Do seasoned and experienced bush pilots consider modern LSA's to be capable and even comparable to the time tested classics?

With a budget of around $50k, is it wise to even consider an LSA for weekend off-airport camping and fishing?

I would really like some objective comparisons from folks that may have experience of owning and operating these two very different categories in the bush. Your insights may well half the amount of time I spend hunting for my ideal bush plane .

I might simply look to the title for the answer... You may or may not be old enough to remember, but reflect on wether this was actual Pepsi.

I have about 2500 hours on a Rans S7 with the Rotax 912 engine. My airport elevation is at 5840". Most of my flying is off airport, Colorado, ., Utah, Idaho and Arizona. An extremely capable back country airplane and using mogas very affordable to fly. Check out Gravity Knight on utube.

Similar comment from me as Magnet, I have a RANS S-7 also. It's a very capable plane. It's a blast to fly, cheap to own and operate on mo-gas.
The only con with LSA crafts, they're light wing loading, you will get tossed around in turbulence and windy conditions.
Flew mine the last two days, always land rejuvenated and smiling.... it's just a fun plane to fly.

An LSA bush plane is super capable and with the right landing gear and tires can get you wherever you want to go, but unless you and your passenger are both small and 150#’s or less you will likely be going solo

Rans S-7 is as good, Rans S-20 is a better choice as I like side by side seating. Kitfox would be my third choice.

I am building a Bearhawk which is not an LSA at this point in time, but time will tell how MOASIC changes the Light Sport rules

For a pilot used to hauling what a 180 or Maule can handle, no. Or for those in a big hurry. Or for those wanting to take a passenger AND lot's of gear, maybe not. Flown solo, packing a couple hundred pounds of gear, being able to land and takeoff real short and still burning around 3.5 GPH of mogas is attractive to some, the cheapskates, like me. RANS S-7S.

Even the antique LSA (cubs and champs) are fantastic bush planes. You just need to be mindful of weight and balance. I went from an LSA to a 180, both will do a lot of fun stuff. The LSAs just tend to do it 1-up - which is most of our flying anyway. In a perfect world, I'd have a 180 and a lightweight cub. Some day...

TangoXray wrote:Do seasoned and experienced bush pilots consider modern LSA's to be capable and even comparable to the time tested classics?

With a budget of around $50k, is it wise to even consider an LSA for weekend off-airport camping and fishing?

I would really like some objective comparisons from folks that may have experience of owning and operating these two very different categories in the bush. Your insights may well half the amount of time I spend hunting for my ideal bush plane .

TangoXray wrote:Do seasoned and experienced bush pilots consider modern LSA's to be capable and even comparable to the time tested classics?

With a budget of around $50k, is it wise to even consider an LSA for weekend off-airport camping and fishing?

I would really like some objective comparisons from folks that may have experience of owning and operating these two very different categories in the bush. Your insights may well half the amount of time I spend hunting for my ideal bush plane .

Your profile says you're on Grand Cayman? What kind of flying is available to you there? Floats? Inland dirt strips?

What's your flying experience? Are you just getting started or did you have a long career flying 206s and now you need to spice it up with a lightweight BMX bike of the sky? Does the old lady like to go too? The dog?

courierguy wrote:For a pilot used to hauling what a 180 or Maule can handle, no. Or for those in a big hurry. Or for those wanting to take a passenger AND lot's of gear, maybe not. Flown solo, packing a couple hundred pounds of gear, being able to land and takeoff real short and still burning around 3.5 GPH of mogas is attractive to some, the cheapskates, like me. RANS S-7S.

This from courierguy sums it up perfectly.

The answer in my mind is pretty straightforward. The LSA isn’t new, only the definition is. The S7, the Champ, the Cub etc have all existed for a long time, some for a VERY long time, and been improved upon too over that time. For background, I went from a Wilga, to a Murphy Rebel, to just recently a 185.

Those sorts of planes are utterly legendary, for their design purpose. That is 1 person and gear, or two and very light gear, not going too far afield, but to potentially very short and rough strips. The 185, the 206, the Beaver, the Otter, the Caravan own commercial bush flying for the simple thing they all have in common: payload. The LSAs, even the best of them, don’t share that arrow in the quiver. But you’re not landing a Beaver or 185 where you land a Carbon Cub, either. And you’re not putting in $1000 of fuel a day, either.

My day job is flying helicopters, and I get asked often if I mind flying the Bell Jet Ranger (smallest aircraft in our fleet, and considered a machine you fly early in your career). Same goes for the R66 or Hughes 500. The answer is always I enjoy the smaller machines. Long as they’re doing a small machine job. A 500 will fit places my beloved Astar shouldn’t. The Jet Ranger is a sweetheart, on Jet Ranger jobs- that is not too heavy. It’s a bear when the client wants to pay for a Jet Ranger, and wants to go do an Astar job.

The LSAs are amazing at what they’re designed for: cost accessible weekending with very little equipment. Or accessing the shortest of the short strips, with a fishing rod and minimal gear. Pure flying for the joy of flying and seeing local honey holes. If you are more into the ground aspects of the trip than the aerial, be that game animals and camps, or very long distances afield, you need a much bigger aircraft.

So for what they’re built for, they’re amazing machines.

Painting with a huge brush

A carbon cub is VERY capable for its size class, a sport cruiser is not.

But it’s a 2 seat plane, of course you’re not going to compare a PA18 clone to a 185 or a C130, different aircraft for a different mission.

Ardent wrote:The answer in my mind is pretty straightforward. The LSA isn’t new, only the definition is. The S7, the Champ, the Cub etc have all existed for a long time, some for a VERY long time, and been improved upon too over that time. For background, I went from a Wilga, to a Murphy Rebel, to just recently a 185.

Those sorts of planes are utterly legendary, for their design purpose. That is 1 person and gear, or two and very light gear, not going too far afield, but to potentially very short and rough strips. The 185, the 206, the Beaver, the Otter, the Caravan own commercial bush flying for the simple thing they all have in common: payload. The LSAs, even the best of them, don’t share that arrow in the quiver. But you’re not landing a Beaver or 185 where you land a Carbon Cub, either. And you’re not putting in $1000 of fuel a day, either.

My day job is flying helicopters, and I get asked often if I mind flying the Bell Jet Ranger (smallest aircraft in our fleet, and considered a machine you fly early in your career). Same goes for the R66 or Hughes 500. The answer is always I enjoy the smaller machines. Long as they’re doing a small machine job. A 500 will fit places my beloved Astar shouldn’t. The Jet Ranger is a sweetheart, on Jet Ranger jobs- that is not too heavy. It’s a bear when the client wants to pay for a Jet Ranger, and wants to go do an Astar job.

The LSAs are amazing at what they’re designed for: cost accessible weekending with very little equipment. Or accessing the shortest of the short strips, with a fishing rod and minimal gear. Pure flying for the joy of flying and seeing local honey holes. If you are more into the ground aspects of the trip than the aerial, be that game animals and camps, or very long distances afield, you need a much bigger aircraft.

So for what they’re built for, they’re amazing machines.

Wow! Fantastic answer – perfect summary of what I think about LSA. I love my RANS S-6, but I also realize that it's not a "bush plane" – and certainly not in the commercial sense. It's both affordable, and absolutely the perfect plane for what I do with it, and that's what's important to me.

Great explanations here.

I think the modern LSAs are very attractive, but they are expensive. A Champ/140/Luscombe/Taylorcraft is a lot cheaper than a Rans. I see nice super cubs and super 170s priced lower than some of the modern LSAs, and I would rather have the capacity. They look like a lot of fun though.....

NineThreeKilo wrote:Painting with a huge brush

A carbon cub is VERY capable for its size class, a sport cruiser is not.

But it’s a 2 seat plane, of course you’re not going to compare a PA18 clone to a 185 or a C130, different aircraft for a different mission.

I learned to fly in a 912S powered S6 just a handful of months shy of 20 years ago. I recently sent my niece up in an S6 to learn to fly, that plane holds a soft spot in my heart. And there are plenty of gravel bars your S6 will go to happily with you and fishing gear, I’d never think of visiting in the 185. Different tools for different jobs indeed.

RE:Utah -Jay
My S7 weighs 808 lbs. 165 pilot and 150 pound passenger plus 50 lbs baggage, 24 gal fuel I'm still under gross and within CG. Plenty of room still for over gross but stay within CG.,

TangoXray wrote:Do seasoned and experienced bush pilots consider modern LSA's to be capable and even comparable to the time tested classics?.

That's a hard no. (not claiming to be seasoned and experienced - just from my person experience)

Generalising, an LSA is a fun plane to operate in the bush, a lot of fun. I would not describe them as the most capable, though. Weight, weather, space, airspeed - these are common issues when we try to plan hunting trips with our LSA buddies.

Some LSAs can be a fun plane for one person (or maybe two on a good day) to operate in a backcountry setting, on the right day in the right weather, to play around with and maybe do a little fishing or day tripping. Don't get me wrong - that is a lot of fun. Great times. But that's not "capability" specifically, that's a fun plane to own.

I would say we measure capability with the aircraft's ability to carry weight - especially out of short strips, available space, tolerance for weather (all kinds - temp, wind, DA, turb, rain, even ice, etc), power / performance, airspeed, even range in some cases.

Any plane can do a "STOL" take-off when they are empty and near sea level... Let's haul 700lb load of people and gear out of a 600ft gravel bar and talk about capability. Maybe a Carbon Cub would do it, is it legal? (it's not here).

Now, if to achieve the same thing in an LSA - you have to spend a day flying two or three loads of people into a strip at 70kts, because the plane cannot do it any other way - well, that is still capability, just a lower level of capability.

It depends exactly what you want to do with it?

Magnet wrote:RE:Utah -Jay
My S7 weighs 808 lbs. 165 pilot and 150 pound passenger plus 50 lbs baggage, 24 gal fuel I'm still under gross and within CG. Plenty of room still for over gross but stay within CG.,

Magnet
The Rans S-20 I learned to fly in and the S-21 I flew for 7 months were great CG, no way I could load them out of the envelope. The S-20 had the same 24 gallons you have, the S-21 had 49.7 gallons. But I am 195 pounds and my fishing buddy is 210 pounds, big difference there. At 6’2” I would look a bit sickly at even 165#’s, and my buddy would look skeletal at 150#’s

I do love the S-7, but no way my wife sits in the back seat, as in never.

Your plane is pretty light, the S-20 weighed 875#’s, and that is a big 67# difference

daedaluscan wrote:Great explanations here.

I think the modern LSAs are very attractive, but they are expensive. A Champ/140/Luscombe/Taylorcraft is a lot cheaper than a Rans. I see nice super cubs and super 170s priced lower than some of the modern LSAs, and I would rather have the capacity. They look like a lot of fun though.....

The prices for "factory new" LSA certainly can be eye-watering, but older ones are a lot more affordable. And I would say that your statement that "A Champ/140/Luscombe/Taylorcraft is a lot cheaper than a Rans" would vary dramatically by RANS model... I've seen a dozen or more S-6 Coyotes for sale in the $28K to $35K range, and a few below that - though most of those had the smaller 80 HP Rotax engine instead of the 100 HP version. Some of those S-6s were trikes, but a few were taildraggers. I've also seen several RANS S-12 Airaile models change hands in the $18K to $24K range over the past year or so.

A Champ MIGHT be had for less than that, but not a whole lot less, unless it's like the '65 Citabria I used to own, which still had the original factory cover, and was on borrowed time to be re-covered "any day now." And if I had re-covered it, I would have had WAY more money into the Citabria than I have in the RANS S-6.

I never considered a Luscombe or T-craft because the cabins are so small, so I'm not really qualified to discuss those models.

Magnet wrote:RE:Utah -Jay
My S7 weighs 808 lbs. 165 pilot and 150 pound passenger plus 50 lbs baggage, 24 gal fuel I'm still under gross and within CG. Plenty of room still for over gross but stay within CG.,

A fella can definitely have fun within the confines of those numbers. I had a Murphy Rebel for a little bit, useable load was about 450lbs as it was an Amphib. Yes it would carry more if it were asked to. It got to the bush, the only excuses were with the operator as it would take to me 75% of the places the Wilga did, it just couldn’t do the alpine lakes or extreme range stuff.

In fact I took that plane further afield in some ways than any other aircraft I’ve flown. On the way from Atlin (south of Whitehorse, Yukon area) to Vancouver BC, made a swing past Triangle Island out in the open Pacific. Something I’d always wanted to do. The Lycoming was sounding great, the weather was the most stable I’d seen (the heat dome we had, air wasn’t moving), and it was the day to finally see a place I’d wanted to since I was a teen.

I did sell it, as I found I didn’t fly it as everything I wanted to do called for two 200 pound guys, 200lbs of gear, and long range. I had to choose between the friend, the gear, or the fuel as most of our “hops” to fun are a few hundred nautical miles here round trip without fuel on the other end. But I left that plane with fond memories, knowing it was a proper adventure vehicle. I just wanted to bring more with me, so I ended up at the 185. I’m not having any more fun, mile for mile flown though.

Of course they are! All STOL aircraft have their strengths and weaknesses inherit in their makeup, but I personally prefer lighter empty weight aircraft with more modern designs that provide exceptional handling, safety, with modern engine and avionics technology over their Part 23 counterparts.

The new Zlin Norden is the epitome of these preferences. It’s not only the best STOL tandem LSA being factory produced but I’d argue the best STOL tandem factory produced aircraft on the planet. But that’s because I place value in modern design, handling, performance, Rotax engines, and ultimately safety. The Norden checks all of these boxes for me personally which is where my convictions form from.

It’s all about trying them on for size and seeing which one brings you the most excitement in a given price bracket.