Part of the grand promise of Light Sport aircraft and the Sport Pilot license was it would reinvigorate flight training, bringing busloads of new pilot starts attracted to cheaper flying with fewer requirements (like a medical certificate). Soon after the dream of LSAs in the hands of students made some hard landings in reality we started seeing complaints that light sport designs were too lightly built for the rigors of flight training. Now that were several years into the process and have some real numbers to work with, weve decided to give this a closer look. 
Dream, Meet Reality
The short answer is that LSAs generally don’t have the durability of something like a Cessna 152 and arent cheaper to maintain-and that fact may have no net effect on the bottom line. This may explain why 90 percent of our survey respondents would recommend using LSAs as trainers, even though almost none reported their experiences as trouble-free.
Dennis Brampton of St. Charles Flying Service is in a good position to speak on LSA viability versus conventional aircraft. For the past five years, hes had both on the same flight line and going through the maintenance shop. Hell be the first to complain about poor durability and high repair costs, but then hell admit his own numbers show it comes out as a wash.
His average maintenance cost (real cost, not reserve) for his 1978 Cessna 152 has been $24/hour averaged over the past five years. The average maintenance cost for each of two Evektor SportStars (with over 3300 hours of flight time combined) is $29/hour. He also operates a Remos GX but with only one year in service, the $17/hour maintenance cost is probably too low. The first year of SportStar operation was only $11/hour.
These numbers for LSAs were confirmed by other schools we spoke to. In fact, if one aircraft was cheaper to maintain, it was the conventional aircraft. For example, changing a tire on a Gobosh 700 takes three times as long as changing a tire on a Cessna 172. On the other hand, the required 100-hour inspections seem to run two or three hours less for an LSA. Rotax-powered LSAs running 100LL require twice the oil-change frequency of Mogas burners, and the oil change has some extra steps to cleanse lead. Numbers varied with how heavily the school used aircraft-grade parts versus hardware store equipment, which is legal in many, non-critical LSA applications.
There was also variation with just dumb luck. LSAs broke more often, but were often (but not always) slightly cheaper to repair. Major parts from manufacturers were often just as pricey as certified parts for Part 23 aircraft. But global