Sport Pilot Talk

Dan Johnson has posted the 2015 SLSA sales figures on his website. Both the cumulative since-the-beginning chart, and the calendar year 2015 sales chart.

Very interesting information. http://www.bydanjohnson.com/index.cfm

sorry, cant see any of the info you are referring to

perhaps a bad link, just goes to his main page

when clicking on lsa market tab, it says "subscription only"

Try this link: http://www.bydanjohnson.com/index.cfm?b=1&m=5

Thanks Flocker, Dan Johnson doesn't normally assign permanent links to each story. So the older the post, the harder it is to find!

here it is, for those who cant find it on the website

This list is the top selling SLSA for last year only, not cumulative.

wow, looks like the industry leader (the iPhone of the LSA world) Flight Design CT has taken quite a tumble

Remos and Cessna are gone from the list entirely.

many were predicting we would see as many as 50 or more SLSA manufacturers, but the small operators would disappear quickly and we would be left with Cessna, Piper and Cirrus.........................how wrong they were

i guess the fact that the:

Cirrus SR-S was nothing more than a rebadged FK-Lightplanes FK14 slowed down for the US LSA market didn't help
Cessna Skycatcher lost both of their prototypes to crashes, suffered from low useful load and door problems didn't help either
Piper Sport was simply a rebadged CSA SportCruiser... marked up slightly for the Piper name

the CT is a great plane, I can't see why they are not still on top, possibly market saturation?

azsportpilot wrote:the CT is a great plane, I can't see why they are not still on top, possibly market saturation?

Because FD overstretched their finances and went bankrupt because of the expense of developing their new airplane, the C4. Same thing happened to Diamond because of D-Jet (neither of them technically ended in what we know as legal bankrupcy but both went bankrupt and would not survive without an infusion of outside capital). FD stopped delivering airplanes and thus there weren't anything to sell. Even without the bankrupcy CubCrafters were going to overtake them in time, but this happened sooner.

I'm in the market, but I cannot afford a new-ish CTLS, and the old CTSW that I can afford lack the baggage compartment (as I understand). And they are still expensive for what they offer. I'm looking at RV-6/6A now.

zaitcev wrote:

azsportpilot wrote:the CT is a great plane, I can't see why they are not still on top, possibly market saturation?

Because FD overstretched their finances and went bankrupt because of the expense of developing their new airplane, the C4. Same thing happened to Diamond because of D-Jet (neither of them technically ended in what we know as legal bankrupcy but both went bankrupt and would not survive without an infusion of outside capital). FD stopped delivering airplanes and thus there weren't anything to sell. Even without the bankrupcy CubCrafters were going to overtake them in time, but this happened sooner.

I'm in the market, but I cannot afford a new-ish CTLS, and the old CTSW that I can afford lack the baggage compartment (as I understand). And they are still expensive for what they offer. I'm looking at RV-6/6A now.

Just so you know the CTSW has more bagage space than the CTLS. What the CTLS does have is some storage space in the cabin in the form of a hat shelf.

3Dreaming wrote:Just so you know the CTSW has more bagage space than the CTLS. What the CTLS does have is some storage space in the cabin in the form of a hat shelf.

Correct. That is something I like about the CTSW vs. CTLS.
Additionally, my empty weight is 749#, which allows a good allowable payload for an LSA.
Considering price, performance, range, payload and shoulder room, you just can't beat a CTSW.
That withstanding, there are some trade offs for sure.

Used CTs sell, new ones are too expensive. They need to be $90k new to sell in any quantity.

3Dreaming wrote:Just so you know the CTSW has more bagage space than the CTLS. What the CTLS does have is some storage space in the cabin in the form of a hat shelf.

Thanks a lot for the correction. I seemed to recall that CTLS added the outside hatch that hangs on 2 thin steel cables when unlocked. Does CTSW have that hatch too? If not, how do you access the baggage area in it?

The CTSW has triangular shaped bagage door, where the CTLS has a more rectangular shaped door.