The whole concept of a light sport aircraft is a strange thing. I understand that the Federal Aviation Administration wanted to begin a whole new class of aircraft that people could fly without having a third class medical, but the rules seem a little arbitrary to me.

For example, where did they come up with that 1,320 max gross weight? It is pretty clear that they set the gross weight limit so low that your average sport pilot would not be allowed to fly a Cessna 150, 172 or Cherokee. He or she would have to either fly an airplane like a Champ (which is likely sixty or more years old) or shell out over a hundred grand for a new light sport airplane. In other words, the government pretty much made the whole thing too expensive from the beginning. They were clearly working for the aircraft manufacturers in this case, not the pilots.

I have been flying the Champ as a light sport airplane for a while now and really enjoy every minute of it. For one thing, it takes me back to my younger days. I flew Champs a lot when I was a teen aged line boy. Second, there is nothing more fun than flying a champ with the window open and the door off on a warm day.

 I recently thought I would move up and fly another kind of light sport airplane. This is the kind that has the bubble canopy, the high-tech instrument panel and (oh my gawd) the Rotax engine.

I am sure that some of you out there in reader land just love the Rotax engine. You, of course, are idiots.

The Rotax is the devil and represents everything evil about aviation today.

First of all, the damn thing doesn’t have magnetos – it has some weird-assed European electronic ignition system. I just can’t trust an airplane that doesn’t have mags. It just ain’t natural.

Next, in order to check the stupid thing you have to remove the entire top of the cowling. To check the oil requires that you turn the prop about fifty times to “burp” the engine. Excuse me? Wasn’t moving the prop considered dangerous? They even want you to rotate the prop in the regular direction. (about seventy five revolutions) Having no mags and no impulse couplers, this is perfectly safe with a Rotax – how about when the Light sport pilots move on to Champs? It’ll be “finger losing time” at the old Aeronca hangar.

Finally, this engine-related spawn of Satan runs at about fifty gazillion RPM. Hell, if you get below 2,000 RPM they get all upset because you are FUBARing the gear box. Which leads to the incredulous question: The DAMN THING HAS a GEAR BOX???

Once I climbed into the little bubble canopied POS to go flying, I noticed that there was no airflow in the cockpit during taxi. It was hotter than the surface of Spock’s home planet. We finally got it into the air only to learn that it only had a 10 knot crosswind limitation and flew like a short-coupled, under-powered, un-stable and much harder to fly version of the 1972 American Yankee, which at least had a normal engine.

I am going back to my champ and cubs thank you very much. The future may belong to these overpriced hard to fly pieces of crap but I won’t be piloting them. Mo-bettah they are flown by thirteen year olds from the ground using radio control boxes.