Flightstar Sportplanes was an American

aircraft manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology ind ...

based in

South Woodstock, Connecticut South Woodstock is a villagePrincipal Communities in Connecticut
Dept. of Economic and Comm ...

. Its primary product was the

Flightstar The Flightstar is a large family of single and two-seat, high wing, single engined kit aircraft that was produced by Flightstar Sportplanes of South Woodstock, Connecticut. In 2009 the rights, tooling and parts inventory were sold to Yuneec In ...

line of ultralight and two-seat training and

light-sport aircraft A light-sport aircraft (LSA), or light sport aircraft, is a fairly new category of small, lightweight aircraft that are simple to fly. LSAs tend to be heavier and more sophisticated than ultralight (aka "microlight") aircraft, but LSA restricti ...

, which were produced continuously from the mid-1980s. The company also distributed two other manufacturer's aircraft lines, engines and aviation products. The company business was wound up in 2009 and the Flightstar line sold to

Yuneec International Yuneec International is a Chinese aircraft manufacturer based in Jinxi, Kunshan, a town in Jiangsu owned through an off-shore Cayman Islands holding company, Yuneec Holding Limited. Yuneec was originally a manufacturer of radio-controlled mode ...

of China.Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page B-19. Cybair Limited Publishing, 2001. Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter – Homebuilt Aircraft Sourcebook'', page 162-164. BAI Communications. Downey, Julia: ''1999 Kit Aircraft Directory'', Kitplanes, Volume 15, Number 12, December 1998, page 49. Primedia Publications. ISSN 0891-1851Downey, Julia: ''2008 Kit Aircraft Directory'', Kitplanes, Volume 24, Number 12, December 2007, page 53. Primedia Publications. ISSN 0891-1851

History

The company was founded in the early 1980s by aircraft designer Tom Peghiny to build his initial commercial design the Flightstar ultralight. The Flightstar was intended for the US FAR 103 ''Ultralight Vehicles'' category with its maximum empty weight requirement. The two-seat Flightstar II soon followed to fill the role of a trainer. The designs quickly became commercial successes and the basic design has been extensively developed over time. By 2007 over 700 single seaters had been sold. In July 2009 Peghiny demonstrated a new version of his Spyder single seat model at

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (formerly the EAA Annual Convention and Fly-In), or just Oshkosh, is an annual air show and gathering of aviation enthusiasts held each summer at Wittman Regional Airport and adjacent Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, ...

. Designated the e-Spyder, it differs from earlier models in that it is electric-powered. The aircraft replaces the standard Spyder's normally-fitted two-stroke engine with a Yuneec Power Drive 20 electric motor and two lithium-polymer battery packs which provide a 40-minute endurance. The aircraft is intended to be developed into a commercially available kit and forecast to be available for under US$25,000. Flightstar was also a distributor for

Ballistic Recovery Systems Ballistic Recovery Systems, Inc., doing business as BRS Aerospace (and commonly referred to as simply BRS), is a manufacturer of aircraft ballistic parachutes. The company was formed in 1980 by Boris Popov of Saint Paul, Minnesota, after he s ...

parachutes,

Rotax Rotax is the brand name for a range of internal combustion engines developed and manufactured by the Austrian company BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG (until 2016 BRP-Powertrain GmbH & Co. KG), in turn owned by the Canadian Bombardier Recreational Produc ...

and HKS

aircraft engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years ma ...

Lockwood Aircraft The Lockwood Aircraft Corporation is an ultralight aircraft manufacturer located in Sebring, Florida. Leza-Lockwood was started by ultralight pioneer Phil Lockwood after the National Geographic Society asked him to design a camera plane to fi ...

supplies, the Leza-Lockwood Air Cam and

Flight Design CT The Flight Design CT series is a family of high-wing, tricycle undercarriage, two seat, ultralight and light-sport aircraft produced by Flight Design (Flightdesign Vertrieb) of Germany. The family includes the original CT and the CT2K, CTSW, C ...

series of aircraft.

Aircraft

References

External links

Company website archives
on Archive.org {{Flightstar Sportplanes Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States