Knocking Around The InfoVerse

Today's Word

photo courtesy Pipistrel 

News travels fast these days: Just ask Herman Cain. New tech net scraper Gizmag just ran a blurb on the Pipistrel Alpha I highlighted here a couple weeks back. The focus of the highlight is on the low cost, which as they note is under 60K Euro.  
Now consider this: if the Euro continues to go through its troubles and drops further against the dollar, imagine a quality SLSA, like the Alpha promises to be (it's based on a years-proven design - the Vinus/Sinus - with hundreds now delivered), priced at, say, $70K.  For all of us who've decried the high costs of LSA, might  this be the price point/airplane that would help break the LSA sales logjam?


Catching Up With Dan The Man


My blogosphere bro Dan Johnson has a piece in this month's Light Aviation eZine that updates LSA manufacturers now - at last - finding some markets overseas.  

photo courtesy Dan Johnson

He details foreign sales by Arion (Lightning), Flight Design, Remos and Piper Sport/Sport Cruiser.  ASTM and type certificate approvals are being won country by country, and products are beginning to move, over thar. 
One cool story:  U. S. Sport Aircraft, the U.S. distributor that reps the Sport Cruiser, has sold what Dan believes is the first LSA in Brazil...and the company flew the airplane from Florida all 4,300 miles to deliver it!  
Aviation is booming in that country...let's hope more American companies find success in the southern hemisphere while we're waiting for the global economy to work through its identity  crisis.


Dynon SkyView Hands-On Training at Sebring


Who among us hasn't sat for the first time in a new LSA and felt brain overload when confronted with an unfamiliar EFIS display?
One of my initial - and most stressful - challenges during my Sport Pilot training was figuring out where to look and how to work those info-jammed screens while also getting to know the airplane.

photo courtesy Dynon Avionics

Helping out with that comes a promising and much needed program, to debut at next month's Sebring Light Sport Expo (that's right, kids, Sebring is just around the corner...more on that below).
Dynon Avionics will offer free courses on how to wrangle the SkyView, its runaway hit EFIS display.  
The 3.5-hour classes will be held all four mornings and the first three afternoons at Sebring.  Working SkyViews will be set up so people can get some real hands-on tutoring without having to RTFM (Read The Freakin' Manual, which apparently only 1.4% of the U.S. population can abide).
Class size will be limited to the first 15 people who sign up here.  The classes will be held at the nearby (like, walking distance from the show) Chateau Elan Hotel and Conference Center.
Kirk Kleinholz, CFII and SkyView expert, will handle the professorial duties.  This first set of classes will be free: ongoing  classes will have a fee, so get in there, pilots, and sign up!


Sebring Expo Looms!



Yes chilluns, the big winter LSA show is truly stepping it up this year, with a much-ballyhooed new presence and a much bigger feel, judging by the number of promo emails I've gotten for months now.

photo courtesy Sebring Expo

Rather than rehash the 2012 offerings, just go here and check it out for yourself.
Alright, just a couple teasers, I can't resist (and I can't wait to get down there myself!):
<> "Exotic" vacation packages will be auctioned
<> Registered exhibitors include Flight Design, which will bring its CTLE law enforcement special, NASA Green Flight Challenge winner Pipistrel with several models (alas, not the winning electric one-off Taurus Electro G4), and the EAA Piper Cub J3 Sweepstakes contest airplane.  Y'all get your tickets now, hear?

Flight Design CTLE     photo courtesy Flight Design

<> EAA's new head man Rod Hightower will give a presentation at the annual LAMA dinner.
<> Tons of events, factory and general demo flights and lots more to look forward.
Did I say I can't wait?  Now if only winter would truly arrive in the northeast (it's 58 degrees again today!) I'll have even more motivation to jet southward...not that Sebring leaves any need for that...this is simply the biggest all-LSA event in the country.