Airtime Aviation, Inc. (Fly CT)

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 […]

HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO — You crash landed your airplane at an airport. You are unconscious inside. Emergency crews race to assist but they are worried about your airplane having a powerful rocket motor that might injure them as they try to extricate you. What do you do? More advisably, what should you have already done? Plenty […]

Breaking News … Recently Flight Design in Germany sent a letter to their dealers including this statement, “We have applied for a planned receivership which allows for reorganization of the company.” What does this mean? Since Light-Sport Aircraft burst on the aviation scene in 2004, Flight Design built the largest fleet in the United States. […]

Aero 2015 is open! The halls are full of shiny airplanes displayed with the usual European sense of style and panache. Visitors are backed up at the entry gates awaiting the official opening time. (We sneaky media journalists are allowed in earlier to get photos and begin interviews with vendors.) It is a great event, […]

For more than 100 years, cars have had accidents and if they were severe enough, the results were poor (photo). This was long before seat belts, airbags, breakaway steering columns, padded dashboards, and many other features we take for granted today. It was also before the concept of crumple zones. Typically, crumple zones are located […]

Something of a stealth invasion is beginning. I refer to an emerging flock of four seat Light-Sport Aircraft. Of course, most readers are aware that no such birds exist as LSA (in the FAA’s code, anyway). By U.S. regulation Light-Sport are two seat aircraft. Other nations have some different ideas. For now, suffice it to […]

Since the beginning of Light-Sport Aircraft almost ten years ago — this summer at EAA AirVenture, the SP/LSA sector will celebrate its tenth anniversary with special functions — Flight Design has continuously led the fleet size statistics as seen in our market share charts. In recent years, along with most other LSA manufacturers, a tough […]

After flying more than 350 different aircraft models, I became rather adept at what some pilots call “stick wiggling.” The reference is for all the actions you take to physically fly the plane. Heck, it’s about all you do on very basically-equipped ultralight aircraft that I still love to fly. Modern LSA, however, typically offer […]

Yes, as the pics show, I did indeed take advantage of a rare, calm, beautiful, warm (for winter) day in New England to drive over to Tom Peghiny‘s Flight Design USA and take my first hop in a fuel-injected Rotax-powered LSA: the new CTLSi. Company Chief Pilot Jonathan Carter did me the honors as we […]

The first iLSA are flying in the USA. Springboarding from Apple’s famous iDevices, why not iLSA? This stands for “i” Light-Sport Aircraft, meaning they’re fuel injected, which today suggests Rotax’s new 912 iS engine. Tecnam has announced P2008s with the new powerplant. Pipistrel has iS models, too. Others will follow, although Remos indicated they are […]