Zenith, RANS and Tecnam Make The Cut: SportPlane Industry Feedback Continues to Be (Mostly) Positive!

As we noted several days ago, we thought it was going to be easier than this... but the resulting flurry of highly educational emails, calls and remarks have made this year’s selection of the best SportPlanes of 2017 a pretty intriguing pursuit -- and a much busier one than we expected.

And again, due to extensive feedback, it's been a bit more interesting this year, than it has in the past... 

We'd previously established that aircraft produced by Progressive Aerodyne (the SeaRey series), The Airplane Factory (Sling 2 and 4), Kitfox (especially the new S7 Kitfox Speedster), Van's (the recently upgraded RV-12iS) and consistent industry leader -- Sonex Aircraft (the Sonex, Waiex and Onex series) -- were early leaders for the list.

Other have appeared to make a serious claim on the list, the foremost of which is the Zenith CH750 series, especially with the advent of the enlarged Super Duty airframe (a 2+1 configuration) along with the availability of the outrageously cool and inventive 'UnPanel.'

The RANS S-20 Raven (and the soon to be completed S-21) have received huge support from SportPlane addicts, along with solid marks for the older RANS birds, with the tandem seating S-7 series getting particular kudos from a quite a number of flyers. However; anticipation for the forthcoming S-21 Outbound is considerable.

Tecnam continues to show up more and more as we build a knowledge base on those companies making an impact in the Sport Flying arena... our own test flights have come away impressed with the overall handling of each of the birds we've flown, but also with the quality of construction we've seen these last several years--really impressive. The bird getting most of the attention right now, though, is the low wing Tecnam Astore... which we can attest to being a GREAT flying machine.

The rest of the list is still under consideration and will be unveiled ASAP--though additional input, comments, and suggestions are always welcome.

FMI: I Have Suggestions For ANN's List of the Best SportPlanes of 2017!