MOSAIC, explained
The biggest change to light aircraft rules in twenty years is now fully in force. Sport pilot privileges widened in October 2025, the aircraft rules followed in July 2026, and between them they moved a large part of the general aviation fleet within reach of a pilot flying on a driver’s licence.
MOSAIC stands for Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certificates. The name is bureaucratic and undersells it. What the rule actually did was take two separate things the FAA had capped at low numbers in 2004 — what a sport pilot may fly, and what may be certificated as a light-sport aircraft — and raise both by a wide margin.
It arrived in two stages, and both have now passed.
| Date | What changed |
|---|---|
| 22 October 2025 | Sport pilot privileges widened — the rules about what a pilot may fly |
| 24 July 2026 | Light-sport aircraft certification changed, and the old LSA definition came out of the regulations |
Keeping those two halves separate is the whole trick to understanding the rule. One is about the person. The other is about the machine. They use similar numbers, they are not the same numbers, and almost every confused conversation about MOSAIC comes from mixing them up.
What a sport pilot may now fly
Under the 2004 rules, a sport pilot was limited to a two-seat aircraft, 1,320 pounds maximum takeoff weight, one reciprocating engine, a fixed-pitch propeller, fixed gear, 120 knots maximum speed, a 45-knot stall, and daylight only. That describes a small and specific set of airplanes, most of them purpose-built for the category.
Here is the same list now.
| Before | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats in the aircraft | 2 | Up to 4 for airplanes |
| People aboard | 2 | 2 — pilot and one passenger |
| Clean stall speed | 45 KCAS | 59 KCAS |
| Maximum speed | 120 knots | No restriction |
| Engine | One reciprocating | Any number or type, except rockets |
| Propeller | Fixed pitch | Controllable pitch, with an endorsement |
| Landing gear | Fixed | Retractable, with an endorsement |
| Night | Not permitted | Permitted, with an endorsement and BasicMed or a third class |
Read that table twice, because it is easy to skim past what it says. A sport pilot may now fly a four-seat airplane with a constant-speed prop and retractable gear, at any speed it will do, at night. The seat count went up but the occupancy did not — a sport pilot still carries one passenger, in an airplane that may have four seats in it.
Training also picked up a small but real change: up to 2.5 hours of simulator time may now count toward the flight time requirement.
The medical question, which is the real one
Sport pilot privileges may be exercised on a valid US driver’s licence instead of an FAA medical certificate. That has been true since 2004. What changed is the size of the fleet you can use it on.
The conditions are worth stating precisely, because this is where people get it wrong in both directions.
- You must hold and comply with a valid US driver’s licence, including any restrictions on it — if it says corrective lenses, that follows you into the airplane
- You do not need to have ever held an FAA medical certificate. A pilot who has never applied for one can use this route
- But if you have applied, your most recent application must have succeeded. A denial or a deferral closes this door
- A medical certificate that was suspended or revoked closes it too
- And you must have no medical condition that you know makes you unsafe to fly — this is a judgement you make about yourself, every flight, and it is not a formality
Night flying is the exception to all of this. A sport pilot flying at night needs an endorsement and either BasicMed or a current third class. The driver’s licence does not carry you into the dark.
What changed about the aircraft
The second half of the rule, effective 24 July 2026, rebuilt the light-sport category itself. The old definition came out of the regulations entirely and a new set of numbers went in.
| Before | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum takeoff weight | 1,320 lb land, 1,430 lb seaplane | No weight limit |
| Seats | 2 | Up to 4 for airplanes |
| Maximum speed | 120 knots | 250 KCAS |
| Stall speed | 45 KCAS | 61 KCAS with flaps extended |
| Engine | One reciprocating | Any number or type, except rockets |
| Propeller | Fixed or ground-adjustable | Any type |
| Design standard | Fixed specifications | Part 22 consensus standards |
The weight ceiling is gone. Not raised — gone. That single change is what turns light-sport from a category of small, light, purpose-built machines into one that can contain real cross-country airplanes.
Sport and recreation are also no longer the only permitted uses. Personal travel and some aerial work are now allowed.
What Part 22 is
Design and airworthiness approval for light-sport aircraft now runs through a new Part 22 built on consensus standards rather than the fixed specifications that came before. In practice this is a manufacturer’s problem rather than an owner’s, but it matters to a buyer for one reason: it is the mechanism by which a much wider range of airplanes can be certificated in the category going forward, and it is why the used market in this category is going to look different in five years than it does today.
What MOSAIC did not change
A great deal, and it is worth being clear about it.
- A sport pilot still carries one passenger. Four seats does not mean four people
- A sport pilot still flies day VFR unless separately endorsed for night, and still may not fly in instrument conditions
- A private pilot certificate is still a private pilot certificate — MOSAIC did not touch it
- BasicMed is unchanged, and remains a separate route with its own requirements
- Nothing here changes maintenance requirements for standard-category airplanes
- A type-certificated airplane does not become a light-sport aircraft because a sport pilot may fly it. The certification and the privilege are separate things
Two stacked bars or a simple before/after diagram showing the 45 KCAS stall gate moving to 59 KCAS, with a handful of familiar four-seat singles marked along the scale so a reader can see roughly where the line now falls. Needs real POH numbers before it is drawn — do not guess.