Cheapest Light Sport Aircraft

THE POPULARITY OF LIGHT-SPORT AIRCRAFT (OR SIMPLY "LSA") CONTINUES TO GROW RAPIDLY...

The FAA released its progressive new regulation on July 20, 2004 (35 years to the day after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon). Included in the new regulation is a new pilot level (Sport Pilot) and an entirely new class of of airplanes.

So, what is a Light Sport Aircraft?

The SP/LSA regulation created a new category of aircraft intended to fill the gap between ultralight aircraft and general aviation aircraft. These aircraft are certified to standards written by industry and accepted by FAA. The Federal Aviation Administration determined that Light Sport Aircraft would have:

A maximum of two occupants, a maximum take off weight of 1, 320 pounds (seaplanes 1, 430 lbs); a 45-knot clean stall speed; a 120-knot top speed at maximum continuous power; a single, non-turbine engine; and fixed landing gear (though amphibious floatplanes can have "repositionable" gear).

This new category of aircraft includes fixed-wing airplanes, weight-shift control (trikes), powered parachutes, gliders, gyroplanes, and lighter-than-air (balloons and airships). The range of choices is amazingly broad and many have already won FAA certification...with more coming every week, it seems.

You can find a great deal of information about Light-Sport Aircraft on ByDanJohnson.com.

Following are a few quick descriptions with links but you'll want to explore all around the website.

The newest feature on ByDanJohnson.com can be a great help to anyone shopping for or evaluating a Light-Sport Aircraft. PlaneFinder 2.0 walks you through a series of choices to help you... Find the best LSA for you! The choices are easy this-or-that selections and you can click them on or off as much as you like.

ByDanJohnson.com offers other LSA information services - all free of charge.

You can keep up with developments through our LSA blog, called "SPLOG" and you can find it right here. SPLOG posts represent 100 news updates per year forming a significant historical record of Light-Sport Aircraft.

ByDanJohnson.com has more than 1, 000 pages of content and tens of thousands of photos... many increasingly hard to find. To find an airplane or a company, use our new Visual Search. You can also search ALL text - more than two million words! - on the website.

A growing new section of ByDanJohnson.com offers enthusiasts LSA Video Reviews, with a live video look at most of the best selling Light-Sport Aircraft. All videos are thanks to our collaboration with UltralightNews.com.

All lists on ByDanJohnson.com are user sortable so you can quickly find what you want. You can sort in several of the columns presented.

Finally, to your right, please click any Featured Aircraft photo or text to read more about the leading aircraft in light-sport aviation.

Pilot Reports

Members and Registered Visitors can read the Pilot Reports in this section by clicking on the Pilot Reports tab in the light blue sub-menu. Those reports marked with a dollar sign ($) are available for purchase. If the dollar sign is missing, the article is either free, or you already own it.