Piper To Acquire Its Own LSA?

Conflicting reports were flying on Wednesday about an alleged multimillion-dollar deal between Piper Aircraft and Czech Sport Aircraft, which builds the SportCruiser LSA, one of the more popular models in its segment. A local business daily in the Czech Republic reported that Piper was preparing to get into the LSA market, and the story was picked up by Flight International, then reported by AOPA Online. A Piper spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the report. But by later in the day, Dan Johnson’s Sport Pilot blog was reporting that a Piper spokesman said no deal has been made. Calls from AVweb to Piper were not returned by our deadline. With the annual Sport Aviation Expo coming up soon in Sebring, Fla., Jan. 21 to 24, we expect to have more on this story, one way or the other, in the next week or so.

Conflicting reports were flying on Wednesday about an alleged multimillion-dollar deal between Piper Aircraft and Czech Sport Aircraft, which builds the SportCruiser LSA, one of the more popular models in its segment. A local business daily in the Czech Republic reported that Piper was preparing to get into the LSA market, and the story was picked up by Flight International, then reported by AOPA Online. A Piper spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the report. But by later in the day, Dan Johnson's Sport Pilot blog was reporting that a Piper spokesman said no deal has been made. Calls from AVweb to Piper were not returned by our deadline. With the annual Sport Aviation Expo coming up soon in Sebring, Fla., Jan. 21 to 24, we expect to have more on this story, one way or the other, in the next week or so.

The Czech newspaper reported that under the alleged $30 million deal, the SportCruiser would be re-branded as a Piper product.