Warmi

This year at Oshkosh I found a similar class plane that imho looks better than SportCruiser - Tucano replica. It is a kit plane with Rotax 915is and I am now seriously considering getting their quick build kit …

It is interesting … looking at Vans forums RV12 seems to be the most popular , at least in terms of forum postings..

My worry would be not so much some kind of FAA ramp check but rather, in hopefully unlikely scenario ,that if I crash the plane or somehow need to fill out insurance claim , there may be issues related to the plane not being in compliance.

I do follow pretty much all the rules even though I do think a lot of it is nonsense , at least in terms of non intended outcomes … I do draw a line sometimes for trivial stuff ( for instance I would not give a crap about getting LOA to fly without wheel pants( something that is apparently required for Flight Design owners ) and stuff like that … at the end of the day it is my plane. Of course it is easier for me as I can pretty much install any avionics I want , my list of allowed ADSB equipment looks very open 🙂 If I owned a SportCruiser I would simply go ELSA - life is too short for dealing with nonsense like that … What’s even more interesting , I am apparently allowed to install aftermarket Rotax engine mods to add extra power - not sure about doing that , especially given how expensive it is but hey, I would still be legal 🙂

… won’t comment on idiotic legal/paper nonsense but just on merit alone these were excellent upgrade choices 🙂

That’s all you really need - a decent GPS and a decent instrument that can drive your autopilot (G5 certainly qualifies )

That’s the point … there is never any excuse available when flying - it is always on you , one way or another. As far as flying in windy conditions, I find slowing down from landing right after touch down probably the most dangerous part of the whole ordeal … frankly, it is not as bad in a low wing plane ( less likely to get picked up by the wind ) but still , it is kind of unnerving as at that point the only thing you can do is keep the controls into to the wind and hope for the best.

I would think even if you crash with 2 knots crosswind FAA would put the responsibility on you anyway …

That red and white SportCruiser up there in the first picture looks just stunning… and Happy New Year !

My Sting is like that - the bubble canopy may not look as sporty as in SportCruiser but it offers superior visibility - it feels like you are sitting on a wing spar with almost 360 degree visibility. I guess, to each his own 🙂

I have the same TruTrak Efis and so far it has been running flawless since 2017 ( when I got the plane, the unit is older than that ) and feature wise it is about the same as D100 series from Dynon ...but , indeed, it is a dead end product - if it dies , you got to pull it out and replace the stack entirely.

Another thing is that there just aren't that many (frequented) forums for Light Sport/Rotax folks out there to begin with ...

Welcome, That's an interesting take... VL3 Aircraft surely appears quite fast ( I presume you are looking for the 915is version ) and I am sure they a lot of fun to fly for your typical local flying ( I mean hundreds not thousands of miles ) but I am not sure how you gonna manage the gross limit which is still only around 1322 lbs and that's a lot less than DA40 which will translate into pretty slim useful load not to mention the fact that it surely won't be any better in turbulence than DA40. I mean, it does look and sound like a another fun Czech plane ( I personally don't have a SportCruiser either but another Czech plane, Sting S4 ) but it is not a replacement for a plane like DA40 imho. BTW.. there is another , non-plane specific forum for Light Sport planes - https://sportpilottalk.com/ - may want to ask around there as well.

Yep, that’s why I don’t want one 😀 Btw. Arion Lightning planes have nothing in common with Lancair planes except maybe it looks kind of similar ( but so does SportCruiser to some degree ) Arion Lightning legacy includes this plane - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerocomp_VM-1_Esqual

Lightning is much more docile plane than the Lancair - I think of it as “Lancair for dummies” , which is for me 🙂 - I don’t need all that ultra speed that comes with Lancair and don’t want to fly a plane with 80 knots landing speed.