By Jeffrey Decker in Oshkosh
With Cessna poised on the threshold and training school interest growing, the market for light sport aircraft is about to take a huge leap in credibility
The newest aviation market in the USA received a significant boost from the largest single-engine aircraft manufacturer in the world last month when Cessna revealed its proof-of-concept light sport aircraft (LSA). And the company hinted that it could use the design to boost sales of its larger fleet and propel interest in general aviation.
Cessna unveiled the prototype at the AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, but insists it is merely testing the LSA waters, a market opened just two years ago by a US Federal Aviation Administration rule that allows anyone with a driver's licence and 20h of training to pilot, during daytime, a new class of light aircraft. Observers and competitors agree that if Cessna were to enter the market it would quickly reach the forefront.
"Should it choose to get into the market, it will immediately be the leader," says Tom Peghiny, president of Flight Design USA, the US arm of Flight Design Germany, current market leader with more than 100 deliveries of its CT and CTSW all-composite two-seaters scheduled by year-end.
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| Cessna's proof-of-concept light sport aircraft was well received at Oshkosh |
Cessna reputation
The company expects to deliver 200 more aircraft in 2007, but Peghiny knows that despite the CT's performance and dependability, it cannot compare with Cessna's reputation. "No matter what they do, they will immediately have a market for the aircraft, and I think that will be good for the industry," he says.
Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) president Tom Poberezny welcomes Cessna's interest. "Having a legacy company like Cessna say 'we need to be in this marketplace' to help re-energise the aviation community and bring less expensive aircraft to the marketplace brings credibility," he says. As for the prototype, Poberezny was "amazed". He says: "It's very good looking. It's wider, and has a bigger cockpit, than the 150."
At 122cm (48in), the proof-of-concept aircraft is 15.2cm wider than the 150, and it features a skylight similar to that of the 152 Aerobat. It is sleeker, and Cessna president and chief executive Jack Pelton says it is designed to be a step towards the future rather than a reworked 152.
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| Cessna began work on the LSA just seven months before Oshkosh, and began to release drawings in March |
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"We're trying to do the best we can from a style perspective, and we're hoping that the rest of the features, from ergonomics and maintainability, will help to differentiate ourselves as best as you can in a weight-limited, airspeed-limited type of aircraft," Pelton says.
The high-wing, two-seat, tricycle-gear aircraft has a 9.14m (30ft) wingspan and, powered by a 100hp (75kW) Rotax 912, has a top speed of 120kt (220km/h), the highest allowable for an LSA. Its gross weight of 600kg (1,320lb) is also the highest allowed. The aircraft has dual control sticks, upward-opening doors and toe brakes. The construction is of aluminium, except for composites in the cowl, wing and dorsal fin.
The aircraft as displayed had no seats, avionics or interior, but will "more than likely" have a glass cockpit, Pelton says, and "considerations have been made" for a parachute.
The decision on entering the market will be made by the first quarter of 2007. To gauge public opinion Cessna distributed 25,000 surveys at Oshkosh. Of those, 6,000 were filled out by a public that heaped praise on Pelton and other officials. Potential customers offered to write cheques and made requests to get on to waiting lists. Lead designer Neal Willford was pleased with the reception for an aircraft that began life just seven months earlier. "We had crowds every day offering their thoughts. The reception was very positive," he says. "It shows a high level of confidence that Cessna will deliver and support a quality product." Preliminary design and configurations were completed by 1 February and engineers started releasing drawings in March, says Willford.
Fleet revolution
The aircraft is part of a revolution of Cessna's single-engine fleet, which has been largely unchanged in decades. Pelton also confirmed the creation of a new family of single-engine piston aircraft at Oshkosh and one made a fly-past. Less is known about that Next Generation Piston (NGP) than the LSA it resembles, even though the company has already decided to proceed with it. If the LSA is the entry-level aircraft Cessna thinks it could be, then the company's strong customer loyalty could lead to increased sales of NGPs.
Pelton says the LSA could be brought to market in 12 months. "The certification requirements are a benefit for speed to market," he says, referring to the industry-developed standards the FAA approved for the first time with LSA. He says he would expect to sell 600 LSAs a year, although the field is too young to have enough data to draw any definite conclusions, Pelton says. "We're going to go with our own forecasts, similar to what we did with the Citation Mustang very light jet." The prototype's 24 July unveiling was good news for parent company Textron, which saw its stock jump five points that day.
Although Pelton says the first thing customers look for is price, Cessna's LSA would be among the most expensive available. Most models cost between $80,000 and $100,000, and Pelton says he is pushing for a price at or below $100,000. "The price point of this is critical, so we're going to be looking at every innovative way imaginable to be able to keep costs down."
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| Cessna believes its LSA could inspire interest in general aviation |
That could mean letting dealers assemble each aircraft, or at least letting them put the wings on. Pelton's only comment on where or how the LSAs would be built is that "it will be no different than the products we have today. We have assemblies and components that come from all over the world."
The aircraft's interior could be determined by pubic demand. Pelton says lots of people gave advice on avionics at Oshkosh. "We're going to look at the trade studies on avionics and all of the flight systems during flight trials," he says. The first flight is scheduled for later this year, but no dates are set for other major announcements. One of those will be the aircraft's final configuration, or configurations. "We haven't got that far into the study, but I think what we would like to do is field a single product with a single price. For it to be cost effective, we can't get into optioning, at least in the factory you can't. It just adds cost," Pelton says.
A European version is under consideration, but those decisions are years off, despite what Pelton calls an overall desire to "be less North American-centric. I think right now Europe, the Middle East, and continued growth in South America and North America are the strong markets." As 85% of Cessna's single-engine market is in the USA, the company is waiting to have a solid product sold there before marketing it elsewhere. But Pelton has heard the demand from abroad and is answering it.
Training market
"The European ultra-light is not the market that we're looking at. It's the European training market," he says, adding that at Oshkosh he was approached by Europeans and Asians "on the need for a training aeroplane that will lower costs". He has heard the same requests from US trainers looking for lower fuel consumption and operating costs. Pelton thinks this could be the largest market for the LSA.
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| Light Sport aircraft may give many a chance to realise lifelong dreams of becoming pilots |
Ayers is impressed with the proof-of-concept aircraft. He says visibility is important to trainers and this design meets that need. "Cabin width is good. We want a trainer where the instructor is not rubbing elbows with the person next to them. And it looked beefy enough to us to do a lot of landings," he says.
Ayers believes the school can contribute to the development of Cessna's LSA. "I talked to Roger Whyte [Cessna senior vice-president of sales and marketing] about the possibility of our instructors being allowed to have some feedback into the process as they develop the LSA. We think that an airplane like that would be a good fit for our training programme, for primary training for aeronautical students."
Sturdy requirement
Visibility and sturdiness are also important to Dennis Bampton, owner of St Louis, Missouri-based St. Charles Flying School, one of the first flight schools to offer a light sport programme. He is looking for an aircraft that has what his two Evektor Sportstar LSAs lack. "They have the radios and everything, but besides a GPS unit they don't have any navigational equipment." He would like to teach with a VOR and a transponder.
Bampton worked as a Cessna dealer for 25 years and has 10 Skyhawks, two 310s and four 210s at his school. "I have a lot of faith in Cessna's manufacturing," he says. "Aesthetically, the aircraft looks decent. It'll all depend on how it comes in as far as dollars and sense and equipment."
More and more students will take his two-week LSA course, he says, and Cessna's entrance can only boost that growth. All 30 of his flight instructors are qualified as sport pilot instructors, and so far 22 of their 24 students have passed the course.
That gives LSA an enormous edge over the school's private pilot students, which have a major drop-out rate after their first solo flight. More than half do not finish training. Bampton thinks LSA students are more committed because of their age. "The average age of the person who comes to get a sport licence is over 55," he says. One is 75 years old and the youngest was in his mid-thirties. "Most have been dreaming about this all their lives," he says.
The $3,000 fee is about half that for private pilot lessons, and Bampton says: "I'm not going to make any less money on a sport pilot as I am on anyone else. It's just less time. But once the guy gets his sport pilot licence, he's going to come out and rent our airplanes."
Cessna joined the Light Aircraft Manufacturers Association (LAMA) in June, shortly after it announced its intentions for LSA. LAMA president Tom Gunnarson says he has helped Cessna with research. "Their biggest interest is, what kind of market is this and what is it likely to be? We've been able to provide historical data and the issues that came up when developing the light sport rule," he says.
The proof-of-concept aircraft, he says, is not quite what he expected. "I was a little surprised, knowing that they are trying to recapture the training market with new products, that it had a pretty small vertical stabiliser. But my guess is they were going more for style than practical applications to make an impact. I wouldn't be surprised if that changes," he says.
The market Cessna is poised to enter has 38 different designs from 29 companies. At Oshkosh, the FAA said 499 special LSAs had been registered in the USA. Those are aircraft built for the LSA market, and exclude converted ultra-lights or older models that meet the weight and speed requirements.
Market shake-out
Gunnarson predicts the number of companies will eventually plateau and then drop. Cessna would be the eighth US LSA producer. "There are those who have been waiting in the wings and, I suspect, will do so for a while to see all this shake out and see if this is worth getting into," Gunnarson says. "Even without Cessna, the market can only support so much."
Some companies have already merged marketing departments to stay afloat. One EAA official predicts only five or six LSA companies will be in business in five years.
As of June, Flight Design had sold 77 CTs and CTSWs, and opened a new factory in Ukraine. Peghiny is confident the CT's performance will keep sales brisk, even with competition from Cessna. "We're surprised at how fast the market's growing. There's been enough direct sales and we've just been handling that," he says. "We're interested in other people's work. There's a lot of it that we like." But Peghiny realises it is the work "we do within our own organisation" that ultimately counts and "will more greatly affect our success than any external force".
Source: Flight International
