Ownership

Start looking at the airport closest to your home, because you have a chance to see theaircraft without incurring any expense. This works well if you’re looking for a Cessna 150or other small common aircraft. But by the time you’re stepping up to a four placeaircraft, you should begin to look farther afield. The best […]

Buyinga first airplane is every bit as much of a thrill for most people as buying a first car.Unfortunately, most first-time airplane buyers approach their purchase very much the sameway as they do when shopping for an automobile. Typically, they first decide how much theycan afford to spend on an airplane – it might be […]

Nobody’s ever accused me ofbeing an early-adopter when it comes to aviation. I’m unabashedly skeptical aboutaeronautical innovations until they’ve been proven in the field for years. When Mobil AV-1was being touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread, I stuck with my Aeroshell W100.When Cermicrome cylinders were all the rage, I stuck with nitrided steel […]

Here’s the concept: Some terrorists have a gripe with the UnitedStates. Terrorists are in the business of hijacking airliners, and as any terrorist worthhis Semtex knows, there is one airliner without equal: Air Force One. And as long as youare going to hijack Air Force One, you may as well do it while the president […]

Date: 25-Jul-97 18:59:17 Subject: Bose ANR Rival From: Rob Morgan (robmorg@bellatlantic.net) To: All I just bought a new ANR headset that is the closest thing to the Bose that I have ever seen or heard. After reading the review of the LightSPEED “20K” ANR headset on AVweb, I ordered a pair. They arrived today, so […]

ROTORWAY EXEC 162F Performance Specifications Total kit price USD $60,850* Powerplant RotorWay RI162F (162 cu.in.) Seats 2 Gross Weight 1,500 lbs Empty Weight 975 lbs Pilot & Passenger Load 425 lbs Fuel Capacity 17 gal Rate of Climb 1,000 FPM Hover in-Ground Effect 7,000 ft Hover Out-of-Ground Effect 5,000 ft Service Ceiling 10,000 ft Range, […]

As the America West Boeing 737 made its lazy finalapproach into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, I wondered to myselfhow I was going to be able to make a fair evaluation of a two-person kit-builthelicopter when almost all of my rotary wing flying time had been accumulatedin large, military, jet-powered machines: HH-1Hs and HH-3Es plus […]

Everyone in General Aviation -pilots, journalists, alphabet groups and even competitive plane makers – seems to behappy to see Cessna building piston aircraft again. After a decade-long hiatus, theappearance of new piston Cessnas has been widely hailed as a sign that G.A. is finally onthe road back from near extinction. But at the same time, […]

When an assembly is engineered, loads to be encountered by thebolted joint are calculated and a safety factor is applied toallow for unexpected loads. The engineer then sizes a fastenerto maintain the proper pre-load which will withstand the tensile,bending and shear loads imposed upon the assembly. Developing Pre-Loads When a fastener (bolt) is tightened, both […]

Notlong ago, a writer for a major aviation publication called to askmy opinion(s) on the subject of shock cooling. It turns out thecaller had already written his article, but he wanted to run someideas by me to make sure he wasn’t missing something. Since I geta lot of calls on this subject, I had some […]