Ownership

Not long ago, I was chatting about piston aircraft engines with a group of aircraft owners when the longtime owner of a Cessna P210 asked me the following question:“What are the relative pros and cons of oil filter inspection vs. laboratory oil analysis? Do you recommend one over the other or do you recommend both?”The […]

As we head off to Oshkosh this week, the Garmin GPSMAP 396 appears likely to be the hottest product at the show. As you’ve probably heard, it combines GPS navigation, datalink weather and XM audio all in the same size package as the popular GPSMAP 296. Our sister publication, Aviation Consumer, recently evaluated the product […]

There’s an old joke among aircraft mechanics that “the most dangerous thing in aviation is an aircraft owner with a screwdriver.” (Or a wrench, or a toolbox, or a Swiss army knife …)For many mechanics, this is no laughing matter. I’ve been writing for many years (on these pages and elsewhere) advocating owner involvement and […]

A recent story in one of the big aviation glossies on the supposed advantages of piston-engine FADEC has sparked a storm of discussion among several user groups on my radar. The discussion, as it often does within these forums, eventually boiled down into an interesting philosophical debate about engine management. Are we, as pilots, too […]

Odyssey Aviation Publications Thirty-some-odd years ago when I started flying, general aviation had barely reached the age of DME, and RNAV was just beginning to allow some of us to fly straight lines between points. Today, DME is still useful in many applications; but for the most part the avionics we considered mainstream through the […]

I have a soft spot in my heart for the year 1979, because it was the year that Cessna built the T310R that I’ve owned and flown for the past 18 years. Actually, 1979 was a very good year for general aviation. Manufacturers like Beech, Cessna, Mooney and Piper were assembling craft at a furious […]

My last column related the story of an aircraft owner who purchased a twin Cessna, took the aircraft to an IA for its first annual inspection, and had a truly horrific experience. At the end of that column, I promised to take a look at what an owner could do to avoid such a calamity. […]

General Aviation has seen an interesting and uncommon change recently: A new certificate is now available. Sport Pilot has been much-awaited, touted, and striven-for by many dedicated individuals and organizations whose goal was to help broaden the appeal of GA.Sport Pilot offers a new group of people the ability to participate in, help support, and […]

This is what I call a great start to the flying season: Sun ‘N Fun blew into Lakeland sporting great weather and a kind of subdued enthusiasm that bodes well for Experimental aviation. Why am I pleased with anything less than a full-chat hype fest? Because a mature industry is much more sustainable than one […]

This is a true story. The names have been changed, but the rest is unvarnished truth.If you’re an aircraft owner, reading this story should make you angry. If you’re an A&P mechanic, it should make you hopping mad. (I’m both an owner and a mechanic, so you can imagine how I feel.)Over the many years […]