Ownership

Like most single-engine aircraft owners, I find myself drooling over photos of the latest all-glass panel hardware, and even wondering if I’d be qualified to use it. For those of us who fly virtual airplanes based on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, there’s now an opportunity to find out: In conjunction with their 2005 sweepstakes, the […]

First, let’s establish the legalities here. Part 43, Appendix A of the FARs deals with preventative maintenance. Of the 30 or so listed preventative maintenance tasks, items 6 and 23 permit aircraft owners who possess at least a private pilot’s certificate or higher to change the oil and filter (or to service the oil screen) […]

More than a dozen single-engine airplanes converged on Ocracoke Island airport on the North Carolina Outer Banks for the long-awaited weekend fly-in. The October weather was extraordinarily delightful, the camaraderie was even better, and a great time was had by all. The only fly in the ointment was that a couple of participating airplanes developed […]

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 […]

Safety Recommendations Issued The NTSB says the fatal crash of a Cessna 208 Caravan in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada last October “calls into serious question the certification of the Cessna 208 for flight into known icing conditions.” A Jan. 17 letter from the board offers what may be the most scathing indictment yet of the popular […]

Batteries are the Rodney Dangerfields of aviation: They get no respect. We let them sit unused for weeks at a time and then expect them to crank our engine. We deep-discharge them by forgetting to turn off the master switch and then jump-start our airplane to go flying, subjecting the battery to a punishing rate […]

CS&A Aviation Insurance(This article originally appeared in Aviation Insurance & Risk Management, Fall 2005) In the aviation insurance business we see many companies and individuals consider the purchase of “corporate” aircraft. For purposes of this discussion, I am referring to seven- to 15-seat, cabin-class piston twins or large singles, turboprops, and jet aircraft like Piper […]

This is a bit embarrassing, but I might as well come clean: Up until a few years ago, I was still flying my Cessna T310R with only the primitive engine instrumentation installed by the factory in 1979. Shame on me!I’d long since upgraded my avionics stack with conspicuous quantities of glass, including a Garmin GNS-530 […]

You may not know how to tie a safety wire, or you may be convinced you can’t do it unless you’re an A&P mechanic. Legally speaking, you’re on solid ground: The current FAR Part 43 (Appendix A) specifically allows pilots to replace defective safety-wire without apparent limitation (although we urge you not to touch turnbuckles […]

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. […]