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There has been one light quietly continuing to burn despite the dark news of declining general aviation activity—that’s sport parachuting, you know, skydiving. While the number of pilots has dropped, airports are closing and new aircraft sales just struggle along, skydiving activity has been consistently growing. Canny airport managers looking at red ink in their […]

There are a lot of airplanes that are alleged to be good for backcountry operations by pilots who want to seriously recreate. Most of them have been reviewed in this magazine. The Denali Scout I flew for this review was made available by Northwest Backcountry Aircraft of Nampa, Idaho—and I spent an extended period speaking […]

Let’s begin with the conclusion: American Champion’s decision to add 30 HP to the long-serving, 180-HP Scout, to make what it calls the Denali Scout—created the stud brute of the two-place, backcountry airplane set. It keeps the honest handling and excellent ground manners of the Scout while notching up the climb rate from very good […]

AVweb’s General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSB’s web site at www.ntsb.org. Final […]

Our body is traditionally said to have five senses—all of which, it can be argued, are involved in piloting an airplane. The problem occurs when the inputs from two or more contradict each other thereby causing an erroneous mental picture. During instrument training most of us have experienced “the leans” where our eyes convey one […]

Perhaps one of the most recognizable and most produced general aviation aircraft, Cessna’s 172 Skyhawk may also be among the most economical four-placers to own. Sure, there are others worth considering, including the Piper Warrior, Beech Sundowner and even a Grumman Cheetah, but Skyhawks tend to be favored by flight schools. This makes more of […]

NavWorx says it is working to resolve an issue with the FAA, which is refusing to process $500 rebate reservations for two models of transceivers the company makes. The agency is telling those who bought ADS600-B 200-0012 and 0013 models that they don’t qualify for the rebate because they are not fully in compliance with […]

In our series on refurbishing airplanes, we’ve examined what’s involved with updating all aspects of your airplane as well as helping it age gracefully. In this article, we turn to breathing new life into an existing airframe by adding more power to get more performance. We’re looking at one of the more exciting upgrades currently […]

On a clear day in January 2010, I took-off from Montgomery Airport in San Diego, California, in my highly modified RV-6A (christened The Feral Chihuahua) for Jacksonville, Florida. Twenty-four hours later, I landed back at San Diego, having successfully crisscrossed the United States. It was an official NAA round-trip transcontinental aviation speed record. This is […]

Nutjob. That’s what we all called him. He was one of my trainers at my first tower. Extreme skydiving and off-the-grid adventure travel earned him the title. His not-safe-for-work “There I was…” stories were legendary throughout our ATC community. Despite his off-campus reputation, he didn’t screw around in the control tower. He confidently ran his […]