Product Description

Sport Pilot Airplane: A Complete Guide provides an in-depth understanding of light-sport aviation complexities. Clarifies points commonly misunderstood, provides a wealth of information on subject such as Selecting an Aircraft, Pilot and Aircraft Certification, Weather, Flight Principles, and more. Includes 256 pages with illustrations, photos, or graphs on nearly every page. The material presents the experience of thousands of flight hours and contains valuable lessons for all pilots and would-be pilots

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #951226 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-30
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
Every pilot will save themselves a lot of time, effort, energy, and money by reading this book. -- Tim Styles, Dealer, private pilot, UFI

Every pilot will save themselves a lot of time, effort, energy, and money by reading this book. --Tim Styles, Dealer, private pilot, UFI

Jamed packed with new and useful information. The best kept secrets about airplane ownership and cutting edge concepts on aerodynamics. -- Jon Thornburg, Professional Pilot, CFI, Ultraflight Magazine 2005

Jamed packed with new and useful information. The best kept secrets about airplane ownership and cutting edge concepts on aerodynamics. --Jon Thornburg, Professional Pilot, CFI, Ultraflight Magazine 2005

The material is valuable for all pilots. Chock full of practical, immediately useful information any pilot can and should utilize. -- John Lasko , Quicksilver

The material is valuable for all pilots. Chock full of practical, immediately useful information any pilot can and should utilize. --John Lasko , Quicksilver

About the Author
Carol and Brian Carpenter, are both licensed pilots with ultralight instructor certificates. Brian, known as an expert in the field of aviation, is an A&P an IA. and DAR. An FAA CFI-I, a Sport Pilot Examiner (SPE) and Sport Pilot Instructor Examiner (SPIE), an FAA Safety Advisor, EAA Technical Counselor, EAA Flight Adviser, EAA Ultralight Instructor and Examiner. Over the years, he has built a number of aircraft including both experimental and ultralight. He is also the designer and the builder of the Ranger Aircraft featured in Pacific Flyer, Ultraflight Magazine, Lighter Than Air, and The Great American Aerotrike Adventure. Brian offers a unique insight from a professional angle based on over 25 years of experience. Carol Carpenter is a graduate from California State University, Chico. She holds a California Teaching Credential, a private pilot certificate, an FAA advance ground instructor certificate, and she is an FAA Sport Pilot Safety Advisor.

Customer Reviews

A Wealth of Infomation in a Logical Sequence...
As the owner of an ultralight trainer "in transition" to LSA, I found I had questions at every step of the process. Not wanting to waste any time or money, I invested in the Carpenter's book. I found the information was presented in an easy to follow sequence with useful checklists to ensure proper compliance with the "rules of transitioning". Chapter 5 is forty pages of gold- it carries you step by step from the types of "Light Sport Aircraft" (ELSA, SLSA, Standard Category, etc.) to a wonderful Transitioning checklist, and then it becomes the modern day "Rosetta Stone": how to fill out the FAA forms. Continuing on it covers the required equipment and markings for your aircraft and the chapter ends with "The Inspection".
The book also covers a wealth of aviator knowledge from Micro Meteorology to Advanced Sport Pilot Aerodynamics. If you are like me, you'll enjoy it cover to cover intially, then reach for it many times during the process. I'm now at the finish line of the process and credit my arrival quickly to the information from the Carpenters.

Excelent book- iIluminating for all pilots
The depth of the book, especially in the areas of meteorology and aerodynamics, is what sets it apart from those we've all used in ground school. Where those books, quite rightly, assume the reader is going to fly aircraft weighing more than 1500 pounds and perhaps transition to high-performance wings, Sport Pilot Airplane looks at the subjects of weather and flying characteristics from a light aircraft point of view.
The differences are significant. For instance, few of us are so over-confident that we would, after a few hundred hours in a Cessna 172, assume that shifting to a Lancair IV-P would be a case of a quick checkride. However, Sport Pilot Airplane makes it clear that while the speeds are lower in Light Sport Aircraft, the fact of their higher drag and lower inertia also make transitioning to them an experience requiring additional knowledge.
This is clearly illustrated in the section describing NODI or Nose Over Dive In, a situation where a loss of power combined with an aft c.g., high drag and low inertia can cause an outside loop, an exciting event at the minimum.
The Carpenters bring a long list of letters after their names, such as A&P, DAR, IA, CFII, all useful when they give step-by-step instructions on filling out FAA paperwork. It was especially amusing and enlightening to feel them at one's elbow with cautions such as, "Too much paperwork will only confuse the FAA registry and cause you additional grief." Of special significance are the passages concerning pilots who can no longer fly as a Private Pilot due to medical issues as well as those who wish to move up from ultralight aviation.
Sport Pilot Airplane will be illuminating for all pilots with even the most casual interest in LSA.

poorly edited, errors
I had high hopes for this book, since the Carpenters are good folks and I've listened to them on Ultraflight Radio. But this book is poorly edited. It reads like a collection of one-off writings thrown together. Sometimes it is specific with advice, but mostly it rambles on in obvious generalities. Sometimes it is very technical, using advanced terminology without explanation. Other times it's absolute beginner stuff.

What's worse is there's a distracting spelling or grammar error on just about every page. And even errors like saying that air pressure decreases during descent.