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News & Video on Light-Sport Aircraft, Sport Pilot Kits, and Ultralight Aircraft

Atol Light-Sport Aircraft Amphibian — Design and Production Update

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“Coming to America” is a common refrain from light aircraft producers in some countries. Why? The obvious reason is that most designers perceive a huge market in the USA. Another is that shipping from the USA to other countries proves easier than shipping from their home countries. Other reasons also exist but those two are enough to decide in favor of the move.
One builder of a LSA seaplane is Atol Avion, based in Finland. They have been moving steadily toward approval, production, and sale of their Atol amphibian.
Anssi Rekula, co-founder of Avion and the director of sales said, “We have a lot of news and it’s centered on delivery of production airplanes. He enumerated:

We have received new investment to support our European certification, which is expected by the end of 2017.
We have established our North American operation in Brunswick, Maine.
We are scheduling customer demo flights in Finland as soon as the crew is back from Oshkosh 2017 where customers can see and fly the all-new cockpit design (images), and,
We have received our first order from Australia …so all is good and very positive.

Icon Updates: Crash Cause …yet Onward with Deliveries

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Icon Aircraft CEO Kirk Hawkins shared a computer depiction of events leading to the crash of an A5 flown by factory chief pilot, Jon Karkow. From A5’s onboard black box Icon engineers assembled a second-by-second path for the ill-fated Light-Sport Aircraft. The data showed speed, power settings, flap position, and more.
According to the Napa Valley Register relating a National Transportation Safety Board report, “Pilot error caused the crash that killed two men in a small airplane on May 8, 2017 in Lake Berryessa.”
NTSB wrote, “The pilot, Jon Karkow, of Icon Aircraft in Vacaville, was flying too low, and mistakenly entered a canyon surrounded by steep rising terrain.” The investigative agency said Karkow had taken off from the Nut Tree airport in Vacaville at 8:50 a.m. accompanied by passenger, Cargi Sever, a new Icon employee. The pilot intended to take Sever on a familiarization flight in the Icon A5 amphibious Light-Sport Aircraft, said NTSB.

Update: Flight Design and its Popular CTLS Light-Sport Aircraft

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After more than a year, a resolution was reached for the airplane that topped the charts in the LSA space since Day One. Although Flight Design’s CT-series was eclipsed in 2016 by CubCrafters (by a very slim margin), the aircraft remains well regarded and its many adherents are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief that the “reorganization” (what Americans might call a bankruptcy) has been resolved. All good!
(Read more about this reorganization here.)
During EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2017, longtime Flight Design USA representative Tom Peghiny sent news about the new owner of the brand. The crush of airshow activity let others beat us to this news, however, we will use our long history with this company to provide a more detailed report.
That Was Then
Flight Design, the German company that makes the CTLS, has been through the wringer in recent years with a series of reversals no one could have anticipated.

Vickers Oshkosh Forum to Describe Progress toward Wave Light-Sport Aircraft Seaplane

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Now that we are in the middle of winter, activity is brisk. Middle of winter!? Down under in New Zealand, residents are presently in the colder months of the year. Pilots in U.S. states currently sweating through summer may need a moment to ponder that.
New Zealand may be a long ways away but the Vickers Aircraft team building Wave are bringing their fascinating aircraft ever closer. As they work, they are gaining experience with new equipment used to build Wave LSA seaplanes.
“Our tooling is all in place now,” said CEO Paul Vickers. “Initial parts are coming out of molds and they are matching the CAD files perfectly.” Modern design, even of more affordable aircraft, are often fully created on computer work stations. The days of hand making a prototype are passed and the older way is nearly extinct.
“We’ve also recently doubled the size of our facilities,” added Paul.

Kitfox Is Bringing 2017 Speedster to EAA AirVenture

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One of the stalwarts of the light aircraft sector is Kitfox, a brand known widely around the globe. First flown in November 1984 by Dan Denney, nearly 5,000 aircraft in various models have been produced. Nearly all were built from kits but the company also achieved Special Light-Sport Aircraft status allowing flight instruction for compensation.
Kitfox, like all that appear somewhat similar, evolved from the original Avid Flyer by Dean Wilson in 1983. The Kitfox brand went through various owners after Denney sold and today resides with John McBean though the company has always hailed from Idaho.
“Working from the very successful and robust Kitfox S7 Super Sport, we created a clipped wing, aerodynamically refined, and superbly stylized taildragger Speedster that is guaranteed to get the heart rate up to redline,” said McBean in news announced just before Airventure 2017 is set to begin (next Monday, July 25th).

Workhorse Dragonfly Rancher Takes on Heavier Duties — Aerial Work LSA?

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You may not know this Dragonfly airplane but I do. Very well. Since before it was called Dragonfly, I followed the development of this unusual aircraft by Bobby Bailey. You probably don’t know him either but he’s one of the most inventive light aircraft designers. A man of very few words, he prefers to create than to talk about it.
Dragonfly is an important icon in the hang gliding community. This aircraft was purpose-built to tow hang gliders aloft. At a place near Sun ‘n Fun called Wallaby Ranch, this happens nearly every day of the year. Proprietor Malcolm Jones founded “the Ranch” in 1992. He has a fleet of Dragonflys that he uses to tow up experts, students learning to fly, or almost anyone wanting to get an introduction to hang gliding.
Dragonfly has been fantastically productive, towing so many thousands of flights that I doubt they could be accurately counted.

Sexy Arion Lightning Taildragger; a Beautifully-Done Homebuilder Project

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I readily admit I find Arion’s Lightning LS-1 (the Special LSA model designation) one of the most handsome in the Light-Sport fleet …which is saying something as we enjoy dozens and dozens of quite beautiful aircraft in this sector. It’s also all-American, referencing its design and manufacturing.
Lightning lives up to its name, running easily to the 120-knot maximum for LSA, especially when powered with a very muscular six-cylinder, 120 horsepower Jabiru 3300 powerplant.
Every Lightning to date has been a tricycle gear airplane and, honestly, for most pilots, that is the right choice. However, like many aviators, I love the look of a tail dragger so when I stumbled across the one you see in the photos, I did a double take. Whoa! That looks hot!
What you see here is a product of seven years of work by builder/owner Mike Lotz. I asked him to tell me about it and he offered enough that I’m going to let him tell his story.

Remos is Back and Scores at Aero 2016

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Think back far enough in the still-fairly-new LSA sector and you should recall a time when one brand made some major impact on all of personal aviation. The company was Remos and their U.S. team amped up promotional activity to the level of full page ads in most of the biggest aviation magazines in aviation. By my casual estimate, Remos was spending north of $35,000 per month on splashy advertisements.
Remos also did an airplane giveaway with AOPA; the company was a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut. Prudent or not, you had to admire that the company pulled out the stops in an effort to become the main LSA brand. Such a no-holds-barred approach has worked for products in other industries. However…
Then the door of opportunity slammed shut. It was not that the advertising didn’t work. Certainly it did make the brand well recognized. However, by 2009 the global economy was in a tailspin.

Does Canada Welcome Light-Sport Aircraft?

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You may not be thinking about it now while the snow swirls and piles up in mountainous white drifts, but in a few months, Canada will again be a very scenic place to fly. May an American LSA owner do so?
While a growing number of countries around the world have been steadily embracing use of ASTM standards — as are used to gain FAA acceptance in the U.S. — Canada has resisted the trend. America’s neighbor to the North has another category called Advanced Ultra-Light Aeroplane (AULA) that is very similar to LSA and has worked for Transport Canada for years.
Canadian authorities have subtly changed the game and relaxed the cost of flying your Yankee LSA north of the border. According to writer Patrick Gilligan, “An exemption by Transport Canada (TC) makes it more affordable and less onerous for Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) from the United States to be flown into Canada.”
Gilligan continued to explain (original COPA article) saying that American LSA owners simply have to download and complete a Standardized Validation form (available here).

Cruzer Prepared for FAA Kit Evaluation Team

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Even very familiar companies like Zenith Aircraft company, part of a family light aviation empire including Zenair in Canada•, has to prepare well when FAA comes to visit. Specifically, this would be the agency’s KET or Kit Evaluation Team. When various representatives of the regulatory agency visit they use a multi-page list to assure that a kit aircraft meets the requirement that 51% of the kit is built by the owner.
Formerly called Experimental Amateur Built (or EAB), many aviators simply say the “51% rule.” In earlier times, kit aircraft were scratch built — meaning a builder secured raw materials that had to be formed and finished while referring to drawings, a potentially very lengthy process. To ease the effort and increase sales, an industry developed to sell component kits. These have become increasingly sophisticated with qualities such as match-hole construction using CNC machines.
Making it easier for a builder to assemble his or her aircraft is good, but the kit manufacturer must be able to clearly demonstrate how the owner will do 51% of the work, as required.

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