Engines

Last week I was on the telephone with Tim Roehl, one of the founders of General Aviation Modifications, Inc., the folks who created the tuned fuel injectors called GAMIjectors. We were talking about a number of things, including Lycomings fairly new IO-390 engine that puts out 210 HP and is getting attenion in the aviation […]

Ive been covering the aviation piston fuel story intensely for four years now and off and on for a lot longer than that. And honestly, the more we bump along toward an eventual replacement for 100LL, the more confusing and confounding the process appears to be. Not that Im discouraged, for there will be a […]

Shells announcement of an unleaded replacement for 100LL last week has drawn lots of attention, deservedly. At this weeks ASTM meeting in Tampa, I spent time buttonholing the worlds fuel experts about what this means for the world of GA. The fuel guys are mostly curious-intensely so-about what formulation Shell has cooked up, but the […]

Does general aviation need new piston engines? Well, sure, it always does, but thats not the same as saying it can sustain new engine designs. Nor does it stop companies from telling the R&D department to push around some ideas. In business in general, we call this progress, while in general aviation, its known as […]

GE is researching whether cold-spray technology can be deployed to build or repair aircraft engine parts and possibly extend the lifespan of those parts (and others) by years or, more optimistically, decades. GE believes that engine parts made by cold-spray processes, also known as 3D painting, will be less expensive to produce and will be […]

In a public submission, the NTSB has told the FAA it does not understand the foreseeable safety benefit of the FAAs proposed action regarding specific parts of the agencys NPRM on ECi cylinder assemblies. As written, the FAAs NRPM would require thousands of aircraft owners to inspect or replace certain ECi engine cylinders. In its […]

Every time I do research or reader surveys on mogas for airplanes, I come away thinking I must be living in an alternate universe. Or maybe the people I talk to are. In todays news columns, were reporting on the results of our recent avgas survey, which revealed some interesting movement in opinions toward mogas. […]

A strong case to change your own oil can be made. You certainly can save a fair amount of money, especially if you get your oil by the case, but more importantly, it puts you in touch with your engines lifeblood. You can see how it looks and feels from change to change; smell any […]

At AirVenture, the really cool airplane wasn’t from an airplane manufacturer but from Redbird, the guys who build motion simulators. They showed off a nicely refurb’d Cessna 172 with a diesel engine from Continental, and they invited us to come fly it at their San Marcos, Texas Skyport. So we did. In this video, we […]

Piper Aircraft has announced the successful completion of a 2100-mile round-trip flight in a Piper Archer flying with 93 octane unleaded automobile gasoline provided by Airworthy AutoGas LLC. The company says the flight was conducted as a demonstration and test of Airworthy’s specially formulated auto gas. It is a continuation of previous joint testing that […]