Flight Design USA

As they connect the dots of their plan to circumnavigate the world in celebration of 100 years of aviation in Switzerland, Yannick Bovier and Francisco Agullo have now spanned one immense body of water. The pair of twin Flight Design CTLS “Ecolight” aircraft cleared a big hurdle with the jump across the Atlantic from Africa […]

Way back near the dawn of Light-Sport Aircraft… in 2007, two Indian military pilots flew a CT around the world to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Indian Air Force. (CT later became one of the first LSA used in an Indian flight school.) *** On April 30th, two Swiss airline pilots took off on […]

After a tough winter in most parts of the USA, spring evidently arrived early with 80-degree temperatures as far north as Minnesota… all before Sun ‘n Fun. More good news: After its coldest winter since the early 1980s Florida is extremely pleasant now, warm with low humidity. *** Indications are the economy continues bearing down […]

I was lucky enough to get Matthias Betsch, Flight Design’s CEO, all to myself for a few minutes and here’s what he had to say: *** General update: “A hard year but better than we expected. In the last two to three months, we’ve had quite a pickup. Here in the States dealers sold their […]

Much has been written about Cessna’s Skycatcher incidents, those spin investigations that caused the loss of one airplane and a parachute deployment from another. Of course, the giant producer knows well the design of light aircraft so it was only a matter of time before all problems were solved. In doing these spin tests, Cessna […]

I was out in L.A. last week and had the distinct pleasure to hop a flight out of Santa Monica Airport, an old haunt of mine, with Flight Design USA‘s California sales rep, Karine Noel. *** Karine was a perfect hostess. She’s just set up shop to demo the company’s top-o’-market line of LSA. *** […]

If you study FAA’s registration database as I do, you’ll quickly discover that Flight Design and its various CT models have a strong presence in the USA (the world for that matter, with 1,500 flying, according to the company). Since CT was first certified in April 2005 — the second LSA to win Special LSA […]

Word of a few interesting developments arrived in my inbox, bringing with them new questions. *** Point One — EAA announced it will cease publishing Sport Pilot and Light-Sport Aircraft magazine. LSA content will be merged into their flagship Sport Aviation title, bolstered by a new eNewsletter called “Light Plane World” that will focus on […]

Viewed from the LSA Mall, AirVenture 2009 was much more than the summer’s big celebration of flight. Several important events tell a story of growing acceptance of LSA. Here’s a short list: LAMA hosted a meeting of G10 (the 10 largest LSA producers) and another of G5, while paying visits to every LAMA member in […]

Sales are subdued all over aviation but it isn’t stopping the top performers in the Light-Sport Aircraft marketplace. As our last market share update illustrated, Remos, Tecnam, SportCruiser, and Jabiru have all done reasonably (or very) well in the last 18 months. Always among those contenders is longtime market share leader, Flight Design. *** Just […]