| A number of years ago Kolb aircraft was purchased by a group of investors, who were looking to produce aircraft for the ultralight, experimental and light sport aircraft markets. Kolb had already established itself as a leader in the single place ultralight aircraft market, with the Firefly and Firestar, and the two place experimental and ultralight training market with the Kolb Mark III, and Kolbra. The New Kolb Aircraft Company decided they also wanted to enter the light sport aircraft marketplace. With this in mind the company purchased the design rights for the Pelican from the Canadian manufacturer Ultravia. After over 3 1/2 years of research and development the company introduced the new Kolb Flyer SS, at Airventure 2008. According to Bruce Chesnut a stockholder in the company, while the New Kolb Flyer SS, finds its heritage in the nearly 20 years of production of the Pelican, it has been specifically re-designed for the U.S. light sport aircraft market. One of the things the company has done is to switch from the fiberglass construction that was used in the original Pelicans, two carbon fiber which has significantly increased the strength while at the same time reduce the weight. Another change has been to increase the size of the doors, and to move the strut location rearward allowing easier entrance and exit from the plane. The landing gear has also been changed to a spring style Wittman main gear, and trailing link nose gear, which is operated by the application of throttle and brakes. The nose cowl has been extended which will allow for the installation of a variety of aircraft engines. The adjustable seats have been lowered and move back which means the craft can comfortably seat pilots over 6 feet tall. This makes the plane very suitable for a training environment, where the seats have to be adjusted to fit different pilot heights. The baggage area located directly behind the seats has been extended back another 4 inches, and because of the high backseats a door has been added to the rear of the fuselage to allow easy access. The Flyer SS is powered by the Rotax 912 S, 100 hp, four-cylinder four stroke dual ignition aircraft engine. With this power aircraft cruises along at 130 mph, stall comes in at 40 mph, and climb is a conservative 1000 ft./m. The plane is equipped with Fowler flaps and Breeze ailerons and can comfortably get off the ground using 10° of flaps in about 300 feet. With the 1322 pound gross weight of the light sport aircraft category, the Flyer SS has a useful load of approximately 500 pounds as a land plane. The Flyer SS has a wet wing, with a 14 gallon tank located in each wing, the fuel tanks are interconnected, so the pilot only needs to turn the fuel on or off. 28 gallons of fuel gives the plane approximately 5 hours of endurance. The aircraft on display at Airventure was the first production aircraft, there are five others currently in various stages of production. The planes are manufactured in Brazil, and then shipped to Kentucky for final assembly and certification. The Flyer SS is now on the light sport aircraft approved list. | 
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