features_old

Few general aviation aircraft are as iconic as Cessna’s 310. Whether because of its aggressive ramp presence, its supporting role in an old television adventure series or its suitability for a wide range of missions, the 310 is what many non-pilots recall when piston twins come up in conversation. It’s arguably the first “modern” light […]

Batteries are often crippled from the outset-that may be a bit of hyperbole, but it may be other causes than the battery maker responsible for problems with short lived or early failed batteries, especially with flooded cells. Look at the battery maker requirements for activation of a dry-charged battery as well as elements that an […]

Heavier-than-air Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) flight has been around since not long after the Wrights began wowing the world with airplanes. The first (horribly unstable) quadcopters flew in 1907-however, the desire for a device to lift humans straight up into the sky and whisk them elsewhere is probably as old as conscious thought […]

At the risk of getting the metaphorical “hook” for expressing the thought, we are about to engage in herding CATs. Most instrument pilots are lucky and only have to deal with one category of ILS approach during their lives. The Category I, or “CAT I”is usually the only kind of instrument landing system approach minima […]

In Brainteaser Quiz #200, we asked readers to forecast where aviation will be when Quiz #400 appears. Doing the math, with a new quiz every month, it works out to roughly a bunch of years from now, but well before Downtown Abbey wraps. A few suggested topics included: Will the FAA finally reform its arcane, […]

Buying or selling a used general aviation airplane is not fun. A root canal is probably more pleasant. Pilot training does not include education on airplane selection and evaluation, there are no regs on sales standards and no consumer watchdog agency to go after unscrupulous sellers. Sellers often spend hours answering telephone calls from tire […]

When looking at the Piper Lance/Saratoga, it’s important to remember that all airplanes are compromises. Since most of us lack an unlimited budget, we’re often forced to choose between going fast in a relatively small cockpit or dragging around a larger cabin more slowly. It’s simple, really: The “go-fast” airplane will get us to our […]

The aircraft involved was a 1973 Cessna T210L. It had a current annual inspection, was ADS-B compliant, had a GPS approved for IFR operations and the database for the avionics was found to be current. The aircraft was not approved for flight into known icing conditions, a concern for the planned October flight into the […]

Mark Twain once said, “If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way.” That’s also true of flying a Cat I ILS to minimums. No amount of training, except maybe in the best simulators, prepares you for what it’s like to reach DA and see … very […]

Flying IFR under Part 91 gives us pilots an incredible amount of freedom. Yet, it is this relative freedom from heavy regulation which is largely responsible for general aviation’s safety record, and it, frankly, is not all that great. No, flying little airplanes is not as safe as flying the airlines. Nor is it as […]