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The single-seater Pioneer Flightstar is an example for the simplicity and suitability of the first generation
micro-light aircraft. In the early 1980s, Pioneer International Aircraft Inc., a subsidiary company of Pioneer Parachute Company
in the USA, developed the Flightstar and the Dualstar ultralights. Engineering manager on the Pioneer Ultralight program was
Tom Peghiny. The Pioneer Flightstar was a simple and light single-place ultralight aircraft, and one of the first "advanced"
ultralights available to the industry. In 1983, the Pioneer Flightstar was one of the visitors of Oshkosh. Pioneer produced more than
700 of the early model Flightstar ultralights. Production of the Flightstar kits and airframes ended in 1984 when the company chose
to exit aircraft production and sold the rights to an Argentine company. For the Pioneer planes produced in Argentina the Flightstar
was renamed in AviaStar. The Argentine owners tried to enter the general aviation aircraft market with the AviaStar. The little airplane
got heavy and loaded with equipment and became to heavy and complicated for the basic type of Ultralight it was. In 1991, Tom Peghiny and
partner Mark Lamontagne formed Flightstar, Inc., Ellington, USA and brought the Flightstar back to the U.S. The first thing he and partner
Lamontagne did was to start lightening the now-revived Flightstar. As a result the cruise speed of the early Pioneer Flightstar was increased
from 80 km/h to 85 km/h for the revised Flightstar Classic. In 1995, Flightstar Inc. formed a partnership with Lockwood Aircraft in Sebring,
Florida to produce the Flightstar line of products. Since then, more than 600 aircraft kits have been produced and sold by Flightstar dealers
worldwide. The updated version of the Flightstar single-seater, the Flightstar Classic, was in 1998 renamed Flightstar I. |
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