New Illinois LSA Academy

In the upcoming Learn To Fly issue of dead tree Plane and Pilot, I wrote an overview article covering the Sport Pilot license.
Helping me out with some valuable insights was Jim Sweeney, well-known ultralight/Light Sport teacher/expert who really knows his FAA regs.
One comment Jim made: FBOs have been slow to embrace LSA flight training for a variety of reasons, including reticence to invest in aircraft and training aids for fears the movement would wither on the vine like the Recreational license.
So I was happy to have Jim note this year's increase in LSA training nationwide.
In that vein, Kandace McCoy, in an unusually accurate (for the media) story in the Mt. Vernon News-Register, brought good Christmas tidings for midwesterners: the opening of Southern Illinois LSA Flight Academy, a new school two years in the making that will operate out of Mt. Vernon, IL's Outland Airport.
The Academy, run by SRT Aviation, offers comprehensive LSA training. SRT prez Rich Carney is quoted as saying the school has four flight instructors and several students lined up.
Local officials hold up the new school as a sign of the airport's progressive vision of aviation innovation and economic benefit (local motels, restaurants, car rentals etc.)
A spanking new Jabiru J230 with all-glass cockpit, XM satellite weather, traffic collision avoidance and autopilot will carry the training duties.
The Academy is even spreading the word in a Trade-a-Plane online ad quoting $3325.98 for a Prepaid Light Sport Pilot Package. (Where do you think that $.98 comes in?)
We wish the new school and all LSA training operations the best of success in 2010!
---photo courtesy Jabiru USA