Aero-TV: Renegade Light Sport - The LSA with a 'REAL Aircraft Engine'

Lycoming's 233 Makes Its LSA Debut!!!

In the US Light Sport Aircraft marketplace, how does a manufacturer differentiate an airplane from more than 100 competing models? Given the market dominance of the high-revving Rotax 900-series four-strokes in LSA, one sure way to stand out from the crowd is to build your plane with an air-cooled, direct-drive, traditional aircraft engine.

At the 2011 US Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida, Renegade Light Sport was showing its Falcon 2.0 with the long-awaited Lycoming "233 Series" engine, which claims a dry weight of 211 pounds and takeoff power of 115 HP @ 2,800 RPM. After a conspicuous introduction at Oshkosh in 2008 featuring electronic ignition and throttle-body fuel injection, the new engine languished, all but disappearing from the Lycoming website for apparent lack of a committed OEM development partner.

Renegade Light Sport has stepped into that role. Christopher "Doc" Bailey, owner and president, says the base weight of the aircraft he showed us at Sebring was kept light enough to allow the use of what he calls "a real aircraft engine."

In this interview with ANN's Tom Patton, when asked why he chose to break from the Rotax crowd, Bailey explained, "Well, we listened to our clients. The guys with the gray hair who have a little aviation experience...are used to Lycoming/Continental. When you tell a gentleman he wants to take off with 5,900 RPM, he gets a little twitchy! The guys have a good comfort level with the name, 'Lycoming.' When you can cruise at 2,200 RPM and do 120 knots, they like that. It's just something that they're very comfortable with."

Copyright 2011, Aero-News Network, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

FMI: www.renegadelightsport.com, www.aero-tv.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, http://twitter.com/AeroNews

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Renegade Light Sport
• LSA
• aircraft
• aviation
• SAE
• Sport Aviation Expo
• 2011
• Lycoming
• Lycoming 233
• 115 HP
• Christopher Bailey
• Doc Bailey
• Renegade
• flying
• airplane
• aero-news
• aero-tv

[sonfowler1127]

I want this video on my R230 unit.

[HDaviator]

@thydusk666

You make it sound like its easy to come up with new things for aircraft engines. It is allot more difficult to certify an engine than it is to certify an airplane. Engines have to go through rigorous testing to make sure everything is safe to put inside an airplane. That takes time and money. Also, the problem with electric motors is not the motor itself, but the duration of the batteries and weight issues related to that. PS: they have been coming out with fuel injection for years.

[flexairz]

@thydusk666 So true... sadly enough.

[thydusk666]

Whoa! Lycoming finally discovered fuel injection and electronic ignition almost 70 years after the rest of the world started to use it... I would have expected them to come up with something new like an electric motor, not this - this should have been in place decades ago!

[stretch34318]

ex-piper sport???  Looks like it to me

[switchgrassfuel]

will the plane be certified to run AGE85 Aviation Grade Ethanol?

[cardioflow]

Hmmm...I thought a real aircraft engine was the kind of engine that gets the aircraft in the air...my bad... :)

[TheVittleVlog]

Really nice!!