Interesting Airplanes

Diamond’s New Star, the DA40: More than a Katana AllGrown Up Is it safe? That’s generally a good question to ask before any flight in the first of anything: The newer the program, the more daring the design, the more important the question. But rolling the prototype DA40 from base to final at the Plant […]

Over the years, my flying in the Florida has included introductions to dozens of ultralight and light experimental-amateur built designs … and the odd encounter with alligators. Now, imagine yourself in a big, open-cabin experimental airplane, cruising languidly about 500 feet above a mirror-still, algae-green lake outside Sebring, Fla., one known for yielding some awesome […]

Whither The Piston Twin? One of the categories conspicuously missing from the raft of revived production aircraft in recent years is the piston-powered twin-engine airplane. Sure, New Piper is selling Seminoles and Senecas to flight schools and charter operators, while Raytheon still offers the Baron 58 series, but only in a normally aspirated, non-pressurized version. […]

OSHnews Day 1OSHnews Day 2OSHnews Day 3OSHnews Day 4OSHnews Day 5OSHnews Day 6OSHnews Day 7 Day 1 FeaturesDay 2 FeaturesDay 3 FeaturesDay 4 FeaturesDay 5 FeaturesDay 6 FeaturesDay 7 Features Live ATCOSHtalk Day 1OSHtalk Day 2OSHtalk Day 3OSHtalk Day 4OSHtalk Day 5OSHtalk Day 6Administrator Day 1 PhotosDay 2 PhotosDay 3 PhotosDay 4 PhotosDay 5 PhotosDay […]

OSHnews Day 1OSHnews Day 2OSHnews Day 3OSHnews Day 4OSHnews Day 5OSHnews Day 6OSHnews Day 7 Day 1 FeaturesDay 2 FeaturesDay 3 FeaturesDay 4 FeaturesDay 5 FeaturesDay 6 FeaturesDay 7 Features Live ATCOSHtalk Day 1OSHtalk Day 2OSHtalk Day 3OSHtalk Day 4OSHtalk Day 5OSHtalk Day 6Administrator Day 1 PhotosDay 2 PhotosDay 3 PhotosDay 4 PhotosDay 5 PhotosDay […]

OSHnews Day 1OSHnews Day 2OSHnews Day 3OSHnews Day 4OSHnews Day 5OSHnews Day 6OSHnews Day 7 Day 1 FeaturesDay 2 FeaturesDay 3 FeaturesDay 4 FeaturesDay 5 FeaturesDay 6 FeaturesDay 7 Features Live ATCOSHtalk Day 1OSHtalk Day 2OSHtalk Day 3OSHtalk Day 4OSHtalk Day 5OSHtalk Day 6Administrator Day 1 PhotosDay 2 PhotosDay 3 PhotosDay 4 PhotosDay 5 PhotosDay […]

Did ya’ hear about the school board for a midwestern state that approached theend of the 1990s by “de-emphasizing” evolution in science classes? Thereally wanted to roll time back to before George of the Jungle came to Kansas —but not so far back that they couldn’t keep the Tin Woodsman, the Scarecrow,Dorothy — and her […]

Somany pilots forget, or never knew, that the earliest heavier-than-air birdspretty much all flew beak-first. But check out any photo of the Wrights’earliest machines and some built by their followers … the canard. Strange thatthe canard never really became an industry standard, long ago overshadowed by”backward-built” airplanes, those with the tail surface in back, inone […]

Myadventure started when my soon-to-be-husband and I began searching for a WilgaPZL-80. We figured finding one of the ungainly-looking Polish birds in thecondition we wanted and a price we thought fair would be a relatively easything. Six months later, after a thorough search of the U.S., Canada, and muchof Eastern Europe, we had revised our […]

BoDiddley made famous a line that struck me with its truth from my first exposure,a refrain that stayed with me from my teen years on: Most often, people reminded me of Bo Diddley’s refrain, folks whosepersonalities defied the overrated “first impression” deemedall-important by so many advising adults. As the years progressed, machinesoccasionally connected that same […]