www.PSFmagazine.com | February 2019 | 15 14 | February 2019 | Powered Sport Flying Light Sport Aircraft light sport aircraft. “All-Fleet” counts cumulative registrations since 2005, when the first lsa model was approved, essentially every aircraft that meets our formula. Calendar 2018 Rankings —Last year, kits beat Special lsa 417 (64%) to 235 (36%) for a total of 652 aircraft registered. Calendar-year leader for slsa, Icon Aircraft, logged 57 new ready-to-fly slsa registrations. They were trailed by brm Aero (15 Bristells) and Pipistrel (14 Sinus). American Legend was fourth (13), barely ahead of Czech Aircraft Works (13) and Evolution trikes who were tied at (12), followed by Progressive Aerodyne (11), Tecnam (10 each), and The Airplane Factory with 9 Slings. Among kit builders, Zenair/Zenith lead with 89 units registered followed by Rans (43), Van’s (39), Sonex (33), Kitfox (24), AutoGyro and Just Aircraft tied with (23), Magni Gyro (19), Powrachute (17), Progressive Aerodyne (13) and SilverLight (12). Above, we reported fully-built aircraft separately from kits and other types in this article but you can combine them using Tableau. You can also arrange in several other ways or look at a single or few brands. Both fully-built lsa and kit aircraft can be flown by someone using a Sport Pilot certificate. Therefore, we include all lsa-like aircraft that are technically not a Special Light Sport Aircraft—Experimental Amateur Built kits, for example — as “Sport Pilot Eligible (spe),” a term coined by a former eaa representative, Ron Wagner. Not only can we rank Special lsa and spe kit builders separately — as we should; they are very different business models — but we trust you observed that we can also include weight shift control trikes, powered parachutes, motorgliders, and Lighter-than-Air: all the classes of lsa besides fixed-wing airplanes. We further accommodated modern-style gyroplanes as spe kits because they are strong sellers and could qualify as Special lsa if faa decides. We were never able to include all aircraft types in the past due to data entry challenges that Steve Beste solved by his rigorous definition and execution of how we collect the numbers. You Rank Manufacturer Main Model* No. of Aircraft Market Share 1 Icon • A5 57 24.3% 2 BRM Bristell 15 6.4% 3 Pipistrel Sinus 14 6.0% 4 American Legend • P2008* 13 5.5% 5 Czech Sport Aircraft SportCruiser* 12 5.1% 5 Evolution • Revo 12 5.1% 7 Progressive Aerodyne • Searey 11 4.7% 8 Tecnam (also builds GA) P2008* 10 4.3% 9 The Airplane Factory Sling 9 3.8% 10 Flight Design CTLSi* 8 3.4% 10 Vashon Ranger R7 8 3.4% 12 Aeropro (Aerotrek) A240/A220 6 2.6% 13 Aeroprakt A22LS Foxbat 5 2.1% 13 ICP (Skykits) Savannah S 5 2.1% 13 Powrachute • Airwolf 5 2.1% 13 Rans • S-7LS Courier 5 2.1% 17 Jabiru North America † J-230* 4 1.7% 17 SODA Super Petrel 4 1.7% 19 SeaMax • M-22 3 1.3% 19 Skyrunner • MK 3.2 3 1.3% All other producers 26 11.1% TOTAL SLSA ** 235 NOTES * Many Companies have more than one model counted here. ** ELSA and kits not counted. • U.S. design and manufacturer Special Light-Sport Aircraft Registrations for 2018 are free to comment on this technique, but rest assured we discussed this at some length before arriving at our current methods. As a product of these major changes, these reports now reflect a larger number of aircraft than ever before to show the real impact light aviation is having on U.S. and global aviation. Perhaps you remember, from previous reporting, that the usa accounts for about 20% of all lsa-like aircraft worldwide, the mirror opposite of Type Certificated general aviation aircraft where America is home to 80% of the global fleet. I wrote ‘accurately’ and we do believe we have done this correctly. However, when you get into kits the problem can be more difficult because a kit-built aircraft may be registered with the model name “Bob Jones Flyer,” when in fact it was an airplane built from an Avid Flyer kit but modified in ways that our theoretical Bob wanted to immortalize by assigning his name to the model. That’s perfectly OK with faa but makes identifying it somewhat harder. Still, we believe this release of information represents the most complete picture of light aviation in America… ever! We hope you enjoy and will study the information as much as you like. Feedback is welcome; use the comment feature on ByDanJohnson.com. Rank Manufacturer Main Model* No. of Aircraft Market Share 1 Zenair/Zenith CH750 89 21.3% 2 Rans S-7LS Courier 43 10.3% 3 Van’s • (also many kits) RV-12 39 9.4% 4 Sonex Sonex 33 7.9% 5 Kitfox Light Sport 24 5.8% 6 Just Highlander 23 5.5% 7 AutoGyro MTO 23 5.5% 8 Magni M-16 19 4.6% 9 Powrachute Airwolf 17 4.1% 10 Progressive Aerodyne Searey 13 3.1% 11 Silverlight AR-1 12 2.9% 12 Six Chuter Legend 8 1.9% 13 Quicksilver Sport 2SE 8 1.9% 14 Tango Tango 2 7 1.7% 14 Titan Tornado 7 1.7% 16 ELA Eclipse 6 1.4% 16 Sport Performance Panther 6 1.4% 18 Arion Lightning 4 1.0% 18 Bearhawk LSA 4 1.0% 20 Aero Adventure Aventura II 3 0.7% 20 American Legend • Legend Cub 3 0.7% 20 Avid Flyer 3 0.7% 20 Brako GT 3 0.7% 20 Kolb Flyer SS 3 0.7% 20 Quad City Challenger 3 0.7% All other producers 14 3.4% TOTAL KITS** 417 * Many Companies have more than one model counted here. ** SLSA not counted. Kit/Other Aircraft Registrations for 2018
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