The year started with hope. As 2022 arrived, America and most countries (China excepted) were emerging from two years of difficult lockdowns and COVID-19.
The good news was that a flood of money from the U.S. government had buoyed the stock market and I’ve long observed that in a rising equities market, Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) and Sport Pilot kit aircraft sell well.
No one thinks this is because anyone sells stock to buy an LSA. Rather, it’s something economists call the “wealth effect,” where rising asset values give stockholders confidence that good times are here and they can buy an airplane to have fun.
Then…Russia invaded Ukraine and global markets trembled.
Despite a year of war, of plunging stock markets, and sky-high energy prices, of protests and riots in multiple countries, plus ongoing supply chain strains and lingering COVID fears, the LSA market grew by a healthy 18% in 2022, after rising 10% in 2021.
The industry is now performing better than in 2019, the last year of relative sanity before COVID lockdowns.
Let’s Unpack the Numbers
I am using a different approach this year, partly to give added perspective given the challenging start to the 2020s. You can get so much detail on our Tableau Public market share data website — with an enormous thanks to Steve Beste for his faithful, timely, and precise work to present this information — that I felt it useful to summarize the results from my point of view.
I grouped all the light aircraft data into these categories:
- Combined Results: All categories, including fully-built, kit-built, factory-built kits (ELSA), and others, even portraying how FAA’s 1990s-era Primary Category touches this segment.
- SLSA and ELSA: Presented as a group because all must start out identical to the SLSA model first accepted by the FAA. After an ELSA owner takes delivery, that person can make changes without factory approval but then loses the chance to offer compensated flight instruction or rental of their aircraft.
- SLSA-only: Covers only ready-to-fly, separated from ELSA. SLSA can be used for compensated operations like flight instruction and rental.
- EAB and ELSA: Shown as a group because in both cases the owner can alter and maintain the aircraft.
- EAB-only: Separates the ELSA out of the strictly homebuilt segment.
- ELSA: Also shown separately as they can become quite different from the SLSA as which they began life. An owner can change avionics, interiors, add equipment, or even change the engine on an ELSA.
Two remaining, smaller categories include Experimental Exhibition category, used mostly by Pipistrel for its motorglider models, and the Primary Category that presently counts only AutoGyro. Models that pursued Primary Category back in the 1990s (for example, the Quicksilver GT500) have not continued with that approach.
Best Selling Model
Van’s Aircraft and its RV-12 series (original 912 and the newer 912iS) supplied 60 of the best-selling single model of light aircraft in the FAA registry for 2022. Of these, 13 were fully-built SLSA models; the balance of 47 RV-12s were Experimental LSA, though most left the factory essentially complete, I understand.
Going the ELSA route has attracted a certain type of buyer. RV-12 alone accounts for 43% of all such aircraft registered in 2022.
Powered parachute manufacturer, Powrachute accounted for another 15 of these and Wild Sky Goat (a weight shift) registered six more.
The remaining 18 ELSA were produced by 12 other producers. One note reveals the presence of two Bristell USA aircraft that were registered ELSA to permit IFR operations.
Best-Selling Special LSA
Do you think you can guess this one?
OK, I’ll skip the suspense and tell you it was Icon’s A5, which registered 33 aircraft in 2022 to lead the ready-to-fly pack.
In second, fourth, fifth, and sixth places were Tecnam (19), Vashon (15), Sling (13), and Super Petrel (11).
I left out the #3 most-registered brand in 2022 as I found it nothing short of amazing.
Despite a war in its homeland and suffering direct war damage, Aeroprakt added 17 aircraft to the FAA registry in 2022. Good U.S. partners help.
One interesting factoid in the database is the 2022 registration of two Cessna Skycatchers. Since the model is long out of production — in fact, all remaining brand-new, partly-finished Skycatchers were chopped up and crushed in 2016 — one wonders how a pair of them were added to the database last year?
Check all rankings and find tons of additional insights on our Tableau Public web page. Use the lowest blue sort box on the left column. Check the relevant boxes to turn on or off any category you want to review, wait one second and the web page will assemble that request into a table. This page includes all 10,056 aircraft in the Light-Sport Aircraft and Sport Pilot kit categories. If you own one of these aircraft (registered with the FAA), your aircraft is counted on this page.
Best Selling Kit Builder
Really, this should hardly be a surprise to anyone as Zenith has lead the pack almost as long as I’ve followed these statistics. Zenith has several models but its Sky Jeep CH-701 and -750 series contributes the bulk of its kit deliveries.
Remember, kit sales don’t precisely relate to registrations as owners have to assemble them first. This can take months to years.
Trailing Zenith rather closely are the usual players: Rans (59), Sonex (45), Kitfox (38), and Just Aircraft (30).
Right behind is Magni (16) because gyroplanes — other than AutoGyro’s Primary Category models (five registered in 2022) — must be built as kits until the FAA’s update to LSA known as Mosaic corrects this FAA oversight. AutoGyro also sells kit versions (15 registered).
Two pleasant surprises after these leaders are Quad City Challengers (15) and Progressive Aerodyne’s Searey kits (10) though the latter company also sold six Special LSA models.
Among what I’ve long called “alternative aircraft,” Powrachute powered parachutes registered 25 aircraft, including 16 kits and nine SLSA models.
In weight shift, Evolution Trikes was the leader with 11 registrations, of which seven were SLSA. The company also reports good sales of its non-registered Part 103 aircraft, adding to its total.
Want More?
Data hounds — you know who you are — can dive way deep into the numbers on Tableau Public. You can find all about Light-Sport Aircraft using our popular SLSA List and discover a wide range of Part 103 ultralight vehicles on our Part 103 List. (The latter are not FAA registered so do not count in this report.)
Now, go enjoy those new aircraft or a new-to-you used model you found last year!
Sign me up. Jim McGivern
([email protected]
Thx.
Does the pure E-AB include ALL new E-AB or only those that are LSA compliant?
Nice work Dan. One factor for LSA sales “might” be the rising costs of hangar rent, Avgas and the general hassles of operating from government-owned GA airports. For many of the aircraft mentioned here, a couple of cleared acres of grass and decent approaches are all one needs to keep an airplane at a rural home. In many cases, one comes out way ahead, especially as most of these airplanes will burn cheaper ethanol-free mogas (now readily available, see Pure-Gas.org) and the airplane is literally in one’s back yard. The commute to the airfield is really short! I hear that Just Aircraft has a two-year backlog of orders.