Splog

My good friend and Air-Cam developer, Phil Lockwood, likes to hold fly-outs for his customers. More than 160 kits have been delivered and built; each fly-out has attracted several of these owners. Phil and his Lockwood Aircraft associate George Weber have invited me several times but I’ve had to miss earlier gatherings for owners of […]

James Weibe is a different sort of airplane pioneer. He doesn’t make an LSA. He bought the rights to the former Kitfox Lite and has gone through several iterations of changing and improving the airplane. This makes sense considering his background in the computer accessory field, where he learned the constant upgrade path so common […]

Posting from Istanbul, Turkey where I’m on vacation with my family, but just couldn’t wait another day to talk a bit about what most everybody in aviation’s been talking about these last several days: the CAFE Green Flight Challenge (GFC). *** History was made when the Pipistrel Taurus Electro G4 twin-fuselage electric-powered aircraft carried four […]

Updates 10/4/11 and 10/5/11 — Congratulations to Pipistrel for their unprecedented third win at a NASA Challenge. Picking up a cool $1.35 million, the company won with their unorthodox dual Taurus G2 fuselages joined by a larger, centrally-mounted electric engine. The custom-configured, four-seat aircraft achieved an amazing 403 passenger miles per gallon of fuel (or […]

Sign of the times: cut costs wherever possible. And kudos to those LSA makers who can cut weight too! *** Remos Aircraft has a lower-priced, dramatically lighter version of its flagship GX that bears closer scrutiny. *** It’s called GXeLite, and lists at $133,924.The model is targeted at pilots, clubs and flights schools that don’t […]

Some bright minds at LISA Airplanes, a French company, had a great idea to take the hydrofoil concept and apply it to an LSA seaplane. I’d often wondered why hydrofoils haven’t been done before, it’s such a great concept.Anyway, the airplane is the AKOYA. The technology for the entire package is patented and called Multi-Access, […]

At AOPA summit I spent time in the Lockwood Aviation booth giving me a chance to speak with a few RV-12 builders. *** Van’s has reportedly sold approximately 600 RV-12 Light-Sport Aircraft, of which 150 may be flying, making RV-12 by far the most successful Experimental LSA. RV-12 would among rank high among all Light-Sport […]

Anyone still in doubt that we’re in the midst of the birth of electric flight need look no further than this story, just posted today on the online tech zine Gizmag.Pascal Chretien, an enterprising electrical/aerospace engineer and chopper pilot, made the world’s first fully electric helicopter flight in the prototype he designed and built almost […]

Just in time for this year’s AOPA Summit, welcome to a pair of Special Light-Sport Aircraft, numbers 121 and 122: the first, the formerly named NG 5 LSA, rebadged as the Bristell Fastback by importer Liberty Sport Aviation of Pennsylvania; and the second being the fourth approval for Pipistrel, specifically for their Sinus motorglider (previous […]

Just when you thought the airshow season was over, well… except for AOPA’s Summit starting in 10 days, here are four events in October, every one with substantial or exclusive Light-Sport Aircraft attention. |||| First up is LoPresti-Powered LSA fun at the Sebastian, Florida airport where the “speed merchants” are based. Before the event starts […]