www.PSFmagazine.com | January/February 2021 | 11 10 | January/February 2021 | Powered Sport Flying Light Sport Aircraft 2020 Is History — How Did Light Aircraft Fare in this Year of Fear? Everyone knows 2020 was arguably the most unusual year in anyone’s recollection. In such a time of global upheaval, how did the light aircraft industry fare? As always, my sincerest thanks goes to our premier datastician Steve Beste. His work is the primary resource for this report. While I deeply appreciated the work done for years by former data guy (and personal friend), Jan Fridrich, Steve’s career in databases gave him skills that few others possess. Since he’s also ‘one of us’ — a trike owner and pilot — Steve understands what we hope to achieve better than data experts outside affordable aviation. We believe the following information is the best and most reliable found anywhere in the world. However, any sharp readers who see errors or omissions are encouraged to speak up; we have often benefited from reader input and welcome any chance to improve our reporting. 2020 and Covid... Surviving or Thriving? Steve Best summarized, “Registrations grew by about 4% in 2020, down from 10% growth the year before.” Many may be surprised. Registrations grew? …in 2020!? Indeed, they did, and that’s without counting Part 103 ultralights that do not need to be registered with faa. We’ll have lots more on Part 103s in a couple months (the effort continues to contact all 57 producers currently identified). Other than Part 103 vehicles… “The market splits into three distinct categories,” Steve began. He listed: 1. Zenair/Zenith, which registered* almost twice as many aircraft (86) as anyone else in 2020, followed by 2. the next four, each with over 40 registrations in 2020, and then 3. everyone else. Trailing the longtime leader of this segment was Van’s and their RV-12 (we do not cover the other models Van’s sells), followed by Kitfox, Rans, Sonex, and Just. “The leading registrations were almost all kit-built planes that can be flown by someone with a Sport Pilot certificate or using those privileges with a higher certificate — hence, “Sport Pilot kits.” Van’s Aircraft’s RV-12 can be bought factory-built as an slsa, but of the 54 RV12s registered in 2020, only 11 were rtfs.” Builders completed their kit-built planes at a good pace in 2020. In the chart below, the red line shows factory-built aircraft, slsas and elsas. The brown line shows kit-built aircraft. Steve observed, “Historically, most of ‘my’ kind of aircraft have been factory-built but that ’s no longer true. Now factory-built and kit-built are on par.” Indeed kits have been rising faster since about 2015 —where from 2005 (when the first slsa were accepted by faa) through 2014, ready-to-fly aircraft were pulling away. Why is this true? Many reasons might explain but affordability is a key element and, no question about it, investing your labor reduces the cash outlay to have your own airplane. At the same time, the sophistication of Special lsa has risen over the years. Features such as bigger, more powerful engines, autopilot, big fancy panel displays, leather interiors, complex manufacturing with carbon fiber, and the cost of complying with astm standards has increased the cost of some slsa beyond $200,000. At this price point, some readers note a recreational aircraft can cost more than your house (not in California or New England, perhaps, but in many U.S. regions this may be true). “Look at the slope of the lines [in the Fleet Growth by Certification graph on the next page],” Steve advises. “The green (kit) line is steeper, especially last year. That means two Support Our Advertisers Aeroprakt A-22 SLSA
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