IndUS Aviation

Some folks wonder about the new Statement of Compliance to ASTM standards. Is this a true certification system? FAA doesn’t do the certification, so how do we know it means anything? Good questions. A manufacturer certifies their airplane. A Designated Airworthiness Rep (DAR) examines it. Companies behind each approved SLSA (now 38 aircraft) must also […]

How to extract more performance from a 60-year-old design? How about a nose job? Pilots understand a smoother shape lends more speed to a design, but you may not sense the total gain possible without adding horsepower or burning more fuel. General aviation companies like Mooney, Cessna, and Piper hired LoPresti Speed Merchants to help […]

One sign that Light-Sport Aircraft have arrived is when a well-known general aviation company joins forces with a LSA leader. That’s what occurred when IndUS Aviation, producer of the Thorpedo and Sky Skooter, retained Vero Beach, Florida-based LoPresti Speed Merchants. You surely know the legendary Roy LoPresti operation that gained fame by working with major […]

Dallas, Texas-based IndUS Aviation earned their second SLSA model approval with certification of the T-11 Sky Skooter. Powered by the four cylinder, 85-hp Jabiru 2200, Sky Skooter becomes the lighter sibling to the potent Thorpedo, which uses the 120-hp Jabiru 3300 on the same airframe. Compared to IndUS’s T-211 with the Continental O-200 engine, the […]

Preston Bentley had a plan. He wanted to honor a good friend, raise money for a worthy charity, and do plenty of Light-Sport Aircraft flying. The 26-year-old Private Pilot is presently 12 days into an 8,000-mile flight. Preston is flying a Thorpedo donated by IndUS Aviation; he expects to touch down in each of the […]

IndUS Aviation’s Hot Thorpedo performs more energetically than the Continental-powered version. When you install a non-certified Jabiru 3300, six-cylinder engine into a 58-year-old certified light aircraft, you make one lively machine out of it. This relatively new company is doing things for this CAR 3-certified aircraft that legendary designer John Thorp could never do (for […]