Ownership

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 […]

Original, Exclusive Videos from AVweb | Reader-Submitted & Viral Videos For 60 years, Airtex has been providing quality aircraft interiors that owners can install themselves. AVweb recently visited the Airtex factory in Fallsington, Pennsylvania to have a look. view on YouTube Don’t see a video screen? Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page. If […]

Premature cylinder problems are epidemic. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear or read about an aircraft owner having to pull one or several cylinders at annual due to poor compression with leakage past the exhaust valve. More often than not, the afflicted airplane is powered by a fuel-injected TCM engine. The cause […]

Lately, my maintenance management company SAMM has been receiving an increas-ing number of requests to oversee pre-buy examinations on aircraft ranging from Skylanes to Cirruses to Bonanzas to Golden Eagles. Now, I’ve been an aircraft owner for more than 40 years, but in all that time I’ve only bought three airplanes. One of those was […]

This article originally appeared in Light Plane Maintenance, Sep. 2007. Spark plugs. Those pricey little fire-starters screwed into each cylinder can tell you much about the health of your engine and perhaps about your operating technique. Like anything else, learning to remove, read and reinstall spark plugs takes some knowledge and practice, but it’s something […]