World Aircraft Company, of Paris, Tenn., has been laying low for a couple of years but 2014 will be the year to formally launch its line of American-built Light Sport aircraft. President Eric Giles told AVweb the Vision and its dressed-up stablemate the Spirit were originally designed in South America for the European market but they will be made in the U.S. and marketed globally. The Vision, a basic S-LSA with a Dynon panel and Rotax 912, hits the market at $89,500 while the deluxe Spirit Grand Edition has a Garmin panel, autopilot, ADS-B and finished interior for an extra $40,000.
Giles stressed the aircraft are not assembled from parts built elsewhere. “They are 100 percent built in the U.S.A.,” he said. There’s some irony in the fact that Giles is a Canadian who moved his business from Alberta to Tennessee because of the indifferent attitude of government agencies toward his expansion plans in Alberta. He said state and local governments in Tennessee are providing plenty of incentive for him to build aircraft there and production in the 23,000-square-foot facility at Henry County Airport in Paris is already under way. More designs are already being tested, he said.
