan producer.
The company is well aware of three national standards with which Swan neatly complies, they said: England’s SSDR or Single Seat DeRegulated, or Germany’s 120-kilogram class or FAA’s Part 103. These are all surprisingly similar (see this article for more). Swan may need to be equipped carefully to achieve this but the producer assured me it was possible.
Naturally, I get that not everyone is into ultralights and/or single seat aircraft. However, interest appears stronger than in many years. No doubt many potential buyers look closely at purchase prices they can afford while for those lucky enough to afford two airplanes, Swan could be their “sport” airplane as some spam can works to haul the family around.
Weird? Or, Wonderful? More Companies Move Toward eVTOL …Will Sport Pilots?
What on Earth is going on in Airplane DesignerLand? Are we headed for a bifurcation, a parting of the ways among those engineering the next generation of aircraft? Perhaps. Will this affect you? How do you feel about non-fixed-wing aircraft?
I am searching for a term to generically describe these emerging flying machines; “drones” doesn’t quite do the job. More of these seemingly-weird-looking machines seem to pop up every day.
Prior experience suggests that most will never make it to market. Ones that do succeed in the eVTOL or electric-powered aircraft market may not even exist today. For that matter, it is far from certain that this will ever turn into a market, though given the huge amounts of money pouring into research projects, it seems nearly inevitable (to me) that some will survive and perhaps have a major impact on flying, both for transportation and for sport or recreation.
Along this vein, before and at Sun ‘n Fun 2018, I spoke to officials from BRS parachutes.
April Foolin’? Are You Ready for Hoverbiking on Scorpion 3?
After you finish Easter Sunday dinner with the family, how about going out for a spin on your new Scorpion 3 Hoverbike? Is this merely an April fools joke?
Apparently not. Video appears to prove this machine, though with the state of the art in digital effects, anything you see can be fiction.
As many of us prepare for the start of Sun ‘n Fun 2018 in barely over one week, we hope to see numerous flying machines of interest. My visual partner, Videoman Dave and I will be onsite in Lakeland, Florida — and the following week at Aero Friedrichshafen in the south of Germany. Our mission is to collect a large batch of video that we hope will educate and entertain enthusiasts of light aviation.
I do not expect we will be covering Scorpion 3, but I have to admit I found the idea fascinating.
Aviation Future Shock? Questions & Answers with a Australian Editor
Recently I had an exchange with Australian Flying magazine editor, Steve Hitchen. He asked some great questions and after giving my responses I realized some of his question were common ones I hear being discussed. So why not share our give-and-take? Steve’s questions are in blue.
I’d like to talk about power. With LSA restricted to 120 KIAS, it seems unlikely we’ll get much engine development to increase power unless regulations change to either allow an increase in speed or gross weight.
LSA are getting more power, to wit, Rotax’s new 915iS with 135-horsepower and the Continental Titan line with 180 horsepower. I do not think this is the end of the horsepower boosts …plus LSA speed and/or weight changes could conceivably follow in the USA but are currently not limitations in other countries that accept the ASTM standards as a basis for approval or certification.
Happy Birthday, Sonex (20 Years!) — They Have a Gift …for You!
Because we promote this website as focused on “affordable aviation,” one of our favorite companies is Sonex. (OK, fine, we like a lot of companies but we are blessed with many doing a good job at holding down prices.)
With a big smile, I am pleased to wish Sonex Aircraft a very happy 20th birthday, as the company just announced. But wait, is that right? Is it only 20 years old?
Well… yes, and no. Sonex founder John Monnett has been building kits for much longer, more than twice as long in fact. His first homebuilders project called Monerai was a sailplane he developed in the 1970s.
The sleek machine was a conventional pod-and-boom design with a V-shaped tail and a shoulder-lever cantilevered wing. The soaring enthusiast in me loves the look of this glider that later also became a powered, self-launch sailplane.
Not long afterward came Sonerai, a completely different VW-powered homebuilt aircraft that is an obvious predecessor to the Sonex of today.
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