There are many anecdotal stories and some writeups in the mags about the lack of robustness of most LSA's being a deterrent for flight schools. Some definitely seem to have that problem. With regard to the RV-12 - well the jury is still out (actually, it hasn't even been convened.) When I took my Biennial last summer, I flew in a Cherokee 140 - 1964 vintage more or less, with the original interior. I had last flow the Cherokee in 1965, so I just climbed in and looked backwards as if in a the time machine. In the intervening 47 years, that (poor) airplane had flown innumerable circuits and been pounded onto the pavement uncountable times by untold ham-fisted wannabe pilots. So have the Cessna brethren. They are rugged!!!
Another problem for a flight school is the high purchase cost compared to the available spam-can fleet. This drives a high hourly rate. One of the mags had an article about the Univ of Michigan flying club - they bought a Skycatcher and it never got used. The reason was they charged more than for one of the older airplanes. They dropped the rate and the usage shot up. Why pay more for less???
One problem I see for FBO's and LSA airplanes - and I'm talking just RV-12 here - is what I consider to be very poor maintainability. These airplanes are going to have to go through 100 hour inspections - lots of them - by businesses - not a bunch of hobbyists. Take the cowling for example (No! - YOU take it!). I think it's horrible. See what it takes to pop the cowling on a Cherokee or C-172. Take the systems access. Like those five little access panels on the bottom. What I'd like are, say, a pair of 24 x 36 inch hinged access panels on the bottom to allow ready access to the flight controls, the landing gear attachments, the fuel tank connections, the stab turnbuckles, etc etc. Instead of groping in there, cutting your hands on the sharp skin edges, lying on your back, trying to manipulate a light, some tools, and your hands. Making a five minute job into an all day job. Now suppose you're an FBO and are paying some A&Ps by the hour to do that.
While I'm on a roll, let me also rant about the "Producibility". Also very poor, IMHO. This is a message for Synergy. I have talked with them in the past, and have thought of calling them again. (I'll wait till I get my machine flying!) I have a lot of experience in this field, and I've contemplated just offering them (and Vans) some free consulting time. (I discussed that with the head of Stoddard-Hamilton - Glasair/Glastar - one time, after I retired, but he took a pass - they later went bust.)
There are a lot of things on the RV-12 that beg for change. Take, for example, the firewall penetration of the fuel return line. It's a real bear to get at the lower B-nut, with a crowfoot and an extension and interference from the vertical face of the firewall and the rudder/brake tubes. Really bad after the wiring is in - speaking of which - those bundles should pass straight down with a forward tunnel D-sub connector instead of passing over the rudder tubes. The upper side of that return line sits on the firewall horizontal shelf where its impossible to access after engine installation. Why not penetrate the firewall vertical face to the left of the feed line in a location easily accessible from front and back?
Here's another - those pesky tiny nutplates on the crossbeam that are used for three screws for the ELT antenna plate. After 2 days fooling around with those, I just riveted the plate on. Took less than two minutes. And can remove it in the future almost as fast as with screws.
Synergy is going to burn up manhours fooling around with these things. My hope (although too late for me), is that they feed back this info to Vans and a lot of redesign takes place to make it much easier to manufacture this airplane. I can assure you that these items are crunched endlessly by airframers in an attempt to wring every single manhour (man-minute) out of the build time. And, hopefully, some of these improvements will flow into the kit side of the business. Some will even help the item mentioned above - Maintainability after completion.
Bob Bogash
N737G