Motor Head

There’s an unwritten rule in column journalism that you shouldn’t date the material by affixing it to a holiday boresighted by the publication date or, heaven forbid, even on that date. I mean, what’s more pathetic than noticing in February a piece of commentary tied to Thanksgiving traditions or something tied to the rites for […]

Unless you’ve been around homebuilts, you’ve probably never heard of a Jabiru. (Sure, you may be familiar with the varieties of stork whose name comes from the Tupi-Guarani term meaning “swollen neck.”) I mean the Jabiru airplane — a tidy design that’s morphed into several varieties: two- and four-seat, 51% experimental and, soon, a ready-to-fly […]

I subjected my still-new (and barely broken-in) Barrett-built IO-390-X to the kind of abuse that would make the old pelican himself, John Deakin, stand up in a crowd and shake his fist at me. I ran the cylinder heads to a temperature that would make any half-smart metallurgist cringe. I flogged my four-banger in a […]

Like the changing of seasons, I imagine this scene happens at regular intervals through the year: The managing editor of some large technology magazine catches a story on the net about some crazy aviation idea that could revolutionize the industry, make flying possible for every man, woman and (quite possibly) child on the planet with […]

This much I know: Sun ‘n Fun is my first big airshow of the season and every year manages to put a new spring into my aeronautical step. Like many pilots, I emerge from the doldrums of winter ready to see lines of new airplanes, scads of new products and shiny faces everywhere. Where Oshkosh […]

Galaxy Quest is truly one of my favorite movies, a splendid yet warm-hearted send-up of every schlocky sci-fi series you’ve ever seen. In it, we learn that the crew’s motto — “Never give up, never surrender” — begins its bane but concludes its savior.Recently, this phrase has been threading through my gray matter like some […]

Like many pilots and aircraft owners, I’ve wondered why our engines are so damn expensive. I mean, on a horsepower-per-dollar basis, they’re way behind it. In a day when $30,000 does well to buy you a new 200-hp engine — for $150/hp — other forms of propulsion start to look pretty good. Heck, you can […]

This will be the column that allows devotees of liquid-cooled engines to rock back in their Aerons, place palms on paunch and proclaim, “Aren’t we the smart ones?!” With some design care, a liquid-cooling system for aircraft can be simple to execute and remarkably insensitive to variations brought by series production or less-than-surgical ongoing maintenance. […]

Stand on the spectator line at the Reno Air Races and the sense of “calm before the storm” permeates the atmosphere. A few minutes before, we spectators watched the Sport-class aircraft line up, start engines, taxi way down to the east end and then take off to the west, making beautiful airplane noise and flying […]

No doubt you’ve read plenty here and elsewhere about the 2005 edition of EAA’s AirVenture — something we who have to work it just call “Oshkosh” — and I’m happy to add to the coverage because, for fans of internal combustion, it was a pretty good show.Yes, it’s true that Honda’s nifty jet, the pair […]