What's an LSA? Part 2 of 3: Drinking the kool-aid

Last week, I described some of the effects of the “Light-Sport Aircraft” rule: the FAA closed a regulatory loophole, and the aviation industry erupted with new activity. But the other part of the rule is the “Sport Pilot” Certificate, which carries fewer privileges but requires less of pilots who apply for it. That’s what we’ll be looking at this time.

The “Sport Pilot” certificate differs from the “Private Pilot” certificate in three ways:

1. It comes with some serious restrictions.
2. It requires fewer minimum hours.
3. It doesn’t require a medical certificate.

Everybody has pretty much ignored #1, and made a BIG DEAL about #2 and #3.  The FAA and the industry have said this makes flying "Easier" and "Cheaper," and that it “opens up aviation to a whole new group of pilots.”

That's what they're selling and that's what people are buying.  But I'm not drinking the kool-aid.  This doesn't make sense.

This particular kind of flying was unregulated before. You’d think that passing new rules would make it harder for would-be ultralight pilots, and that people would be less likely to take up flying tiny little machines.  Before the LSA definition and the Sport Pilot certificate, you didn't need any kind of training or medical certificate to fly an ultralight.

Of course, you'd be an idiot and you'd probably kill yourself if you tried, and everybody would think so.  That's why the buzz went the way it did.  With the FAA's ink on paper, "some fool in a dangerous contraption" suddenly becomes "Real Flying," even though nothing else may have changed.

Responsible people should know that's a crock.  Ink doesn't create safety.  Only Safety creates safety.  Safety doesn't care about ink.

So, if you think that the FAA's new rules suddenly make it okay to fly something like this, then you're an idiot.  If you built it, know how to fly it, and have been responsible about it the whole time, then you've got the right idea (and thanks to Donald Windsor for this picture).  The new rules should occur to you as troublesome paperwork that you've already complied with anyway.

So I'd like to take a closer look at the battle cry of the LSA crowd- that "Real Flying" has become "Easier" and "Cheaper" and is available to a "whole new group of pilots."

First, is it "Real Flying?" Was it "Real Flying" before the rule went into place?  The FAA 'approval' doesn't make it "Flying."  But the kind of flying that it is falls on the fringe.  These little birds are to other planes as jet-skis are to boats, or as scooters are to cars.  They're meant for recreation rather than transportation.  So it's not like the kind of flying that a Private Pilot with an Instrument Rating can do, and you shouldn't regard it as a reliable way to get around.

Second, has it become "Easier?"  Nope.  Ask around- Small aircraft are harder to fly than larger ones.  The idea that "small vehicles are easier than large ones" sounds good, but ten seconds of thought will change your mind.  They're much more vulnerable to weather, turbulence, and wind shear.  They lack pitch and yaw stability.  They're uncomfortable to sit in for more than about 90 minutes.  They lack the power to get you out of sticky situations, and they lack the mass to be comfortable with the power they've got.  And they are much harder to land, especially in crosswinds.

I've got a student named Paul, who's committed to LSA flying.  But once or twice, I've gotten him into a full-sized airplane, and upon landing, his reaction was "What, that's it?!?! That was easy!"  There is no doubt in my mind that his training would have gone faster if he wasn't trying to handle such a squirmy little plane.

It's true that the legally required training minimums are lower.  But that doesn't matter. If you're brilliant and work your ass off, it's also technically possible to finish high school in two years instead of four, and to have a college degree when you're seventeen instead of twenty-two.  But it's not reasonable to expect that. When it comes to education, it takes whatever it takes:

• Over the course of several hundred checkrides I've signed off since 2001, I've seen flight training come in at minimums exactly twice.  Both pilots were under the age of twenty, and still in school with well-developed study skills.  They did not have jobs, children, financial worries, or grownup responsibilities.  They'd taken on flying as a summer project, and came in to train five or six days a week.  You shouldn't assume that you can do the same, if you have a life.
• A Private Pilot certificate requires a minimum of 40 hours, and a lot of schools and instructors misleadingly quote the cost of a program at that number.  In reality, it takes about 65 hours, but I've seen several applicants come to me with more than 100 hours (spread out over the course of several years) in their logbooks.  Honestly, you should budget for 65-70 and hope to come in a little under that.
• A Sport Pilot certificate requires 20 hours, minimum, and excludes night flying, basic instrument training, and radio communications.  BUT, most airports where you'll do the training require the radio work anyway, most of the new LSAs have complex electronic instruments you'll have to master, and you're flying a tiny machine that requires more skill, not less.  I'll say you should budget at least 50-60 hours in the plane for that program.  You have to train to proficiency, not to minimums.

Third, has it become "Cheaper?" Probably, but only a little. The biggest factor is the number of hours you'll need, which may be slightly lower, but probably not by much.  The next factor is how much the plane costs to rent.  LSAs presently rent for about 85-90% of what you'd pay to rent a similar single-engine airplane.  However, I suspect the numbers have been juggled to produce that result:

LSAs have smaller engines, and burn less gas than other single-engine airplanes.  Since most planes rent on a "wet lease" (the cost of fuel is included), this means that the rental cost will be lower.

Another factor in the rental is the plane's "operating costs," which include maintenance, insurance, tires, oil, brakes, and other consumables. Most LSAs have smaller engines that run at higher RPM, generate more heat per square inch, and have more complex moving parts, so they require more oil changes and regular maintenance.  Their operating costs could be the same or higher than those of other airplanes.  These costs are going to be estimated too low, to get the rental price down.

Finally, the profit made on the rental should cover the cost of the aircraft over time.  Ideally, the plane should pay for itself and eventually become profitable.  Most LSAs are new designs that cost way, way too much for what you get, and they depreciate quickly.  They way they're built, they're also likely to wear out faster, and quickly become unattractive to renters.  That means it's not long before they start losing money, which puts upwards pressure on their rental price.

The result of all this is that a new LSA will cost $10-15 per hour less than an older, two-seat, single-engine standard airplane on the same flight line.  But, the LSA is struggling to recoup its sticker price, and its operating costs turn out to be higher than anyone thought, so it's likely to be losing money.  The older plane is cheaper and/or paid off, profitable, and likely to be available at a discount.  It's sitting there resenting the attention the newcomer has been getting.

And Finally, does it open up flying to a "whole new group of pilots?"  I really don't think so. Flying is something most people don't do.  Only 1 out of every 504 people in this country have any kind of pilot certificate (including student pilots). That number has been trending down since 1980, despite the fact that airplanes and avionics have gone through some pretty cool technological evolution since then.  I don't see why a large group of non-pilots, who had no previous interest in flying, would be tempted to start because regulation got tighter on more tiny little airplanes.

But there is one group of people that have made a lot of inquiries about the Sport Pilot certificate.  Almost all the interest I've seen in Light-Sport flying has come from older men who already are (or have been) pilots. From where I sit, this "whole new group of pilots" is not a "new" group at all, it's an "old" group that have mostly retired from flying, due to concerns about maintaining current medical certificates. There's a lot to be said about the medical not being required for Light-Sport, and most of it has already been said elsewhere.  I'd just like to point out two things:

1. The "whole new group of pilots" is code for "no medical."  There's language in the rule that prohibits pilots who've been denied a medical, or who have reason to believe that they would be denied, but the FAA and the flying community are very likely to treat this language with a wink and a nod.  Nobody expects enforcement.
2. This demographic sets up the LSA industry for a bust. There were more than 800,000 pilots in 1980, and I'm going to assume most of them were baby-boomers, and that many of them were part of a glut of military-trained pilots.  One reason the pilot population has shrunk is because these guys, now in their 60s, have been gradually aging out of the activity.  It's true that senior citizens are one of the fastest-growing populations in this country, and there may be as many as 150-200,000 pilots who might perk back up and fly LSAs for fun, but this number will continue to shrink as they continue to age and hang up their wings over the next 20 years.

It's silly to think that the regulatory environment will have more influence over the pilot population than all the other factors that shape our society.  The FAA pretty much turned its back on promoting aviation and became a regulatory agency.  The organization's culture is still locked into that mindset.  I don't think they understand that making a new certificate available doesn't make people want it.

What people DO seem to want are the spiffy new airplanes that have been created in the wake of this rule, and that's what I'll look at in part 3 of 4, next week.