This is one of my CFI’s (Liam) taking a student out for some flight training and practice. This Light Sport Aircraft is a great airplane to fly. I have flown in multiple times and it was always a blast. They are like little sports cars. Light, powerful and quick controls.

The LSA’s (or SLSA used by flight schools -built by the factory) are lighter planes that have a max weight of 1,320lbs. That means they can’t weigh more than 1,320 pounds to take off. This includes everything: the gas, oil, people & baggage.
Typical empty weight for the RV-12’s is around 750 -790lbs.

N243VA has an empty weight of 765lbs. That’s lighter than my Harley Street Glide weighed!

It’s got a Rotax ULS 100hp motor and a 70″ prop (ground adjustable pitch for LSA’s). These little planes are quick! They can take off in roughly 600′ when full (depending on temperature and altitude, etc.), closer to 500′ with only 1 person in it (approx. 1050lbs takeoff wt.)

The RV-12 can cruise around 100 knots and has a range of roughly 400 miles on a tank of fuel (19.8 gal). It burns 5.7gal/hour at full throttle and 4 – 4.4gal/hr at cruise (again, this depends on altitude of cruise -higher up burns less fuel). The mixture is done automagically in the Rotax and that makes it nice for the pilot.
Part of the LSA rules requires fairly slow stall speeds and the RV-12 is around 41-45 knots. During some of my flight training we couldn’t get the RV-12 to stall with full power on! I had the nose up to around 30 degrees and she just kept climbing at around 32knots! We had some winds up at 3,000′ (around 25 knots) so if anybody was watching from the ground we must have looked like we were almost sitting still (but climbing higher).
Typical power off stalls ‘might’ reach nose up to 20-25 degrees before the nose drops (oh, and RV-12s aren’t allowed to do spins intentionally) …the stall is pretty easy in the RV-12 with a typical recovery in roughly 250-300 feet (meaning how much altitude you drop before climbing out again).

Negatives?

Well I can only think of a few very minor things:

– Light weight so they don’t handle much wind to easily.
Max demonstrated crosswind is 11 knots. What this basically means is that above 11 knots of crosswind the rudder doesn’t have enough authority to keep the aircraft heading straight down the runway. = Don’t go out flying. I learned this lesson! (Read more here)

– No nosewheel steering.
The nosewheel is on a caster like a shopping cart. When taxiing you steer mainly with the toe brakes on the rudder pedals. A little tap on the right brake to turn right (left brake to turn left). The rudder doesn’t do too much until your moving around 25 – 30 knots (take offs and landings …taxiing should be 20 or slower).