Affordable Aviation

The big dogs have been fed. It will soon be time for we smaller critters to get our chance. Icon Aircraft reported that in late June, they hosted reporters from Flying Magazine, Plane & Pilot, AOPA Pilot, EAA Sport Aviation, and the Seaplane Pilots Association’s Water Flying magazine. Those writers got pretty excited by their […]

As I’ve written a few times, I see a dichotomy in LSA designs. Landplanes appear to have entered a “mature” phase, where changes are incremental, evolutionary rather than revolutionary, if you will. I see nothing wrong with that. To the contrary, it speaks to an industry that knows where it is going and how to […]

Whoa, big boy! When you have huge power available, you need to … well, go have fun! I’ve covered the Super Legend before (article & video), which had the multi-fuel, electronic ignition 115-horsepower Lycoming O-235 installed. Certainly that was and remains a solid powerplant but now the company has added a Titan engine that pulls […]

With our friends at the prestigious Flying magazine putting Airbus’ E-Fan on their July 2015 cover, flanked by a major story inside, it seems everyone is following electric propulsion ever more closely. We’ve been doing it for a while as light aircraft are clearly the first place where electric power is best applied. Airbus may […]

When you deliver an airplane to an accomplished video producer you are bound to get some great photos out of the deal. The images with this article show video impresario (and my longtime friend), Paul Hamilton, flying new Sling N288SL around beautiful Lake Tahoe not far from his home base in Nevada. Paul has been […]

Let the production begin! This, um … iconic company in the LSA space has been brewing for a long time, long enough that some aviators have been grumbling, wondering if Icon is “for real.” Today, the company announced that a week ago on June 11th, they successfully completed their FAA audit. That opens the door […]

Some people, myself included, love soaring flight. As the following article from Dave Unwin explains, to use his words, “Soaring flight exercises a fascination that is both difficult to explain and hard to resist, sometimes called ‘three-dimensional sailing.’ Flying a heavier-than-air machine for several hours and hundreds of miles by using the atmosphere as the […]

The following article is a guest editorial by Chip Erwin, a name many rightfully associate with the highly successful SportCruiser LSA. A restless entrepreneur, Chip has been working behind the curtain for several years. He emerged with the Zigolo and is now proposing a fresh name for a segment that seems to have energy behind […]

A few years back at Aero 2009, Flight Design and Rotax teamed up on a very interesting project. Based on the R-912 engine they added an optional electric motor that could provide additional torque (a characteristic electric motors have in abundance) for takeoff and climb or for emergency power in the event of a failure. […]

Let’s move right to an important point. BushCat is most interesting aircraft with unique features of interest to many and you are much more likely to afford the South African airplane with its 2015 U.S. price of $65,000. That figure covers the Rotax 100-horsepower 912 engine; you can pay somewhat less with the 80-horsepower that […]