The idea behind the light sport aircraft rule was to get people flying without a medical requirement. Secondarily to that was to make it nearly impossible for them to do so in well proven trainers. The end result is that we get planes that are a little quirkier to fly and a lot easier to overload.
If you want more designs and lower costs, all you have to do is streamline the STC process and streamline the certification of new designs. “Affordable” flying then follows.
The main idea behind the light sport rule was to impose regulation on two-seat ultralights that were previously flying under Part 103. Go read the final rule and the accompanying text from the Federal Register on July 27, 2004. Straight from the horse’s… err… mouth: “ As stated in the proposal, the FAA intended to limit the definition of lightsport aircraft to primarily address the population of ultralight-like aircraft that are being operated under exemptions to part 103 to conduct flight training.”
The FAA honestly expected the majority of LSAs to be slow, open-frame, no-electrical, tube-and-fabric designs that were basically direct descendants of “fat ultralights”. Even if we ignore that the bar for that was set so high as to make such fat-ultralight aircraft uneconomical to certify or produce, everyone else looked at the rules, said “hey, cool, I can fly without a medical!” and the manufacturers proceeded to design aircraft right up to the limits (perhaps with a wink and a nudge). Because that’s what normal people do.
If you want more designs and lower cost, you deregulate—or just go E-AB/E-LSA, which is where I truly believe the future is for almost all new light aircraft, except for commercial applications and high-end personal purchases (new Cirri, light jets, etc). Attempting to “streamline” Parts 21 and 43 will just wind up being as ineffective as the Part 23 rewrite has been.
In the short term, the FAA needs to do what its own working group suggested 7 years ago—implement the “Primary Non-Commercial” category, except ditching the nonsense idea that anyone will want to convert their airplane back to standard category. Why would they? An airplane the owner can maintain themselves will command a higher price and be more desirable to the majority of potential owners.
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As with all “Affordable LSA” articles, I stopped reading at “$167,000.00”.Few can afford that and fewer still would actually consider that as an incentive to learn to fly…it’s the polar opposite of what the rule was supposed to do.
All of the above! And looking at the airplane’s weight and useful load, that is within 35 lbs of my '46, 65hp Aeronca Chief (800 empty and 450 useful), except I’ve got 15 gals instead of 14 gals of fuel. And you can get Chiefs all day long for under $20K. And as some else said, you can get lots of Ercoupes for under $30K. I wish all these companies well, but just can’t see this one happening.
“At 836 pounds empty, the Colt has 484 pounds of useful load.”
Actually, the 600 Kg limit did not originate in the FAA. Nor were LSA’s were supposed to be a continuation of 1930’s tube-and-fabric designs. Best I can tell is that the FAA was duped into adopting “Euro” standards that actually gave EU manufacturers a huge head start. That’s why the only good thing for people could celebrate here in the USA was the medical loophole.
Your statement below is a wonderful one sentence summary of the various growth spurts throughout the history of aircraft building:
“…new designs are out there in such volume that few models have been able to rise above the noise as standouts.”
You could have tacked on an excerpt from Hamlet’s soliloquy for added effect:
“…aye, there’s the rub…”
The LSA market Golden Age has not diminished, and one cannot argue that there has never been more activity in aviation to make the new Piper Cub. Having said that, the two most successful LSA companies in business today are making, well…Piper Cubs. There has not been the same success to make the new Cessna 150. Even Cessna tried and could not make it work. The Colt is yet another swing on the more better Cessna 150, time will tell if their idea plays out as expected.
Huh? "The idea behind the light sport aircraft rule was to stimulate new designs at affordable prices. " Just when did this idea come from? I seem to recall that I was there, and as mentioned by Bob, the goal was to bring those flying illegal aircraft, or becoming an “Ultralight Instructor” to allow flying a 2-place with a passenger, with no intention of doing any instructing, into some type of compliance. Of course, as with any good government action, the result was as far off the mark as possible. Affordable? To whom? The pre-built LSA sales tend to be the highest cost top end models. Sort of indicates buyers to whom cost is not an issue, huh? And where are those people who were flying unregistered aircraft, hiding behind FAR 103, today? Either still flying illegally, or have stopped flying. LSA was and is a total failure in it’s original purpose.
There was a Piper Colt in the late 1950s. It was a 108 HP Tri-Pacer. VFR only unlike the Tri-Pacer.
Vashon Ranger seems to be a good choice as an LSA. $100k for a new plane pretty well equipped is somehow attractive.
Like that!