One of Czech Republic's leading LSA makers, Evektor-Aerotechnic, has upped the ante with its Turbo-powered SportStar MAX, a lovely LSA that I flew with the standard powerplant recently and will have a report in Plane & Pilot coming up soon.
The new muscle comes courtesy a turbocharged Rotax 914 UL, which takes the MAX way higher than sport pilots can legally fly: all the way up to 28,850 ft.!  Can you say pressure suit?  Climb rate, already pretty peppy, jumps to 1,320 ft/min, and of course it jumps off the ground a lot quicker too.
Thinking about mountain flying in the U.S.: you could legally fly this wee beastie at 16,000 feet over the Rockies.  Now there's a thought.
The first Turbo MAX went to a Canadian customer.  I'll hope to get an update hop at the Midwest Expo in 3 weeks.
In a side note for our pilot friends of the Euro persuasion, the MAX just earned its EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) Permit to Fly, which gives Europilots the right to fly the MAX with a PPL licence, at 600 kg MTOW and with non-commercial pilot training.

B&H to launch new winter flights

As expected, B&H Airlines will launch flights to the Macedonian capital, Skopje, from November 1. Flights will operate three times per week using the ATR72 aircraft. Rumours regarding a possible Skopje relaunch surfaced after B&H terminated its flights to Zagreb earlier this week. B&H is no stranger to Skopje. Last year the airline terminated flights to the Macedonian capital due to low interest. At one point, flights from Sarajevo to Skopje operated via Podgorica. With more transit flights to offer this time around, B&H hopes it will be able to lure more passengers to the service.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s national carrier is also expected to launch flights to Amsterdam this November. The new service is being primarily introduced for the Bosnian diaspora in the United States, which would have a quick transfer through Amsterdam onwards to Sarajevo.

Skopje becomes the only airport in the former Yugoslavia to have direct flights to all of the EX-YU capitals from November. All flight details for the Sarajevo – Skopje service can be found on the right hand side, in the new route launches section.

Those hard-working stalwarts at Legend, the number one US producer of LSA, keep finding interesting things for folks like me to write about. 
<> Trish Jackson is an Ohio native who flies Airbus freight carriers all over Europe.  She learned flying from her mother at age 13 and still remembers a memorable quote mom made on a flight:   "Look at these rivers. It's like God carved them out with his finger.”

Trish owned a vintage Cub at one point in her career, but a couple years ago felt the urge to own one again - a brand new one.  She kicked some tires and lit some fires for a year or two, then took a Legend Cub demo flight.
Last April she joined the annual Legend rite of spring gaggle -- a trip I had the distinct pleasure of making in 2008 -- to fly  formation with a bunch of Legend Cubs from Sulphur Springs, TX to Lakeland, FL for the annual Sun 'n Fun spring flyin.
That sold her.
“It was the attention to detail," she says of her decision, "and its open cockpit flying."
Imagine climbing out of a heavy and into a Cub on the same day...what could keep you sharper than that?
<> Sass and class: the Legend Cub can be ordered with Garmin G3X displays, a telling meld of classic flying and ultra-modern digital situational awareness that extols the marvelous opportunities we have in LSA flight.
All those functions -- real-time weather, terrain, METARs, NOTAMs, PIREPs, traffic and more -- can come in real handy whether you're tooling around in open class G airspace country or joining the pattern at a major commercial airport.
The Garmin G3X glass cockpit packs a ton of info into its displays, including attitude/directional guidance, electronic engine monitoring, moving-map GPS, airport diagrams, synthetic vision and more.
<> Looking ahead to the 75th anniversary of the Piper Cub J3 in 2012, what a hoot it would be to fly a Legend Classic J3 into Oshkosh or any other airshow.
Legend's new Classic is an updated-but-faithful version of the J3, at a $94K price.
Updates include sliding left window, electric start, disc brakes (careful with those!) and other modernizings to enhance safety while staying true to the original, immortal J3.
Must. Save. More. Money and get my own...I say that a lot about new LSA I get to fly, but since I'm building some skills in a 1946 J3 these days at my local airfield, I'm currently all swooney over the wonderful Cub...all density-altitude-struggling 65 horsepower of her.
Next time you're at an airshow, stop by and say hello to owners Darin Hart and Kurt Sehnert and stalwart crewfolk like Pat Bowers: they're part of what makes covering the LSA scene such a pleasure.

Wizz Air to base aircraft in Belgrade

Eastern Europe’s largest low cost airline, Wizz Air, will open its thirteenth base at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport on April 1, 2011, the airline’s CEO, Jozsef Varadi, announced yesterday in Belgrade. One of the airline’s Airbus A320s will be based at Serbia’s main airport operating flights to Dortmund, London-Luton, Rome, Malmo, Memmingen, Eindhoven and Stockholm-Skavsta. Flights to Dortmund and London, which commenced this summer, have been extremely successful with cabin loads exceeding 90% per flight. The no frills airline will commence flights to Belgrade from Rome and Malmo in Sweden from December. These flights will originate from Belgrade once the A320 is based at the airport in April. Flights to Stockholm, Memmingen and Eindhoven in the Netherlands will begin between April 1 and 3.

At a press conference in Belgrade, Varadi announced that between thirty to forty workers from Serbia will be employed by the airline. “It is our goal to become the leading airline in Serbia”, he said. He also believes the new move will have a positive impact on the Serbian economy. It is anticipated that Wizz Air will carry some 300.000 passengers to and from Serbia in 2011.

All flight details for the new services can be found on the right hand side in the new route launches section.

Colin Hunter was on hand to capture TL3000 Sirius ZK-SPR arriving at Ardmore on the first day of SPRing.

This aircraft has already featured on this blog:
www.design-plane.blogspot.com/2010/05/tl-3000-sirius-new-aircraft-in-new.html
www.design-plane.blogspot.com/2010/07/southern-sport-zk-spr.html

Powerhouse digital instrument maker Dynon Avionics just came out with software version 5.4 for its EFIS-D10A, EFIS-D100 and FlightDEK-D180 units which are in widespread use in LSA and homebuilts.
The upgrade addresses refined pitch control, including some new user-adjustable parameters that optimize autopilot performance for each individual aircraft.

(image: rt to lft is the EFIS-D100, AP74 Autopilot control module and a typical servo used to link into flight control system)
The idea, sez Dynon, is to improve passenger comfort by custom-tuning the response to turbulence. 
Support is expanded to a wider range of airframes too.
Ian Jordan, Chief Systems Engineer for Dynon, had this to say about the upgrade: “The autopilot now flies just as an experienced pilot would, with crisp, appropriate inputs that really seem to understand the airplane.”
        ---image courtesy Dynon Avionics

More competition for Croatia Airlines?

Croatia could soon get its first low cost airline. Plans are being put in motion for a new low cost carrier to be created by the end of the year, the daily “24 sata” reports. The project is being headed by Željko Romić, a Croat from Australia. He plans for his low cost airline to operate a mixed fleet of short haul Airbus and Boeing aircraft, an unorthodox move for a low cost carrier. Furthermore, Romić plans for his airline to operate seasonal long haul flights to the United States with Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft. Local media report that Romić has found vital financial backing for his ambitious project. The airline would also operate domestic flights and could be a rival to Croatia Airlines.

Croatia is served by many low cost airlines but none are local. There have been numerous plans for a Croatian low cost carrier to be created but none have ever materialised. Do you think Croatia needs a low cost airline? Will the abovementioned airline ever see the light of day? Post a comment.