Affordable Aviation

There’s been some controversy lately regarding FAA’s mandate that flight training towards the Sport Pilot license is not allowed to count toward the Private Pilot (PPL) and higher licenses and ratings unless the instructor is a certificated CFI, rather than a CFI-S (as FAA delineates Sport Pilot-only instructors). *** Recently, AOPA petitioned the FAA to […]

Progressive Aerodyne and their popular SeaRey amphibian represent a current-day success sufficient to generate envy in most airframe sellers. Consider these results: Searey delivered 31 kits in 2010, an average 2.5 per month during a lousy year. Plus, in just three weeks since Sebring another 14 SeaRey kits have been ordered, upping the monthly average […]

Although not strictly LSA-centric, here’s a cool story: German-based Flight Design, maker of the top-selling CT-line of LSA, is coming out with a new, certified four-seat aircraft dubbed the C4. *** As the name unintentionally implies, Flight Design surely hopes to have an explosive impact on the General Aviation market, and we wish it success. *** […]

Smart Brief picked up on an AOPA poll of its membership (without citing the numbers of poll respondents) that shows an overwhelming majority can see themselves “flying as a sport pilot in the future.” *** That dovetails into a topic I’m working on in my column for the May issue, which covers the recent LSA […]

If you’ll pardon a little fun in my title, I’m pleased to offer a report from Chairman Bob Woods on the seventh running of the Sebring U.S. Sport Aviation Expo, abbreviated by many to simply Sebring LSA Expo. *** The total number of exhibitors was 147, a small decline from last year. Aircraft on display […]

We’ve all heard the line: To make a small fortune in aviation, start with a big one. Yet thanks to Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation and NASA, the laws of gravity seem reversed. A Pipistrel Virus (say: “VeerUs”) went home from the Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) Challenge event with four checks totaling (are you […]

Larry Newman, 63, one of the seminal manufacturing/marketing dynamos in the early days of hang gliding who made the successful transition to ultralights, has died after a reported 3-year battle with pancreatic cancer. *** Larry was a flamboyant entrepreneur who successfully sold his ElectraFlyer hang gliders. *** When people started sticking motors on the foot […]

First off, a correction: Though I took the proposed renaming of PiperSport to “SuperCruiser” directly from a Czech Sport Aircraft (CSA) news release, the new name did not stick. It’ll be the SportCruiser as it was before Piper assumed worldwide distribution. *** Widely reported in aviation media, Piper abruptly ended their almost-year-long relationship with manufacturer […]

I’d call this Day 4 but rush-deadline work for the mag intervened after the last day at Sebring so just getting to it now. *** The Sebring experience gets better every year, I believe precisely because Bob Woods keeps it consistently valuable without tricking it up with a lot of extraneous booths selling things like […]

*** The day dawned foggy and solid overcast…then cleared almost instantaneously…then snap overcast again. *** The wind grew… and grew… the temperature dropped, and by the end of it, everyone agreed it was an unseasonably chilly day, more like San Francisco in winter than Sebring, Florida. *** But people flew, and flew. Folks came out […]