Each month, Flying answers questions about the new Sport Pilot/Light Sport Aircraft Rule with assistance from the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), the authority on the opportunities available within the category commonly known as “Sport Pilot”:
In a recent magazine article I read about amateur-built light-sport aircraft, E-LSA Certification requires that an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) must be installed. Is this right? I thought that under normal certification for a homebuilt, if an airplane does not have a top speed of about 160 mph (I don’t remember just how it reads), ELT is required. At least, that was what the regs said a few years ago.
