Before her demo flight in a light sport aircraft, someone loaned FAA administrator Marion Blakey a crash helmet. She may need it to push LSA through the governmental labyrinth.

by Russ Niles

You are staring in disbelief at the bill from your airplane’s last annual. When you divide the number of hours you flew last year into the maintenance, insurance, tie-down and miscellaneous other costs, the $100 hamburger looks like an hors d’oeuvre. In fact, with all the congestion, surprise temporary flight restrictions and the general hassle of getting from A to B, you’re flying more to stay current than you are for transportation, right?

And don’t forget that your medical is due next month and the last time you checked your blood pressure at one of those drugstore machines, the pharmacist remarked that he didn’t know the scale went…