by Mark Baker
AOPA President & CEO
Published in Midwest Flyer Magazine June/July 2024 Digital Issue
If there is one thing that’s constant in aviation, and in life, it’s change. Everything in general aviation continues to evolve and our industry continually moves forward with enhancements in technology, updates to rules and regulations, and ever-changing issues to track.
AOPA continues to take a leading role in making sure that these areas of change evolve to help you—our members, and our fellow pilots and aircraft owners. We are managing several of these issues that will have a great impact on your freedom to fly—including airports and FBOs that want to charge outrageous and often hidden fees, and the move to a fully unleaded future (progress is being made!).
As the year unfolds, one of the biggest measures of change in GA that we’ll both follow and advocate for is the shifting definition of the light sport category through the Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification (MOSAIC). MOSAIC will redefine general aviation, inviting more pilots to join us in the skies, and permitting more aircraft to be covered under the category. All in the name of expanding this great passion we share. We need strength in numbers.
No doubt you heard the good news from the FAA last year that it’s finally taking measures to redefine light sport. For many, this conversation is long overdue, and now I am hearing from pilots and aircraft owners across the country asking where MOSAIC stands, and what it will mean to them. As I write this, the FAA is reviewing more than 1,400 comments to the MOSAIC notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM)—including comments from us on your behalf. We applaud the FAA for taking this long-awaited and overdue action, and we are watching with great interest.
With the work ahead of it, the FAA expects to issue the final rule around mid-2025, which will begin an approximate six-month implementation period.
As much as MOSAIC will shape the category and greatly change GA, AOPA looked at the fine print (the proposal is more than 300 pages!). While MOSAIC is a great step forward, we want to make sure it goes far enough so that we can all realize the full potential of this change and represent the full steps we’ve been advocating for over many years now. We want to make sure that the legacy fleet of GA aircraft get their due through the new rule.
Consider some of the significant changes that MOSAIC will bring to GA in expanding the definition of light sport: an increase of the light sport stall speed (clean) to 54 knots and raising the maximum airspeed to 250 knots calibrated. Retractable landing gear and controllable-pitch propellers would also be allowed, and the aircraft weight limit (currently 1,320 pounds) would be eliminated.
Thanks in part to AOPA’s advocacy efforts, MOSAIC would expand the privileges of sport pilots flying light sport aircraft to include certain operations such as aerial work and product demonstrations. Sport pilots would also be allowed to fly at night, operating more capable aircraft, with appropriate instructor endorsements.
Good news, yes. But we don’t think it goes far enough and we are busy working on that for you. Too many of the legacy GA fleet would not be covered, and that includes many aircraft that have been used to train pilots and get them into GA. For instance, the maximum 54-knot clean stall speed is too low. MOSAIC would allow a Cessna 182 to fly under the category, but not allow some PA–28 aircraft and other popular four-seat aircraft. AOPA recommends increasing the maximum stalling speed to 61 knots with safety enhancing devices, and at minimum an increase to 58 knots.
We are pushing hard to get the rule revised to incorporate all four-seat aircraft that makes sense for the category. We need to protect many of the thousands of legacy aircraft that are taking to the skies today.
MOSAIC is a great step forward that AOPA (and you) have been long advocating for. It makes strides that we have been working on with the FAA for years now, and we just need to see the rule go the distance and expand the category to where it should be.
This will continue to be a major priority for AOPA over the coming year and no doubt you’ll read more in these pages and hear more from me as we travel across this great country.
Blue skies!
