Ownership

Fresh off the factory floor, a modest airplane like a Piper Archer may be better built, but its basic performance has been baked into the airframe for years. That’s why a project like Lyle Holbo’s 1965 Cherokee 180C, our refurbed airplane of the month, will keep pace with an airplane 40 years newer. Holbo bought […]

This month’s Refurbished Aircraft of the Month comes from Mike Van Sicklen at Tejas Aero Services in San Marcos, Texas – a shop that specializes in refurbishment of Cessna twins. Tejas recently finished this beautiful 414A owned by Eduardo Valdes. In addition to new paint and interior, a Tejas specialty, the airplane has a pair […]

If you can’t afford a new airplane — and let’s face it, most of us can’t — a refurbed late-model aircraft can do 90 percent of the mission at a fraction of the cost, especially one like the popular Mooney M20J 201. That’s the strategy Bennett Bibel followed in his pull-out-all-the-stops rebuild of a 1983 […]

Eclipse Aerospace unveiled a specially painted Total Eclipse jet and presented it to the Veterans’ Airlift Command at EAA AirVenture this week. The jet was donated by an anonymous patron, and Eclipse then contributed more than $500,000 worth of upgrades to convert the airplane into “one of the finest Total Eclipse aircraft ever produced by […]

Diamond’s single-engine five-place D-JET prototype S/N 003 arrived Thursday at Oshkosh with blended winglets that change the jet’s look and improve its performance as the jet heads toward advanced performance testing. Diamond’s test program has flown about 70 hours since January. Test pilot Mark Elwess told AVweb the winglets have delivered measurable improvements in cruise,low-speed […]

The Aviation Fuel Club celebrated at AirVenture 2012 the 30th anniversary of the first autogas STC by presenting a network of support options for pilots concerned about the future of leaded avgas, or interested in crossing over. Established in January 2011, the Wisconsin-based non-profit answers questions from pilots about running aircraft engines on automotive fuel, […]

A new-technology digital fuel sensor that has been adopted for Cirrus aircraft soon will be available as a retrofit for other GA aircraft, the manufacturer said this week at EAA AirVenture. “Even in turbulence I have found the system to be extremely accurate,” says Scott Philiben, CEO of CIES, headquartered in Redmond, Ore. “When it […]

This year could be “a pivotal year to recover market growth” for jet sales, said Ernie Edwards, president of Embraer Executive Jets, at a news conference at EAA AirVenture on Wednesday. “There were record corporate profits in the first quarter 2012 in the U.S.,” he said. Buyers still seem reluctant to spend, he said, but […]

Fresh off the announcement that Cessna will offer a Skylane with an SMA diesel engine, SMA said Tuesday that Lycoming will support the engine in the field with parts and services. SMA’s CEO Thierry Hurtes said in an interview with AVweb that the chief lesson SMA learned from marketing its original SR305 10 years ago […]

In a letter to members of the Malibu-Mirage Owners and Pilots Association, the group’s president, Jonathan Sisk, said this week that the FAA’s just-made-public 100LL replacement plan deserves a critical eye. Although he says it represents progress, he believes it’s too narrowly focused on just one path. “I also recommend that Clean 100 members not […]