By any measure 2020 has been an unusual year. While millions were thrown out of work by lockdowns to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, plenty of others can work from home or have businesses that are considered essential.
In this context, how is the general aviation industry holding up?
The short answer: Some are doing surprisingly well.
In this third quarter report for the calendar year, I’ll look at some numbers for general aviation manufacturers, as well as the light sport aircraft (LSA) industry that has my full focus.
Before I launch into my analysis, I must extend grateful thanks to Datastician Extraordinaire Steve Beste, who does such a comprehensive job compiling and demystifying data from the FAA’s aircraft registration database. I’ve told you before how much sorting and sifting must be done to take this publicly-available information and make it into the charts and graphs you see on Tableau Public (where you can drill down through all the data right to the individual airplanes being counted).
In looking at the latest numbers, Steve notes that some aircraft companies “are doing stupendously better than last year. Others, not so much.”
Some, like “Most Improved” Texas Aircraft registered its first SLSA in 2019, so a very small increase in registrations makes for a big percentage increase, Steve reports.
Check out the chart to see which companies are soaring high in 2020, along with those matching last year’s pre-COVID-19 results. As you can see, quite a few companies are surviving this economic punishment quite well.
On the downside, Pipistrel and Icon have dropped sharply in registrations during 2020.
Sport Pilot Kit Aircraft
“Sport Pilot kits” is a term I invented to designate those kit-built designs that can be flown by someone with a Sport Pilot certificate or a pilot using those privileges. Using the term Sport Pilot kits omits aircraft that are too fast, too heavy, or too complex. Contrarily, Sport Pilot kit models compare fairly to and can be correctly associated with Light-Sport Aircraft.
“Kit aircraft have a long delay between sale and registration, so for them, we’re looking at a very lagging indicator here,” Steve says.
As a proxy for sales, registration data in any given year is more timely for factory-built makes.
Among kit builders, Sonex, Just Aircraft, Zenith, Kitfox, Quad City, Progressive Aerodyne, Van’s, and Rans are holding their dominant positions.
Among what I call “Alternative Aircraft,” Magni gyroplanes, Powerachute powered parachutes, and weight shift manufacturer Evolution Trikes are all having a solid year.
Evolution’s Larry Mednick was particularly upbeat in an interview I recorded with him at the Midwest LSA Expo. His biggest success? Single place trike models, many of which don’t show up in the nearby chart as they are Part 103 vehicles.
Conversely, CubCrafters and American Legend are not as strong as in recent years, a problem shared by gyroplane producers AutoGyro and SilverLight.
For pilots, this indicates you won’t need to wait as long to get a new aircraft.
On the other hand, one busy kit manufacturer recently quoted 18 months for delivery. That customer doesn’t want to wait a year and half to start building and will look elsewhere, he said.
I have long loved Part 103 machines as they enjoy far less restrictions. One non-requirement is to register your ultralight vehicle with FAA. As a result we have no data on these aircraft — a terrible shame because they appear to be one of the most active aircraft segments in recent years. In 2020, I might guess, based on interviews with several producers, that Part 103 is a leading force in this strange year’s achievements.
For complete data on all aircraft in this space, visit Tableau Public. Please remember the figures for 2020 are only for nine months.
LSA-Like Aircraft
However, we can compare registrations of the major GA single-engine piston aircraft with those of our LSA-like aircraft.
“LSA-like” groups fully-built SLSA with kit version ELSA with 51%-rule kits to form a unique segment. It is this bunch, along with ultralights, that keeps my complete focus.
“We see that overall, registrations of LSA-like aircraft account for more than half of the single-engine piston aircraft registered so far this year,” wrote Steve after analyzing data for all single-engine piston aircraft registrations in the United States.
“Comparing charts I see 506 registrations of LSA-type aircraft in 2020 and 358 registrations of GA aircraft in 2020,” Steve notes. “Thus, registrations of LSA-type aircraft account for more than half of the single-engine piston aircraft registered in 2020, 59% from data analyzed for this report.”
He further observes that he ignored single-engine kit aircraft that cannot be flown by a Sport Pilot (for example, Lancair and Van’s Aircraft’s faster models).
Cirrus (161 registrations in the first nine months of 2020) and Cessna (92) still register more airplanes than any single LSA maker. Piper (27), Aviat (15), Champion (10), and Beechcraft Bonanza (6) are much smaller and after that it tapers off sharply. Singling out Piper, the aircraft builder has seen its single engine piston sales plummet from 172 last year to a projected 36 this year, a drop of almost 80%.
In all, however, the light aircraft industry appears to be surviving the COVID-19 mess better than I might have expected. That means better health for the industry and more smiles for pilots.
