Ownership

TruTrak Flight Systems announced that it—together with EAA— has earned STC approval for the Vizion autopilot system in Cessna 172 and 177 models. This is the first autopilot manufactured by experimental autopilot maker TruTrak to be approved for a certified aircraft. The company was targeting AirVenture 2017 for a completed STC and it achieved it. […]

Lycoming issued a Mandatory Service Bulletin on Monday that requires owners and operators of its engines to check them for connecting rods that contain bushings that do not meet Lycoming Engine’s specifications. The bushings were manufactured between specified date ranges from November 2015 to as late as February 2017. The service bulletin specifies the dates […]

Nothing says Cub like the iconic yellow-with-lightning-bolt paint scheme of the J-3 but some buyers of Cub derivatives are looking for something a little more distinctive. CubCrafters’ John Whitish showed an especially dynamic design at Sun ‘n Fun earlier this year. view on YouTube

With minimal fanfare, composite propellers have been appearing as original equipment on more and more airplanes and more and more owners are finding that they are an option for their airplanes when it comes time for an overhaul or replacement. Composite props are more expensive than their aluminum counterparts, so we were curious why owners […]

The FAA issued a final Airworthiness Directive on Tuesday that will affect 23,643 airplanes in the Piper fleet, mainly PA-28 and PA-32 models in the Cherokee line. The AD, which was issued to clarify the requirements of an earlier AD issued in 1995, takes effect Aug. 15. It requires that owners or operators of airplanes […]

The Falcon 5X, an all-new widebody business jet by Dassault Aviation, has flown for the first time, the company has announced. The flight lasted for two hours. The Safran Silvercrest engines installed on the test plane are a “preliminary version,” Dassault said. According to the company, “design issues” have delayed the engine’s development four years […]

As the FAA sorts out the mess created when its drone registration rule was struck down by the courts, it’s already thinking about taking the registration requirement to the next level and requiring operators to transmit their registration information. The drone website wetalkuav.com reported that the first meeting of the FAA’s UAS Identification and Tracking […]

A French company has received EASA and Canadian certification for an aftermarket exhaust system that could substantially reduce noise complaints at training airports. Epagny-based Chabord has developed exhaust systems for Cessna 150, 152 and 172 aircraft it says cut the noise from them by at least half. It has “certified silent exhaust systems” for other […]

If you’ve never wandered the pits at the Reno Air Races, you’re missing out. I’ve crewed twice (crewing gets you a pit pass)—once in Formula One and again in Sport Class—and can’t imagine going to Reno without a pit pass. There are so many amazing people, conversations, and airplanes. While you could simply purchase a […]

Nextant, the Cleveland, Ohio, company that takes in older aircraft and remanufactures them with fresh upgrades, has announced a new “incremental” upgrade program for the Beech 400A/Hawker 400XP twinjet aircraft. The full conversion to an XTi costs about $3 million, the company says, a cost that “not everyone is able to justify.” Now Nextant is […]