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Heres a familiar scenario: An owner steps up to a twin or a high-performance single thats equipped with an older radar system. Unwilling to spend the money and effort to fix it or replace it, they pay to have the system removed. Sadly, many of these owners dont recognize the benefits of ships radar. The […]

Letter of the Week:Fly the Airplane The old saying of “I can type at 80 words a minute but I can’t fly” applies, in my opinion, to a high percentage of airline pilots around the world. Belatedly, in April of this year, the FAA issued a safety alert for operators, the purpose of which was […]

Owning an airplane requires a certain suspension of the economic rules that govern normal people, but on the whole, the airplane industry operates under an even more perverse logic: As sales soften, it raises unit prices, perhaps chasing away those buyers on the margins who might have been toying with pulling the trigger to buy […]

Since 1968, the 36-series Bonanzas has steadily built a solid record for workmanship, performance, handling and comfort. Prices on the used market reflect the high regard for the airplanes. Easy entry to the rear seats and club seating made them popular with passengers as well as pilots, even though the aft CG limit can make […]

Transitioning to your first aircraft that has ice protection equipment beyond a heated pitot tube is a big step for a pilot. Having a full complement of ice protection usually gives pilots warm fuzzy feelings about being able to complete more trips and handle any ice related problems that arise. Unfortunately, the current regulations and […]

Years ago in a sleepy college aircraft economics class, welearned the pecking order of items to consider when acquiringan aircraft. The short list included the usual items of damage history,engine time, avionics, operating costs and a variety of other factorsmaking obvious sense. But one aspect of aircraft acquisition wewerent taught is an issue thats gained […]

Letter of the Week:Factoring Human Factors I was interested in the article on the KSN770 published in the Sept. 13 AVwebFlash, in which it states that “graybeards may still prefer [to use] a transfer key” as opposed to using touchscreen controls. I’m not a graybeard (is there a politically-correct term for female pilots, too?), but […]

For years, there was only two choices for a retrofit multi-function GPS navigator-either Garmin’s GNS430 or GNS530-or the current GTN650 and GTN750. Bendix King offered the KLN94 standalone GPS, but it wasn’t an all-in-one WAAS navigator with an open architecture. It also lacked a comm and nav radio and it didn’t have any multi function […]

“Would you like to declare an emergency? the controller asked with practiced coolness. Looking at the stopped and feathered left engine on the Cessna 310R Id had for just 10 days, there was only one possible answer: Yes. Moments before, the engine had started vibrating so violently I was afraid it would shake the plane […]

Letter of the Week:It’s the Instructors, Stupid I own a small flight school with three to five planes in central Massachusetts. It’s the kind where everyone is always greeted properly when they walk in, the kind the fosters a large pilot community, not just a pilot’s certificate. Otherwise, you’ll only watch them leave and their […]