FOR AUTO RTM

TRENDS
The fabled Oshkosh Fly-in, four big merger & acquisitions moves and a long-awaited “first”
for the North American offshore wind energy market top the news trends.
AEROSPACE
General aviation heats up at Oshkosh
The Experimental Aircraft Assn.’s (EAA)
2015 AirVenture Oshkosh drew an estimated
550,000 visitors, 2% more than
in 2014, and recorded more than 10,000
show-related aircraft arrivals and hosted
2,668 official showplanes and 800 exhibitors.
Held July 20-26 at Wittman Field
in Oshkosh, WI, US, the show proved, as
always, an important world stage for
aviation in general. The 63 rd annual “fly-in”
marked the first civilian US air show
appearance of Lockheed Martin’s fifthgeneration
F-35 Lightning II fighter. It
joined an historic B-52 Stratofortress and
an F-22 Raptor (top photo) in the air shows
throughout the week. Also on the tarmac
July 20 was an Airbus A350 XWB flight-test
model that was open to visitors while on
display and participated in the air show.
At Oshkosh, significant signs of composites
life were on display in the post-2008-
2012 recession general aviation market.
ICON Aircraft (Los Angeles, CA, US) gave
a press conference to announce the first
customer delivery of its A5 amphibious
light sport aircraft (LSA, see bottom photo)
made from carbon fiber composites and
celebrated the occasion by reducing the
deposit for an aircraft from $5,000 to
$2,000 until July 26. TenCate Advanced
Composites USA (Morgan Hill, Calif., US)
is a key supplier of advanced composites
to the A5 program, and ICON is currently
ramping up A5 production at its new facility
in Vacaville, CA, US. The customer was EAA’s Young
Eagles program, which introduces young people (8-17) to
general aviation through volunteer pilot flights. EAA board
chair and former Cessna Aircraft CEO Jack Pelton said,
“After flying the A5 myself and seeing it perform first hand,
I can say unequivocally that it’s incredibly easy to fly, safe,
forgiving, and ridiculously fun. Not only is it the perfect
aircraft to introduce young aviators to the thrill of flying,
but I’m getting one myself.”
On hand at the Innovation Center was the amphibious
AKOYA aircraft from Lisa Airplanes (Le Bourget du Lac,
France). The company emphasized its innovative design
elements, which includes “seafoils” (hydrofoils) for better
Source | EAA
aerodynamics, with improved fuel efficiency. The Lisa
AKOYA is made with carbon prepregs supplied by Cytec
Industries Industrial Materials (Heanor, Derbyshire, UK).
At a press event, Mooney International (Kerrville, TX, US)
discussed progress on its two new composite aircraft, the
M10J and M10T. Developed using state-of-the-art 3D visualization,
computational fluid dynamics and finite element
analysis software, both planes have carbon composite
airframes, and are equipped with diesel engines, but the
M10J offers higher performance and retractable landing
gear, says the company. Assembly of the proof-ofconcept
M10 is in progress at the company’s Chino, CA,
US plant, with first flight slated for later this year and FAA
10 SEPTEMBER 2015
CompositesWorld