Things Are Looking Up

After yesterday's disappointing attendance, it was a relief to get to the show and see that a lot of people were already there at nine-ish.

Throughout the day, attendance levels remained high, and everywhere we went, exhibitors were pleased.

We also saw first hand people who were there to buy an airplane, including at least one guy who is exactly the sort of person that these vendors are trying to reach: he has dreamt lifelong of flight, but had never gone farther than flying an ultralight powered parachute. He was intimidated by the complex and long training required for a private pilot license (don't laugh, guys and gals: for a young person who doesn't intend to fly for a living or in complex airspace, it IS complex and long these days), and had a friend who'd had one and run into a medical glitch that grounded him.

So to this fellow, the Sport Pilot Rule and Light Sport Aircraft were well timed. He was excited and had his Sport Pilot Student License (of which more below), and he was going from one plane that interested him to another, cadging a ride or paying for a block of instruction, with a brother and a friend to act as counterweights to his enthusiasm.

Before I got his name he was swept away on his next instructional flight. "He really likes this plane," his older brother said, of the Rotax-powered, composite German-made Ikarus C42. "I fly a RANS S-4 so he brought me around for advice, not that he listens to my advice." But the C42 met with brotherly approval too, and there was a pretty good chance he was going to be taking it home.

The survival of the many businesses exhibiting at the US Sport Aviation Expo are highly dependent on that man being representative of a class of buyers that have been underserved by GA. I know these price-sensitive, value-sensitive, safety-conscious buyers are out there because during my 2004-2005 stint as FBO co-owner, I saw dozens of them come in fired with enthusiasm for learning to fly and shortly afterward leave, overcome by sticker shock and the long periods typical for PPL training in my weathery northern climes.

Finally, the EAA was well-present at the show. There is always some mean-spirited grumbling about how the EAA has "asserted its authority," or "promoted itself," or this, or that. But if not EAA to advocate for light sport aviation, then who? Perhaps our organizations are imperfect but AOPA has battles to fight on behalf of the traditional certified pilots of GA... and making another organization and further dividing our clout makes no sense, not in a sport that must grow to survive (oddly enough, the same problem that demographically-challenged EAA has... too many EAA members walked the Earth with the dinosaurs for the group to grow without appealing to a new crowd).

And they were doing one good work in particular that deserves honorable mention. They had a DE on hand and that DE was issuing Sport Pilot Student licenses (yes, since you don't go to an Aviation Medical Examiner, you get your Sport Pilot license from a Designated Examiner).

For, as I understood it, FREE. This worked wonders several ways: one of the more important ones was that, having waited in line to get the student license (and logbook), prospective pilots were MUCH more eager to take demo flights or paid instruction in the many aircraft flying here. BRAVO ZULU to EAA, as the Navy says, and to EAA's volunteer Sport Pilot DEs.

There Were A Range Of Planes To Choose From

All varieties of sport aircraft were represented. To broadly classify them they were  Reborn Legends, Young Turks, Legacy Kits, Trikes, Gyros, and Powered Parachutes.

Reborn Legends are the great training planes of years gone by -- and perhaps, years to come. Examples are the very different Cubs made by Legend and Cub Crafters. Legend's Cub is a very authentic remake of the Lock Haven era Piper classic. Cub Crafters' Cub is more of an enhanced or improved Cub, whether in the Sport Cub LSA variant -- which was not at the show -- or the brawny 180 HP Top Cub, a Part 23-certified airplane, which was at the show. An even better example was the new Taylorcraft LSA which was available, decently equipped, for $69,995. It was painted in an authentic, nostalgic 1940s scheme of red with black leading edges and fuselage stripe. Reborn legends appeal most to people who flew planes like them years ago -- or whose fathers or grandfathers did.

Young Turks aren't really Turks, but a lot of them are Europeans. These are the new, innovative light planes which have been in production for the JAR VLA rule (a European rule broadly resembling LSA, but allowing less weight and more gadgetry). Now, some are starting to show signs of redesign for the US market. A lot of them are built in Eastern Europe, where industry is still recovering from fifty to seventy years of the stone hands of communist management.

These were the first range of aircraft available under LSA, and they were responsible for the perception that LSAs are somewhat cramped and overpriced at the earlier median price of about $85,000. Vendors have reacted by cutting prices (which at times has required them to cut content), adding features to improve the value proposition, and in some cases, redesigning their European aircraft for the US market.

They appear to be selling well; we were told the Flight Designs CT has sold 92 to 96 units in the USA so far. Several other vendors were production-limited. "People don't want to wait three months for a plane," Rick Snelling of SportAir said. "But right now I do have planes to sell. I've got two new Sting Sports coming next week that will be available for immediate delivery."

Young Turks seem to appeal most to first-time aviators who would not have considered the sport before the Sport Pilot Rule.

Legacy Kits are planes that have been available in the kit-built market as Experimental Amateur-Built or Part 103 Ultralight aircraft. They did not seem to be drawing as much interest from the novices as the Young Turks, but some of the best deals on the field were in this part of the market, and some manufacturers make it easy to have the plane you want certified the way you want. These kind of things ranged from the
(nee-Maxair) Drifter bugsmashers through competent little bush planes from RANS to the Just Aircraft Escapade, to the expensive, long-building, but unique AirCam shown below). Shawn Okun, whose Float Planes and Amphibians based in Sebring represents the Drifter, AirCam, and the Ukrainian Aeroprakt aircraft, said that for many buyers or builders there were distinct advantages to registering the aircraft as an Amateur-Built Experimental rather than as a Light Sport Aircraft.

Legacy kits, as you might expect, appeal to the same folks they appealed to before Sport Pilot; in some cases the appeal is extended because many of these machines required a medical to fly before.

Trikes -- how on earth did they get that name? I mean, a Cessna is a trike too, as is a Gulfstream 550, but if you say "trike" everybody knows what you mean. The FAA, too, resists the cutesy name, calling them "weight-shift aircraft" which is a term about as likely to catch on as President Ford's WIN buttons. I supposed the "trike" name was natural because they are, essentially, a three-wheeled motor platform freely hinged beneath a hang-glider wing; but they've become ever more sophisticated, as John Kemmeries showed us in a detailed walk-around the latest Air Creation Tamarg model. "It's a real cross-country machine, you can go 300 miles in it and get out and not be all used up." He was particularly enthusiastic about the improvements in the new trike from the viewpoint of, as he put it, "the guy that has to maintain this thing." We hope to have more on the Tamarg as dust settles, perhaps after the show; not to detract from the other vendors here, including Airborne of Australia, the Tamarg seems to be the very Lexus of trikes.

The Trike appeals to the pilot who is an outdoor enthusiast, or nature lover. You are freely suspended with little structure between you and a magnificent view; you ride the winds and feel them in your hands. (Some Trike pilots like to shut down their engines and glide -- they're in what's for all intents and purposes a hang glider, after all -- for long periods. If you like sailboats, you ought to give trike flying a shot. Note that trikes look like they're easy to fly, but even for experienced fixed wing pilots, trike transition flight instruction is absolutely critical to safety.

Gyros were a latecomer to the LSA market, as the ASTM consensus standards for gyroplanes were delayed by, among other things, the contentious nature of the stability battle in the gyro community. (The ASTM standards do not suggest how to provide static and dynamic stability, but they do require manufacturers to certify that their aircraft demonstrated in flight testing particular stability performance measures. The two vendors present were RAF Marketing of Kindersley, Saskatchewan, represented by their dealer and instructor Dofin Fritts, and the American Autogyro Incorporated branch of Groen Brothers, which had a factory contingent on hand. Both were flying as much as they could, introducing newbies to the gyro sport.

The gyro appeals to a different kind of sport pilot. While the RAF and AAI gyros both aim to provide the pilot with more cross-country utility than the Bensen Gyrocopter from which they're descended can, this is not a first choice for cross-country flight. Like the trike, in the gyro "the journey is the reward." With its very-short-landing capability, the gyro invites low and slow flying. You can't hover like a helicopter, but you can fly slowly enough that if there's some wind you can fake it. And also like the trike, the gyro needs specific flight training with a CFI like Dofin (whose gyro's tail advertises "Have Gyro Will Travel") for safety.

Powered Parachutes combine a trike-like power cart with a parachute wing, like that used by a sky diver, only larger. They are the safest and simplest of all flying machines, and they only go one speed, 26 to 30 miles an hour (with slight differences depending on model and wing).

Add more throttle, you climb, decrease power, you descend.

The bottom line is, that light sport aviation offers so many ways of getting air under you (and a big grin on your face) that there's bound to be one that appeals to you.

Trends: More Panel, Less Money

One trend we saw was for more sophistication in instrumentation in light sport aircraft. Todd Simmons of Cub Crafters was trying to display three new signs showing the Sport Cub's three nifty new panels, which combine retro, almost Art Deco styling, with modern electronics. The top of the line panel is glass. The upper two panels include a Garmin GPS in a special panel element that converts the hand-held GPS to a panel mount. This is not your father's J-3.

John Kemmeries of Air Creation USA, though, was able to top that, however. He's recently delivered a trike with TCAS and XM Weather.

XM Weather and traffic also are yours with the Sting Sport, so beloved of Aero-News's Rob Finfrock, as part of the Garmin 396 package previously announced at Aero-News. SportairUSA's Rick Snelling told us that their incentive package includes a year of XM weather service -- at $50 a month and a $75 activation fee, that's a $675 benefit on top of the GPS unit.

If you roll your own panel, there were plenty of vendors to help you.

Wayne Lanza of Composite Design has two versions of a nifty all-in-one radio panel. The bigger of the two includes a transponder, VHF com radio, and a two-place intercom along with a panel of rocker switches for master and all electricals and circuit breakers; the other, for a simpler machine, has VHF and intercom and a few critical breakers only.
Lanza is also working on more advanced stuff than you can shake a stick at.

Another vendor with some slick products was XCOM Avionics of Australia. XCOM makes small radios of the Becker or Microair style ("But we're nothing to do with Microair, different company entirely," they clarify). But they incorporate some slick innovations.
They have a small instrument-hole radio that includes an intercom, which is a slick design. But the new thing at this show is a remote head that allows, for example, a single radio to be controlled front or back seater; there's hardly any weight, and hardly any depth, to the repeater. This beats any of the solutions we've seen for radio management in a tandem aircraft. Good on yer, XCOM.

Of course, all this wizardry costs money. One of the beefs prospective customers have had with the initial round of LSAs is their cost, and to the extent possible, the manufacturers are listening and acting on it.

What many people don't understand is that the largest cost in most of these aircraft is the cost of components. Contrary to popular opinion, the guy that buys 20 Rotax engines a year doesn't get them from a third of the list price. Same with radios, etc. And in most cases customers today are more picky about fit and finish than customers from years ago.

Bear in mind, also, that many people comparing today's prices with the Good Old Days aren't taking into account the compound effects of inflation, especially if the Good Old Days they had in mind were from before 1976 or so. A moment at the Taylorcraft display was instructive.

Two old codgers strongly resembling the two critical old men on the Muppet Show were talking about how scandalous the $69,995 price was, when "I remember buying one of these for $11,000 way back in..." and that reminded me that I have an inflation calculator on my PalmPilot.

The program is a couple of years old so it only has data through 2004, so I was not able to figure what 69,995 2006 dollars were worth in 1966. But 69,995 2004 dollars were worth $11,505.01 1964 dollars. The penny was worth mentioning because in 1964 it was actually worth something.

If some of the perceived high prices are just perception, that's worth knowing, but it still creates sales resistance. So the makers are trying to cut costs and prices where possible, tempt buyers with bonus offers or premiums, and in some cases design new, lower-cost aircraft.

While the slickest of the Young Turks still are sitting there at $85k, we kept hearing that $65k price from vendors at this show for their most recent introductions. Market adjustment? Effect of competition?

Sales flagging? Your guess is as good as mine, but there are a number of vendors who have dealt with the customer who wanted to spend only $45k by meeting him halfway. It remains to be seen if the customer meets his half of the compromise.

E-I-C Note: There is likely to be much of a Day Three report as the winds have kicked up so hard that folks are complaining about how hard it is to walk across the ramp... so there isn't much flying going on. We're hoping for much better on Sunday, the closing day of the event.

FMI:  www.sport-aviation-expo.com