A Tornado Took Out the Manufacturer’s Main Production Facility in May

Just two months after an EF-4 tornado tore through its facilities, Kolb Aircraft was back on its feet and ready for new customers at EAA Oshkosh AirVenture. The company set up shop a few miles down the road with a renewed focus on its best-selling ultralight.

The 170mph tornado tore through the London-Corbin Airport in Kentucky on May 20, 2025. The good news was that all of Kolb’s employees walked away unharmed. The bad news was that its hangar, along with several completed airframes, trailers, and shelves of components, did not.

Kolb’s team salvaged everything they could and moved operations a few miles down the road to one of the co-owners’ properties. Setting up a new permanent home is a work in progress, but in the meantime, Kolb Aircraft has managed to get all three of its designs back in active production.

While in recovery mode, the manufacturer is focusing on the aircraft that has drawn the most market attention: the Firefly. The single-seat ultralight can be built as a basic kit that runs about $13,500 and takes roughly 200 hours for an experienced builder, or as a quick-build kit or fully assembled aircraft. On a 40 hp engine, the machine can get off the ground in just 150 feet, climb at 750 fpm, and cruise at a solid 63 mph.

The two-seat TwinStar Mark 3 has also picked up speed as a budget flight training option. It is designed for STOL flexibility with 160 square feet of wing, big flaps and ailerons, and some decently powerful engine options.

“Having that useful load, and the range on it, fuel capacity, and all that, makes it a really great training aircraft,” said Trey Baldwin, Kolb’s Director of Sales and Marketing.

Aero-TV is a production of the Internationally syndicated Aero-News Network. Seen worldwide by hundreds of thousands of aviators and aviation adherents, ANN's Aero-TV has produced well over 5000 aviation and feature programs, including over 2500 episodes of our daily aviation news program, AIRBORNE UNLIMITED, currently hosted by Holland Lee. Now in its third decade of operation, parent company Aero-News Network, has the most aggressive and intensive editorial profile of any aviation news organization and has published well over a half-million news and feature stories since its inception -- having pioneered the online 24/7 aviation new-media model that so many have emulated.

©2025 Aero-News Network, Inc., ALL Rights Reserved

FMI: www.kolbaircraft.com, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork