Despite the adverse circumstances for commercial airlines, the private aircraft manufacturing sector continues its development almost without alteration; as in the case of the German aircraft design and manufacturing company “Flight Design”, which has recently obtained certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for one model of its CT series of aircraft.
Historical Review of Flight Design
It is a German aircraft design and creation company located in Leinfelden-Echterdingen. Initially, the company was dedicated to the development of gliders and paragliders in the 1980s. In 1990 Flight Design set out to design ultralight aircraft, achieving its goal in 1993 with its first aircraft. If you want to know recent information from another aircraft manufacturing company, we invite you to read: Boeing speculates an increase in demand for its units in China.
CT series
It is a family of ultralight aircraft, high wing, tricycle landing gear, two seats, also categorized as light sports. The first CT aircraft of the German company flew for the first time in March 1996 and production for sale began the following year. The models that make up this family are: the original CT, the CT2K, the CTSW and the CTLS (which we talk about in this article).
CTLS certification
The CTLS, like all designs in the CT family of Flight Design, is primarily intended for recreational flights, tourism, towing, light reconnaissance and surveillance. The CTLS was announced for the first time in 2008, then several modifications have been made by the producer, so it needs to certify when the improvements are implemented for the series production of the model.
The CTLS certification was necessary as the aircraft was recently modified to include several improvements, among which are: the new Dynon SkyView HDX avionics, the Dynon autopilot, and the new Rotax 912 iSc Sport engine (which required its own certification). For certification, EASA staff conducted different validation flights near EASA headquarters in Cologne, Germany.
Flight Design has commented that the CTLS completes a certification process successfully so that its model now has full certification from the EASA in accordance with the CS-LSA regulations, which allows the use of the aircraft in pilot schools. The German company attributes the achievement of this certificate to its engineering team. If you want to know another aircraft that was tested for certification, you may be interested: Latest tests of the Targus OPV.
What do you think of this topic? Did you know ultralight aircraft like the CTLS?
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