Aero-TV: LSA Upgrade -- RANS Presents The S-6LS
- 15 years ago
Well-Tested Design Takes On The Light Sport Industry If there's one thing that we're sure of, it's the fact that there will continue to be no shortage of intriguing designs brought into the somewhat over-populated LSA industry. Some of them, though, actually deserve to be there... and a case in point is the welcome (and arguably overdue) RANS update of the S-6 Coyote II... a durable and well-proven design that has amassed a respectable, if not legendary, record. RANS Designer, Randy Schlitter, has an uncanny ability to come up with well-packaged designs that fit their mission profile well, and also raise the bar a bit in their category... while there are undoubtedly a LOT of high-wing two seaters with side-by-side cabins, few of them exhibit the combination of solid manners, credible performance and economical operations that is embodied in the S-6 design series... and at $99K for a completed aircraft (with a Rotax 912 ULS, Garmin 296, basic VFR instrumentations and a King Com/TXP), the RANS S-6LS is a very solid deal in today's LSA market. RANS certified the Coyote II as an SLSA last December and thereupon designated it the LSA version as the S-6LS (for light sport). This design series has been in production as an experimental kit-built aircraft (in a number of variants) since 1989. With almost 2000 flying examples in operation world wide the airframe has become one of the most popular sportplanes in the biz. The experimental fleet of Coyote IIs’ have accumulated hundreds of thousands of flight hours, with many specific aircraft well past the 3000 hour mark. The durable airframe has been configured for a variety of roles ranging from float and ski planes, to camera ships that photo-mapped the Amazon Jungle. RANS claims that the Coyote II has won five world championships in Europe, crossed oceans, and circumnavigated Africa, and South America. The RANS S-6LS is constructed using a welded steel cage, light tubular aluminum alloy tail cone and flying surfaces, resulting in an airframe it stays light ...