The Light Sport Effect

In the beginning, the Wright Brothers invented a flying machine … then very quickly, bureaucracy decided these machines had to be certified to be safe. Things stayed more or less like that for many years, albeit with ever growing complexity. Then, with greater knowledge and giant strides in materials and engines, driven by a public hunger for low-cost aviation, along came ultralights, which didn’t have to be certified at all. Once again bureaucrats emerged and decided these aeroplanes also had to be certified to make them safe.

Most recently, Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) were born, which are sort of certified, but not really. And in amongst all these are experimental aircraft, which are largely–but not exclusively–aeroplanes which are amateur-built from plans or kits, some of which are approved and others not. This article is primarily about LSAs, although you can’t really look at them without considering the aviation history which led to their genesis.

Getting any aircraft certified is a hugely expensive process, the costs of which have to be passed on to the buyer. Up to the early 2000s in the USA, there were only three main categories of aircraft: expensive certified general aviation (GA) aircraft, experimental amateur-built aircraft and a limited form of ultralight aircraft. No certification was required for the latter, nor for that matter was a flying license required to fly them, although they were severely