The Arion Lightning is a

light-sport aircraft A light-sport aircraft (LSA), or light sport aircraft, is a category of small, lightweight aircraft that are simple to fly. LSAs tend to be heavier and more sophisticated than ultralight (aka "microlight") aircraft, but LSA restrictions on weigh ...

available as a

kit aircraft Homebuilt aircraft, also known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from "scratch", from plans, or from assembly kits.Armstrong, Kenn ...

or as a production Special LSA.

Design and development

The Lightning was developed by designers Pete Krotje, Ben Krotje and Nick Otterback. Originally designed as a high speed,

low wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple wings. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing config ...

composite aircraft for the Jabiru series of engines, the LS-1 was redesigned to meet American light-sport requirements by extending the wings to lower the stall speed and using a fixed pitch propeller. The aircraft is made from composites. In the homebuilt kit version its span wing has an area of and mounts flaps. The aircraft's recommended engine power is and the standard engine used is the

Jabiru 3300 The Jabiru 3300 is a lightweight four-stroke, horizontally opposed "flat-six" air-cooled aircraft engine produced by Jabiru Aircraft. The engines are direct drive and fitted with alternators, silencers, vacuum pump drives and dual ignition syst ...

four-stroke A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...

powerplant. Construction time from the supplied kit is 600 hours.Vandermeullen, Richard: ''2012 Kit Aircraft Buyer's Guide'', Kitplanes, Volume 28, Number 12, December 2011, page 43. Belvoir Publications. ISSN 0891-1851

Operational history

In 2007 Earl Ferguson set a record for the quickest time for a flight from Savannah to San Diego in a piston engine land plane weighing between 1,102 and 2,205 pounds using this aircraft.

Variants

;Arion Lightning EXP :US Experimental amateur-built category aircraft ;Arion Lightning XS :Variant of Lightning EXP supporting up to 160 hp engines, including the

Lycoming O-320 The Lycoming O-320 is a large family of naturally aspirated, air-cooled, flat four engine, horizontally-opposed four-cylinder, direct-drive engines produced by Lycoming Engines. Introduced in 1953, it is commonly used on light aircraft such a ...

and ULPower 390iS. ;Arion Lightning LS-1 This is Arion's Light Sport variant. It uses the Jabiru 3300, 120 HP. No other engine is offered in the Light Sport variant . :

Light-sport aircraft A light-sport aircraft (LSA), or light sport aircraft, is a category of small, lightweight aircraft that are simple to fly. LSAs tend to be heavier and more sophisticated than ultralight (aka "microlight") aircraft, but LSA restrictions on weigh ...

variant with a choice of engines: the

, the

or the

Lycoming IO-390 The Lycoming IO-390 engine is a Flat engine, horizontally opposed, four-cylinder aircraft engine, manufactured by Lycoming Engines. There is no carburetor, carburetted version of the engine, which would have been designated O-390 and therefore ...

.Tacke, Willi; Marino Boric; et al: ''World Directory of Light Aviation 2015-16'', page 28. Flying Pages Europe SARL, 2015.

Specifications (Arion Lightning LS-1)

References

External links

* {{Use dmy dates, date=September 2019 Homebuilt aircraft Low-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 2006 Aircraft with fixed tricycle landing gear 2000s United States sport aircraft Single-engined piston aircraft