Blog

Ben Sclair, who publishes General Aviation News, wrote a nicely thought out piece on the nuances of the high cost of flying, with a focus on LSA in particular. He laments the black/white thinking that permeates such discussions and makes a decent case for that time-worn truism, if you really want to do something, you’ll […]

The Federal Aviation Administration just released a document about its assessment regarding the performance of the LSA industry, specifically in regard to LSA producer’s, shall we say, sub-par performance toward compliance with the ASTM airworthiness standard set out in the very definition of the Light Sport category. In a nutshell, the primary offense of several […]

I’ve been a (budget) international jet setter the last couple months so figured it was time to update through an e-chat with Chris “Doc” Bailey, who’s heading up a hydra-like push at Renegade Light Sport to get the Lycoming IO-233-LSAengine in as many birds as possible. I’ve talked before about the many-pronged attack Doc and […]

Although we Sport Pilots only have to self-certify (and have a driver’s license) to legally fly Light Sport Aircraft, the success of the self-certification “medical” has no doubt factored into AOPA and EAA’s joint proposal to FAA to expand the concept to include Private Pilots. To add your comments to the FAA page about such […]

Finally getting to work. Fire season officially opened here at the Chico Air Attack base today and since today was my official “day off” I get started tomorrow. Really looking forward to it.

This is pretty cool, I have to say: a flying…what, waterbike? Winged pontoon? Powered box kite? Here’s the home page for Flynano: and doesn’t this supremely giddy pilot in the illustration remind you of U2’s Bono? Hmmm…backer? Person of Interest? Is Lindsay Lohan going to buy one? Stay tuned… A year ago, I wrote about […]

Chico is just about to open their Air Attack Base for fire season. We’re one of the latest bases to open. There was a fire in our region the other day and a tanker from Hollister came up for it. Needless to say I’m ready to go. The base is great and I am realy […]

* REVISED June 21: Missing text at end replaced. * Some big news developing recently regarding the European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) certification of the first three light sport aircraft in its new category designed to legitimize ASTM-certified LSA. The new category is called EASA CS-LSA. We’ve talked about it before, see below, but this […]

Catching up from the road after 3 weeks (1 day to go) in Hamburg, Germany on family business and a laptop double-meltdown (don’t ask). The Sling is a South African LSA that made a splash in 2009 with a ’round-the-world flight just received its official S-LSA Airworthiness certificate, making it #125 on the official list. […]

The Bonanza is ready to go and I think the dogs have all their stuff. Buddha’s travel cage is clean and ready. Now to figure out what to bring and what to leave, but since I like to travel light it shoudl not be a problemo. I think I’m ready. Monday morning, weather permitting, we […]