Ownership

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 […]

If every one of our landings were a perfect “grease job” where the mains kiss the runway at an infinitesimally small descent rate — and if every runway we land on were a perfectly smooth surface without any bumps or potholes — then the landing gear on our airplanes could be dead simple. Wheel assemblies […]

It used to be that a bucket of soap — any soap — and a rag was all you needed to clean anything. That same bucket of soap, it turns out, could be the worst thing you can use on your airplane (or your modern auto for that matter).Why are airplanes so different? There are […]

CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR A LARGER VERSION Diamond offers the most complete line of modern general aviation aircraft. Clockwise: D-JET, DA40-FP, DA20, DA40-180, DA42. After a series of high speed taxi and rotation tests, Diamonds D-JET S/N 001, lifted off at 17:08 on Tuesday April 18th, 2006. The test was conducted from the London International […]

Picture this: You’re away from home base when your airplane develops a minor problem. You ask the local repair shop to fix it. After working on the problem for a few hours, the shop reports back that it will take much longer to fix than you anticipated, and cost a lot more than you were […]

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 […]

Sometimes I just can’t fathom what makes aircraft owners do some of the things they do. Particularly amazing to me are some of the mechanical problems that aircraft owners elect to live with rather than fix.Now I’m just as averse to spending money as the next guy (and probably more than most). In fact, I’ve […]

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 […]