The Terrafugia Transition has garnered a lot of hype so far. It is the latest attempt to produce and sell large numbers of a "roadable aircraft"...known in times past as a flying car. There have been a couple tries at this in the past, but none found any long-term success.
Times have changed though and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) dictate some structural characteristics for the vehicle that the Transition's makers are going to have to include to make their aircraft street legal. These features (such as a crumple zone and airbags) are not normally used with aircraft and add a significant amount of weight. In order to comply with all the FMVSS and still have a competitive useful load, Terrafugia applied for an exemption to the maximum LSA weight of 1320 pounds.
As the EAA recently reported, the FAA granted a partial exemption and will allow the Transition to weigh up to 1430 pounds.
The development of ICON's A5 is still going full-tilt. They've released a video of further testing that includes amphibious operations. It looks like things went pretty smoothly to me. I especially enjoyed the formation taxiing with jet skis.
I wrote about the Pipersport on Monday. I am glad to see companies like Piper and Cessna excited about the LSA market. I think they have pedigrees that will help sell their aircraft and lend legitimacy to Light Sport Aircraft overall. Though these companies may be leaders in the 4-place piston and even bizjet classes, they are definitely just the babies in LSA world. The disparity between their progress and that of the major LSA players is pretty significant.
Piper proudly announced the first delivery of a Piper Sport at Sun 'n Fun last week. The lucky owners are a pair of former airline pilots and a veterinarian/veteran pilot. It looks like a really fun plane to fly and I absolutely understand their excitement. Congratulations to Piper on your first delivery!
The Zodiac CH601XL has had a rough few years. There have been six in-flight structural failures resulting in an effective grounding of the fleet and mandatory modifications to all aircraft. The FAA recently released an official report on the situation.
The FAA officially released the final revisions to the Sport Pilot rules this Monday. Overall, they seem to have been greeted warmly by the AOPA and the EAA, though there are a few lingering points of dissent. Overall, it seems to me that the rules generally make the Sport Pilot rating easier to obtain and administrate and give Sport Pilots more opportunities in their operations.
Cessna made some news recently when they delivered their first 'production' C-162 SkyCatcher to Rose Pelton, the wife of Cessna's CEO. According to Plane and Pilot Magazine, Cessna has over 1000 orders for SkyCatchers so you would think they would have firewalled the throttle on the assembly line and started cranking airplanes out as fast as they could...especially in a rough economy when the company needs all the cash it can get. Strangely, that was not the case.
Piper Aircraft made a splash at this years sport aviation expo by unveiling their foray into the LSA market. The PiperSport which looks a great deal like the Czech Sport Aircraft Super Cruiser... In fact it is the Super Cruiser (I knew I couldn't pull one over on ya'll...). I think Piper did an interesting thing, rather than research/test/market their own LSA, they purchased an already successful offering. They jumped right up next to Cessna without all the nasty press that comes from a troubled flight test regimen.
I 
Piper 
The Zodiac CH601XL has had a rough few years. There have been six in-flight structural failures resulting in an effective grounding of the fleet and mandatory modifications to all aircraft. The FAA recently released an 
