I think BasicMed put a bit of a kibosh on that aspect of sport privileges. If your regular physician doesn't think you should be flying you probably shouldn't be and you may be violating the regs if you fly anyway.
Agree with this.
As always that depends on your mission. You need to look at the specific LSA and it's limitations. The max 120 KCAS cruise at continuous max power sounds good but most are slower. The SportCruiser Vno is 108. Best speed at max continuous power is just about 110 KTAS at a bit over 6 GPH book (I've seen higher fuel burns). Then there's that nasty 1320 lb maximum weight thing. The SportCruiser I'm teaching in has a useful load of only 464.5 lbs. Run some numbers. In our case, we insist on at least half tanks at the beginning of a flight. That takes us down to under 375 lbs for passengers, bags, and whatever. That ain't a lot and if you have it, those 15 gallons aren't going to take you very far between fuel stops. (Edit-and that's with the BRS and wheel pants removed)
The designer for the sport cruiser went on to design the Bristell. If you are in PA, come down I'll take you for a ride depending on the size of course. The Bristell costs more, but then it's full of updates and newer avionics than most of the Sport Cruisers you see on the market.
I may take you up on that some day
Couldn't agree more. I can see 118 @5500 in the 914 Bristell The new 915's as ELSA are simply insane. I'm burning just over 6 GPH at cruise the weight is an issue, but in the 912/914 Bristells you can still see easy 525lb with Glass Panel. We have a 31 gallon tank as well so it leaves lots of options, I don't like flying more than 2-2.5 hrs anyway.
always. I'm the only instructor doing checkouts right now. There's a reason,
That’s a heavy bird too. Even some of the new 915’s have that useful load. If you have a tailwheel you can get the Bristell TDO (which is sweet looking) at a 750ish empty weight
Yes, I’m hopeful when mosiac comes out they can push useful load to something like 1420
Just wondering. How many of those hundreds of millions hold a pilot certificate of any kind? And how many of those who hold a certificate are in the boomer category "that aspect" refers to?
Pretty sure well over half of the baby boomers are already retired. Change that to “age out” of flying and your point still stands.
I would love you and @lsaway to be right, but I haven't seen signs of it. Perhaps you guys have.
Sad thing is too many boomers seem to prefer to see their bird rot back to the earth from which it came rather than sell it.
Of course it doesn't but that wasn't the point. The sub thread started with my comment that many of those who no longer have medicals had medicals valid as of July, 16 years ago, and are operating under BasicMed rather than under sport rules. Then it moved into me disagreeing that there were hundreds of millions of frustrated non-pilots just chomping at the bit to buy an LSA and get a sport certificate. That's the extent of my looking at the chart. I don't claim it suggests anything else.
Yes. And many of us who no longer have medicals are operating under sport rules for a number of potential reasons. No one knows how many, and there is (currently) no way to find out.
Agreed. I am working with both a sport pilot who has not flown for a number of years and a private pilot who wants to exercise sport privileges and is beyond the BasicMed dates. I'm just not sure that translated into a huge market for LSAs compared with the huge market that existed before BasicMed came along. But that's just my assesment of the situation.
Anything that involves FAA is questionable today.
Anytime that regulations include "covering from liability" it is never a good thing. These rules could be relaxed and the safety record would likely not move.
Agree, it doesn't solve the problem and I'm not sure the FAA has any desire to create more GA pilots Short-sighted at best.
