LSA

Earlier this year, Texas Aircraft updated its Colt LSA with a comprehensive Garmin avionics suite, and now it’s going the other way, with a simpler, less expensive Garmin setup for VFR flight. Priced at $139,900, the latest Colt configuration has a single-screen Garmin G3X Touch display, external com radio and remotely mounted ADS-B-compliant transponder. Texas […]

ICON Aircraft, which produces the A5 amphibious light sport aircraft (LSA), announced on Friday that it has named Jason Huang its new president. According to the company, Huang will oversee all business functions with a focus on “maintaining manufacturing excellence, product development and innovation and providing an ownership experience that is second to none.” The […]

Texas Aircraft Manufacturing announced that it has delivered its first Colt-SL S-LSA. The aircraft went to University of Florida nuclear engineering student Richard Youschak of Gainesville, Florida, and featured a University of Florida “Gator”-inspired orange and blue paint scheme. Texas Aircraft introduced the Colt at AirVenture 2019. “I cannot express how happy and proud I […]

Stung by the trade war with China that’s dried up investment capital, light sport manufacturer Icon said Friday that it’s reducing its workforce by 40 percent and cutting production to fewer than five airplanes a month. COO Thomas Wieners said in a conference call Friday afternoon that the workforce will decline from 650 workers to […]

Icon Aircraft is celebrating the “significant milestone” of building its 100th airplane and predicting a bright if somewhat more restrained future for the stylish little amphib than the original marketing hype laid out. “It took us longer than anticipated to get here, but this is just the beginning,” said President and COO Thomas Wieners. “We […]

AirVenture 2019 may be cheek-by-jowl with spiffy little two-seat LSAs, but four years from now, sport airplanes with four seats might just be a thing, according to Dan Johnson of the Light Aircraft Manufacturers Association. In this podcast recorded Sunday at Oshkosh, Johnson said the FAA is beyond the talking stage. “They are moving on […]

The first airplane some new Air Force pilots will fly might be a Pipistrel Alpha trainer. The first cohort of 20 potential pilots, all of them either about to become USAF officers or freshly commissioned, completed a course that led to 17 them soloing the light sport aircraft. The new program, called the Aviation-Character-Education (ACE) […]

CTLS and CTLSi light sport aircraft (LSA) manufacturer AeroJones Aviation Technology Company has announced that it is finalizing plans for a new manufacturing facility adjacent to Dalu General Airport in Zhenjiang, China. The company, which currently operates out of a facility in Xiamen, says the new factory will provide direct airport access, more efficient manufacturing […]

An Arizona company called World View Enterprises says it’s within months of fielding balloon-based surveillance systems that will provide a less expensive alternative to satellite reconnaissance. The aircraft are called Stratollites and the company just completed a 16-day mission over four western states, according to Bloomberg. The untethered and unmanned balloons fly near the top […]

Drone maker DJI says it will provide ADS-B In as a standard feature on all of its drones weighing a half-pound or more beginning in 2020. Sensitive to public fears about the risk small drones represent to commercial and private aircraft, DJI is trying to get ahead of the curve with de-confliction technology and a […]