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At the recently concluded Midwest LSA Expo in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, SportairUSA boss Bill Canino and American Legend rep’ Dave Graham confirmed the continuation of a successful series called the LSA Tour. This traveling show-after-the-show concept set in motion a plan to follow airshows with a tour of several LSA manufacturers or importers. The idea is that many interested aviators cannot make the airshows for various reasons. So, as exhibitors head home they schedule a series of stops that may bring the show to your home field. *** The start of the LSA Tour followed the Sebring show in January 2011 with a series of stops in Florida. Then after the Sun ‘n Fun show, a group of vendors went to Georgia and North Carolina. Another series happened in Colorado. Now they’ll be invading Texas, specifically the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, an expansive aviation concentration of 50 airports within the 30 nm traffic area surrounding DFW, according to Graham.

Reports continue positively for results at AirVenture 2011… despite FAA’s partial shutdown, a media frenzy over the USA’s debt ceiling, a roller coaster ride in the stock markets, and a continuing bum housing market plus general uncertainty. If you can smile after all that, things must be improving. *** GAMA’s report of Type Certified aircraft deliveries for the first half of 2011 shows sales remain far below manufacturing capacity. Thanks significantly to Cessna’s hastened deliveries of Skycatcher, the LSA sector is surviving a bit better; of course, LSA sell many less units than GA and account for much smaller dollar volume. Here’s more evidence of improvement… •• Icon Aircraft announced they secured 143 delivery position sales ($286,000 raked in) at AirVenture for their sexy new A5, expected on the market perhaps by 2012. Icon generously donated 10% of the take to EAA Young Eagles program. •• Flight Design continues to log orders for its LSA but their new four seat C4 has now garnered nearly 100 delivery position orders (at $7,000 apiece).

Oshkosh 2011 is history. By numerous accounts, this was a vast improvement over 2010 when the comments commonly went, “Well, I had some interest (in my airplane) and I hope to sell one or two… maybe.” This year I had easily 30 conversations revealing either outright positive successful results or varyingly robust mood indicators such as, “Looks like aviation has life in it again.” I heard from sellers and customers and rarely had to solicit their opinions. *** A number of aircraft purveyors said they took cash deposits and wrote firm contracts. I estimate about 30 aircraft sales by this method. Companies like Icon, Flight Design, and Terrafugia sold a large number of future delivery positions (more than 50, more than 60, and “several,” respectively). *** Icon neared or crossed the 500-on-order point, partly by “testing elasticity” in the pre-order market by lowering the A5 seaplane deposit to $2,000 from $5,000.

By all accounts it’s been a good show. I talked with several LSA vendors who, despite the pitiful wrangling in Congress over the debt and general lack of a strong economic bounceback, either wrote some sales or were 90% certain they would. ***  U.S. sales leader Flight Design even announced they’d written $11 million worth of business at the show. ***  I talked with John Gilmore, the U.S. sales manager for Tom Peghiny’s U.S. Flight Design operation, who briefed me on the new, four-seat, to-be-certified Flight Design C4 the other day (I’ll post more in the next few days). *** John also updated Dan Johnson today on the company’s excellent numbers at the show: *** “We have taken 40 orders for the new C4 plus another 8 orders for Light-Sport Aircraft here at AirVenture 2011,” said John. *** The C4 debuted in Europe in April and a full-scale mockup seen here was prominent in the display all week.

After my own Labors of Hercules, I arrived at the EAA Oshkosh Airventure seasonal highpoint event Tuesday mid day. Since it was a beautiful day by anybody’s standards, I decided not to brave the hordes at the show and headed out, once I got settled in my digs for the week, to a lovely little airport named Brennand about 10 minutes northwest of EAA’s Wittman Field show grounds. *** I was in luck with more than just weather: the San Antonio Light Sport Aircraft (SALSA) gang from Texas was there demo-flying its all-composite Pipistrel Virus SW 80/100, tricycle-gear (there’s also a taildragger version), composite touring motorglider. *** The Pipistrel line includes several designs I have admired from afar but not had the opportunity to share air with. *** All that changed when Salsa’s prime mover and shaker Rand Vollmer introduced me to a big, friendly Texican fella named Dave White.

Winged buddy Dan Johnson and his colleague Jan Fridrich, head of LAMA Europe, just posted Jan’s exhaustive parsing of the LSA registration data and came up with some shockers. ***  Dan calls it the LSA Market Share Report. The first thing he notes is apparent stability in the marketplace: overall registration numbers for the first half of 2011 are about the same as last year, he says, so at least the industry didn’t fall off from that tough year. The pace is on track to better 2009’s 177 total registrations and 2010’s 202. *** In 2010, 48 came from Cessna, which, when subtracted from the total, gives you 154 for the whole year for the rest of the fleet. *** So, looking again at 2011’s first half of 126, subtracting Cessna’s numbers from the total of 126 yields just 72. *** Double that (144) and we could end up with even fewer registrations than 2010, (not counting Cessna) although at just 10 less it’s not an earthshaking falloff unless you want to be a worrywart and consider 2009, which had 177 total…and none from Cessna.