SilverLight Aviation | Recon and the American Ranger

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:02][music] >> I'm the founder and chief designer and engineer for Civil Air Aviation. [music] Uh we make American Ranger 1 and Recon airplane and American Ranger 1 gyroplane.

[00:00:19]This is the first year that I'm officially releasing Recon after all the testing was done.

[00:00:26]Recon is a very quick build kit. We expect about 400 hours total.

[00:00:31]We used to do a plane called Apollo LSA.

[00:00:35]I redesigned it with a bigger, better, more baggage compartment, more room in the cockpit [music] that many of the customers were demanding.

[00:00:44]And it [music] can handle engines up to Rotax 916 iS.

[00:00:51]Very [music] quick fold wings.

[00:00:53]12 minutes, one person.

[00:00:55]Uh you can fold the wings [music] and have it ready to trailer.

[00:00:59]Short takeoff to begin with, but I think people are really looking for some STOL capability. So I think it's like people who are looking at, [music] you know, maybe a little bit better pricing, a little bit quicker delivery, a little bit quicker build.

[00:01:15]And what's behind me is American Ranger 1 gyroplane. That's our uh gyroplane that we have been producing [music] with Civil Air Aviation since uh 2016.

[00:01:25]But what's [music] new this year is the introduction of what we call gyroplane warning system.

[00:01:33]What the gyroplane warning system is doing is keeping the customers safe.

[00:01:40]It has a predictive analysis in the algorithm. [music] So it sees what trend is developing and it sees that in about 5 or 6 seconds you'll be at the point where you could be in real danger. So it predicts that and gives you a audio warning.

[00:01:54]It has a attitude sensor. It is a G meter. So it knows [music] if you're going in low G. It's looking at your rotor RPM, it's looking at your engine RPM, it's [music] looking at your air speed. So, it has all the data and your attitude and it's recording it. So, it's kind of like a black box. You may not know what you did, but we can tell you what you did.

[00:02:17]Not going to protect [music] against every accident, but we are hoping that 50% of the accidents the people [music] will catch them and they will prevent those accidents. The idea is to prevent as much as we can.

[00:02:30]It's not learning with every new pilot.

[00:02:32][music] That's the 3 and 1/2 years of development. So, it's not exactly, like I said, [music] it was word is AI. I don't want to use those buzzwords because not truly AI. It's not learning with the pilot. Now, it's already been done.

[00:02:50]People are walking by. A lot of people are looking at the Gyroplane and Recon.

[00:02:54]>> [music] >> So, it's it's been good.