Ownership

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. […]

Finding the right airplane to buy is hard work. Who among us hasn’t spent hours looking through the pages of Trade-A-Plane trying to find that perfect candidate — one with low time, a fresh overhaul, new paint and interior, great avionics, and a bargain price?Dream on!Common sense says you’re unlikely to find an airplane like […]

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Metal possesses lots of properties that we find very useful in building airplanes. It’s strong, hard, and tough. It’s easy to form, work and machine. It’s fireproof and can stand up to high temperatures. All in all, metal is neat stuff.But metal isn’t unique in having these properties. Metal is strong, but ordinary cotton fiber […]