Ownership

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 […]

One of the largest orders Cessna has ever recorded was placed at Moscow’s JetExpo 2013 for 79 of the manufacturer’s Skyhawks (more than half the number of Skyhawks delivered in all of 2012), purchased by Moscow-based operator ViraZH. ViraZH plans to establish the aircraft as trainers and will place them at flight schools throughout western […]

Bendix/King designed the hardware and Aspen Avionics completed the user interface for the KSN770 FMS. The end result is a powerful retrofit GPS navigator that has a sharp screen, liberal interface potential and a $13,995 price tag. Aviation Consumer‘s Larry Anglisano flew with the system to have a look. view on YouTube

Billionaire Elon Musk, known for his successful private ventures into space and the Tesla electric roadster, said recently he’d like to develop a supersonic jet capable of vertical takeoffs and landings and powered by electricity. Musk said in an online chat that he’s been thinking about the jet idea for “about four years.” He said […]

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 […]

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 […]

With a massive AD against ECI cylinders in the offing, we would like to know reader experiences not just with ECI cylinders, but other brands as well. If you’ve got five minutes to spare, you can tell us about your satisfaction–or lack thereof–with aircraft cylinders you’ve been flying behind. Just click here to take the […]

Its an article of faith that one reason flying activity is in the crapper is because avgas costs, on average, about $6 a gallon. Maybe thats true, maybe it isnt, but like many of us in the aviation business, I suspect the high price of fuel is just one reason for declining flight activity and […]