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What made me choose the Lightning over the other aircraft?
Cost: Next to the Sonex, the Lightning was the least expensive to build, and still was made of high quality materials.
Speed of Assembly: I wanted to go through the build experience. I wanted to understand how my aircraft works and how to repair it. Most importantly, I wanted to customize my aircraft to fit what I wanted. Things like the arrangement of the avionics, colors, interior were all important decisions I wanted to make.
But....
I didn’t want to take 2-4 years putting it all together. Arion Aircraft had a build center at Green Landings within a two and a half hour drive from my house. With their builder’s assist program, I could have my Lightning flying within 3-5 months; 2-3 months if I rushed it!
Looks: The Lightning was by far the nicest looking airplane of the bunch. The WT-9 is also a pretty one, the Sport Cruiser is OK, but kind of fat; the Sonex, is a cute kind of ugly. Kind of like a Honda Element; you got to be homely to love one...
Performance: What can I say? The Lightning has the widest ratio of top speed to stall of the bunch. Very fast, very lively, smooth to fly, yet easy to land. When Ryan from Green Landings took me up for a demo flight, I was immediately hooked! The aircraft handling was like a fighter, yet when landing, it was very docile, like a trainer.
Materials: I thought seriously about a metal aircraft because I had heard all the (quote unquote) horror stories about glass building and how messy it was. I had already built some very large R/C composite aircraft and didn’t think it was too bad. After all, to compare it to R/C, the Lightning is kind of like an ARF; (A)lmost (R)eady to (F)ly. Take all the big pieces, put them together and you have an airplane. Most all of my R/C airplanes were like this, so why not the full-scale I am building? Besides, nothing is as pretty as a well finished composite airplane! After starting my build, I realized that I had forgotten how easy it is to fix a mis-cut, hole in the wrong spot, or many other mistakes with composites; just plain easy...
Room: Even after considering the MANY plusses of the Lightning, I almost did not buy one; why? Ryan’s demo was one of the original production airplanes and had a smaller interior. So, after flying the aircraft, I still needed to find one of the newer models to see if I could comfortably fit my fat butt in the seat. Plus, my brother in law who will fly with me a lot is also 6’-2” and both of us in the older Lightning would not be what I call comfortable. I flew to Shelbyville JUST for the purpose of sitting in a newer Lightning. Unfortunately for me, the demo Lightning was not finished and the model I sat in was for a much shorter person so I basically had zero headroom! I WAS CRUSHED!!!
Enter Sun n’ Fun...
My brother in law and I went to Sun n’ Fun to look at other airplanes. I was even considering buying a already built one like the Sport Cruiser, and was close to writing the check. On a whim, we saw the just completed demo in the Lightning display area. “Awww, what the heck, let’s sit in it”... It’s amazing what 3” less of seat cushion will do for head clearance! I wrote a check for my deposit an hour later. Pete even gave me a hat! Wow! I felt like one of the boys!
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