While Cessna recently announced a price hike to $149,000 for its Skycatcher LSA, Pipistrel says it plans to introduce a new LSA trainer early next year and sell it for about $83,000. The Alpha trainer aims to be "affordable to acquire [and] economical to maintain," the company said. "We believe no other LSA training aircraft is as cheap to run." The trainer will feature a beefed-up tricycle-gear undercarriage to handle student landings, 400 nm of range, cruise speed of 108 knots, and a fuel burn of 2.5 gallons per hour, Pipistrel said. The panel features conventional flight gauges supplemented by a Garmin GPS unit. The company plans to start U.S. deliveries as soon as April.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/news/pipistrel-promises-83k-lsa-trainer