Light sport aircraft Posts

Would you be interested in a ready-to-fly single seater, complete with engine for $12,000 to $15,000? How about a two-seater with a BRS ballistic chute for $25,000 to $30,000. Yeah, me too! Dicks Starks is a long-time friend, and I always stop what…

Bloggers think they know everything. Or at least that’s what we believe when we get started as bloggers. Once we really get up a good head of blogger steam though, we realize just how little of a good blog is about us and how much of it is abo…

This year, AirVenture will include something never before seen at the massive annual trek to Oshkosh … bloggers coming together to talk about the two things they love best … airplanes and social media. Will you be one of them?The First…

Given the world’s sorry state and aviation’s place in it, hope for the future is at the coffin corner. To help maintain that delicate balance it is natural to withdraw into–and protect–our little corner of aviation’s di…

When the FAA issued the sport pilot rules in September 2004, it was clear that the new certificate was a stepchild to the FAA family of “real” pilots, you know, the private, commercial, and ATP certificates. The clues? “Real̶…

Reversing the decline of the pilot population “is the most important thing we are addressing,” says Cessna Pilot Center Manager Julie Boatman. “We have several things in development that I’m not quite ready to talk about ye…

Are you serious about a flying career? Then you’ve probably already heard someone speak to the value of a Flight Instructor rating because it offers an opportunity to build flight time until you get hired by the airlines or with a corporation.…

On the ground and in the air, ever increasing fuel costs are eviscerating the disposable income of wannabe pilots and the profit margins of flight schools who teach them to fly. Looking forward, many schools are wringing their hands and searching fo…

When talking to him for a previous post, Ercoupe is Affordable Solution to School’s Sport Pilot Needs, Mitch Williams said he had several private pilots with the desire and necessary 150 flight hours who wanted to become sport pilot instructor…

Pilots rightly obsess about losing their medical certificates, and too many of them think sport pilot, with its “driver’s license medical,” is an ever-ready, morning-after remedy for this unfortunate event. Nothing could be further…

Commenting on my recent post, LSA Pilots Could Spoil a Good Thing, a JetWhine reader said operating costs were missing from the mix. While LSAs might be pricier than hoped, “they still run at far lower operating costs— making plane ownership f…

Come July of this year, aviation bloggers will find it impossible not to answer the call to our Mecca for the first Aviation Blog Fest in history – I think. In addition to a chance to hang out with many other very cool aviation bloggers and r…

News that a flight school now offers sport pilot training is quick to catch my eye. The March 2008 the Oklahoma Aviator reported that Oklahoma’s Chickasha Wings Inc. had added an Ercoupe 415-C to its fleet, which also includes two Cessna 150s,…

Simplicity and affordable flying for fun were the driving forces that sustained the sport pilot/light-sport aircraft effort during its 10-year path to reality. In short, it was supposed to be flying unplugged — stick and rudder, look out the w…

This seems like a simple question, and it is–unless you’re talking about an amateur-built experimental aircraft. Here the answer is critical because these aircraft are certificated under FAR 21.191(g), which requires “…the ma…

In the February 1908 Scientific American, Wilbur Wright wrote in Flying as Sport that up to that time “men have taken up flying partly from scientific interest, partly from sport, and partly from business reasons….” But recreationa…

Talking recently with Michael Maya Charles, author of Artful Flying, our conversation turned a pilot’s passion for flight, for deft stick-and-rudder skills. Why, we wondered, does a pilot’s ardor wane from the student high as flight hour…

Do you know this fellow?Scott Spangler and I recently met for the first time at a Starbucks in Oshkosh, land of each summer’s AirVenture . Although this was our first meeting in person, Scott and I have corresponded by letter, e-mail and phon…

We’ve all been talking about the looming pilot shortage – as well as a shortage of aviation mechanics. Some airlines have already begun feeling the pinch as the requirements for future cockpit members have begun to plummet in a simple su…

Hello Jetwhine readers. Today we’re going to light up those little capillaries inside your cranium. You all think you’re so smart don’t you? Well, here’s your chance to prove how much you know about aviation, general aviation…

As you read this, the ugly weather should have departed California headed east and Garry Mitchell should be taking off for another day’s flying. Mitchell’s office is often a bit of a moving target, so this week he’ll spend most of …

It’s been quite a busy few weeks for the webmaster at the Cessna Skycatcher blog since the Textron subsidiary announced its plan to assemble the C-162 in China. The blog has been the landing site for a number of heated comments poking hard at …

At the Paris Airshow and it’s counterpart in Farnborough England, the emphasis is clear … which company can announce more commercial airplane deals than another. That’s not bad by any means. But all aviation experiences are not cre…