Splog

American readers of ByDanJohnson.com may be surprised to hear that more than a third of all visitors are from outside the United States. In a related fact, America has more pilots than any other country (very roughly half of the world aviator population) but more light aircraft are sold in other country by a ratio […]

Our title was the headline for a news article in the my hometown Daytona Beach News-Journal newspaper recently. That’s rather unusual. Anytime Light-Sport Aircraft make the local headlines — and not due to an accident, that has to be a good thing. Let me set the stage … Daytona Beach is a major race venue […]

With my good friends over at General Aviation News, I recently published an article about Light-Sport Aircraft available for less than $96,000. While that is still a good chunk of change, it is far less than the top-tier LSA that can run $150,000 to more than $200,000. Yet brand-new, fully-built LSA don’t have to be […]

After many years in aviation and being a regular on the (trade) airshow circuit, I know one thing: it is darn hard to start a new event. So when The World Ultralight Fly-In announced its ambitious run at a Guinness Book world record, I thought it was a very fun idea but probably quite hard […]

Among the critiques some old school pilots employ when trying to marginalize Light-Sport Aircraft is that these aircraft are not suited to flying long distances. I’ve reported several around the world flights (check this article and here’s another) but that’s hardly all the long flights. The invitation started out, “Join all of us at Progressive […]

In this Copperstate Part 2 article we resume the list of aircraft Videoman Dave and I reviewed at the show south of Phoenix, Arizona in Casa Grande. To remind you, this was the 43rd running of this show that invites all sorts of aircraft — and many dozens did fly in each day plus others […]

Updated 11/5/15 with video at end … We went. We flew (and flew). We shot video … lots of video. Videoman Dave’s dual hand held cameras got a workout as did our six Garmin VIRB cameras. We did more of our popular interviews but we also captured multiple angles on several aircraft as we continue […]

I have a confession to make. I … have a drone (with a nod to Dr. King and his “Dream” speech). No, I have not abandoned my love of flying inside the cockpit; far from it. However, in my role as an aviation journalist and with my goal of creating great content, I wanted to […]

Aviation news outlets and social media are buzzing with the news that Quicksilver Aeronautics is closing its factory. For example, Aero-News Net — always a quick reporter of such news — is calling the event a “dissolution.” This is not incorrect; it comes directly from a document previously issued by Quicksilver’s lawyers (see more below). […]

At the recently concluded Palm Springs Expo, a keynote address was provided by George Bye, the man behind the Sun Flyer project that aims to put electric two seaters into flight schools. Pipistrel is already selling into this market with its Electro (video) and while only a small number of aircraft are in use, the […]