I'm a commercial pilot who knows heavy jets and Piper/Cessna aircraft used for training. I'm brand new to light sport so forgive anything dumb about the question as I'm still learning.

I live on a lake. I would like to be able to fly (day VFR) to other lakes in my city that have restaurants, get dinner and fly home. Secondary mission would be able to remove floats and trailer the LSA out to the beach where I could take off on wheels.

I'm looking for recommendations for an aircraft that meets these criteria (if one exists):

* two seats (preferable adjacent not tandem)
* able to use floats or wheels (retractable wheels or floats to take off on one surface and land on another is big plus)
* collapsible/foldable wing that allows it to be store in 1 garage space (I'd like to be able to pull it or winch it from my lake into/out of storage)
* trailerable to drive it to other locations for flight
* pre-assembled or under 100 hours of labor if a kit
* under $30k if possible
* 50+ mile range
* prefer 4 stroke over 2 stroke power

I would prefer conventional stick and rudder flight controls but would be OK with a control bar/hand glider arrangement.

Do such aircraft exist? Or perhaps I should be asking if such an aircraft exists for what I want to spend, LOL. I'm not looking for anything remotely as complex, nice as an ICON 5. Just some kind of open cockpit, ultralight to have fun farting around town.

Combine:

- Just Highlander
- Rans S20

with Rotax 912 or 915

and

Full Lotus Amphibs

Fly with doors off.

A relatively inexpensive combo that I plan to build some day too.

Edit: I missed your $30K budget.

At that price, Challenger and Quicksilver are both floatable. For less money, there are various trikes, but I don’t know anything about them. For more money, there’s Searey and Aventura, both of which are cool, but neither works very well at a dock.

I think you're looking for the 'unobtainium' aircraft. Might be able to fulfill a couple of those desires, but to get all of them for the budget is nearly impossible. If you increase your budget a it your choices will definitely be doable.

Might be able to find a 2-stroke KF with floats for your budget, but highly doubt you will find one with a 4-stroke in that price range. The amphib floats are going to take a large portion of your budget, but as has been mentioned, you might be able to find a set of Full Lotus amphibs for a decent price. I have a set of FL1260 amphibs that I purchased for a fair price, so they are out there.

Maybe find a Quicksilver on floats for your budget, but not many out there for sale. If you drop the requirement for amphibs, and can use straight floats, an Aeronce Chief, Taylorcraft, etc. can occassionally be found for around $30K. But again, no folding wings or 'kit' plane.

I did see a Searey advertised on BS in your budget. It's the older hull style, but the price sure seemed fair.

I have several hundred hours in the Aventura II. We went through the same thought process when search trying to find something on amphibs with folding wings. They just aren't available at the price range you're looking for with all the options you'd like.

We settled on the Aventura II because it was amhib with great water handing, side by side seating with conventional controls, 4 stroke Rotax 912S 100hp, useful load of almost 600 pounds and we found a really nice one already built for $35,000 with radio mode C transponder GPS moving map and intercom system. That's a lot of airplane and fun for the money. It does have some cons like hard to dock due to the wing sponsons/tip floats and depending on the wheel/tire steup may have problems submerging the gear due to buoyancy issues. We found that folding wings while nice occasionally would be a pain to use all the time and with about a 200 mile range they really weren't needed. If you'd like more info let me know.