"An Airplane In Every Garage"

A sign of the times in that ad: "Sorry, no international students" in
bold capital letters.

Is anyone doing any instructing in light sport aircraft yet? (I have seen
none in my area, yet.) What do they cost per hour to operate? It's got to
be pretty affordable, no?

St. Charles Flying Service at 3SQ is (the last time I checked) only 1
of 2 part 141 schools in the country. They had a writeup in AOPA Pilot
recently.

They have 2 Evektor Sport Star trainers. They rent for the same price
as their (beat-up) 172's, but are obviously newer. They quote a
complete 141 SP package price of less than $3k.
http://www.stcharlesflyingsvs.com/lightsport.php

I'm based at a field near there (KSET) and they are buzzing around all
the time, so they are definetely getting a lot of use. Comments I've
heard are that they are a "really fun" to fly.

I got my PP and Instrument ratings at 3SQ and they are a great bunch of
people to work with.

Brian

Is anyone doing any instructing in light sport aircraft yet? (I have
seen
none in my area, yet.) What do they cost per hour to operate? It's got
to
be pretty affordable, no?

See http://www.sportpilot.org/instructors/. There are a few Sport
instructors around...

On Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:16:25 GMT, Larry Dighera
wrote:

The small aircraft transportation vision is a safe travel
alternative freeing people and products from transportation system
delays, by creating access to more communities in less time.

This technology is in operation today.

If an aviation journalist is unaware of the plan to revitalize
municipal airport usage, it's no wonder that city planners are blindly
closing the airports that SATS depends upon for success.


"When Will SATS Become Operational?
The Proof of Concept research and technology development phase lasts
for five years, or until 2005. Pieces of the SATS technology and
several SATS aircraft already exist. Once the 5-year proof of concept
SATS Project is complete, it is anticipated that SATS will continue
development through the next decade. During that time, it is hoped
that federal regulations, airspace procedures, and industry products
will be developed to accommodate SATS traffic. The system full
deployment phase at federal, state and local levels could occur as
early as 2015. SATS could be mature and fully operational by 2020."


Unfortunately, I don't think it is currently active. It just finished
the proof of concept stage which was successful. I think they are
looking for funding for staged implementation.


Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

On Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:47:36 GMT, ls
wrote:

AJ wrote:
I missed this article when it first appeared.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Flyin...=949148&page=1

Is it possible for the Light Sport category to revive that old slogan
of "An Airplane In Every Garage" in order to bolster the number of GA
pilots?

AJ


Not sure whether to respond with "no" or "hell no" here....Hrm... Ok,
yeah, I'll go with "hell no"....

The darlings of the Sport Pilot rule - SLSA and ELSA - are already
priced well beyond affordability even in 2005 dollars and even beyond
acceptable bang/buck.

Bottom dollar for an SLSA is about 70 large already and I don't see that
figure coming down in the forseeable future (and it'll likely go up!).
ELSA are going to be around the same price......

You have to look at the big picture.

From my numbers, the prices averaged about $58,000 and rose to about
$68,000 when demand picked up a bit. As more competitors enter the
market, supply pressures will force prices to go down. There is a lot
of interest right now. Say maybe three years before things creep down
again.

A good healty short term economic profit is not always a bad thing.
Yes, currently people like me cannot afford the plane, but since there
is a solid profit to be made, a lot of manufacturers will enter the
market that might have been on the fence. Competition breeds diversity
and innovation which is never a bad thing. I've seen some pretty damn
novel aircraft sporting features that aren't offered by cessna or
piper. And eventually the prices come down. God bless the free market
system.

Also, the prices aint really bad, if you look at it from a FBO's
perspective. I'm a little curious how Diamond is feeling about their
brand spanking new DA-20. They are marketing them to schools at
$160K. Subtract the Garmin and other goodies, the base airframe is
like $140 or so. Your typical LSA is half the price, out performs the
warhorse 152 and you can train private pilots in it.


Jim

http://www.unconventional-wisdom.org

Yep, I didn't say there weren't. I just noted the issue about part
141....