Dealmaking and Consolidation? New LSA Directions?

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA) expos are crucial events that drive business deals and partnerships within the LSA industry.
  • Significant business collaborations are forming, including Hansen Air Group becoming a distributor for FK Lightplanes' Fk9, and the U.S. representatives for Evektor, Urban Air, and Advanced Aero teaming up.
  • The Light Aircraft Manufacturers Association (LAMA) is working to enhance industry standards by signing agreements to provide third-party auditing for 68 LSA manufacturers.
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Wheeling and dealing… FK Lightplanes gained Hansen Air Group as a distributor of their Fk9, shown above with Baumann floats.
[Lower Inset] Jon Hansen poses with Tony (C) and Adriel Anderson. Read my Fk9 report.

What to the following events have in common? …Sebring LSA Expo, Heart of Texas LSA Expo, Midwest LSA Expo, Sport Pilot Tour… Answer: All are focused marketing shows generating keenly interested crowds to examine Light-Sport Aircraft. When that happens, business arrangements sometime result, and not all deals are between airplane buyers and sellers. *** At the Sebring LSA Expo FK Lightplanes USA struck an agreement with Hansen Air Group. The latter, an Atlanta-based national seller of the Sky Arrow and new FP-04 Peregrine, signed on to represent the Fk9, seen in Florida atop Baumann BF-1500 floats. One aviation family helps another as FK’s father-and-son Tony and Adriel Anderson linked up with twin brothers Jon and Ron Hansen. *** Recently I attended an open house for another mini-conglomerate in light-sport aviation based at the Melbourne, Florida airport. U.S. reps for Evektor and Urban Air have teamed up, sharing a hangar and a common president, Josef Bostik (who additionally runs Magnum Ballistic Parachutes). They also invited Advanced Aero and their inverted V-tail concept aircraft to join them. *** Also at Sebring, LAMA announced it had signed Memorandums of Understanding with several leading experts to help the industry trade organization deliver on its promise to provide third-party auditing to 68 companies presently building LSA.

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