AVweb Insider

When Diamond launched its diesel-powered DA42 in 2004, no one knew how well it would sell or if it would sell at all. But sell it did, despite later maintenance and support issues with the Thielert engines. At the time, the doubters said diesel wouldn’t really fly until Cessna got into the game and this […]

For reasons no one seems to understand, LSA sales remain lukewarm at best. The FAA sees LSA as a 200-a-year kind of market for the foreseeable future. Maybe the things just aren’t enough fun or they’re too expensive or they lack utility. Beats me. You don’t get good answers when you ask people why they […]

Cubs 2 OshkoshThe mass arrivals at AirVenture by various owners groups are always good for a few thrills, albeit sometimes for the wrong reasons. They occasionally promote the idea that even though you only flew nine hours last year, why, you should be perfectly capable of flying trail spacing with 80 other airplanes and landing […]

I try to avoid going through life in a state of being constantly torqued off but being a journalist and all, that’s sometimes difficult. Fortunately, my always-sunny personality sees me through. Still, there are daily tests.One of my e-mail correspondents sent along this news link describing how Hawker Beechcraft executives, having piloted the company into […]

Now that the world is once again swimming in oil and gagged with shale gas, it’s hard to imagine that in 1976, no less an august energy player than Exxon thought the world was running out of oil. So it wanted to get into the next big energy thing, which would be rechargeable lithium batteries […]

Scattering the ashes of human remains from airplanes is hardly a novel idea. Although aviation people probably think of it more often than the typical man in the street, when the survivors hunt for a way to memorialize their loved ones, airplanes just naturally come to mind. When I was instructing regularly, our flight school […]

In today’s vlog, Paul Bertorelli talks with his student, Jordan Nations, whose Private Pilot Certificate is less than 24 hours old. Jordan had the rare opportunity to learn flying in both a vintage Piper J-3 Cub and a Cessna 150. Paul and Jordan took a victory lap around the Florida beaches savoring the unique satisfaction […]

I get a steady stream of e-mail from subscribers complaining about the cost of flying. Imagine that. If there’s a common theme, it’s that “they” have ruined flying with usurious gas prices, unaffordable new airplanes, ever more regulation and…well, pick one complaint from Column A and one from B. The LSA rule was supposed to […]

When the sale of Cirrus to the Chinese-based China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Co. closed exactly a year ago, there was much hand wringing in the aviation industry. It was just another example of how the Chinese were relentlessly hollowing out the U.S. industrial base. I was less concerned about that than how this fit […]

So now comes the FAA to crack down on the light sport aircraft industry. (PDF) Just what’s needed. Sales are in the tank, few companies are doing much volume and fewer yet are making any money in this oversaturated market. I’ve written about this before, questioning the reasoning behind the theory that additional regulation will […]