Ownership

The Hypstair hybrid-electric powertrain ran for the first time this month, launching a test series for the project led by Slovenian aircraft maker Pipistrel. Hypstair, which has been making the rounds at European aviation events, features 200 kilowatts of takeoff power and 150 kilowatts of continuous power suitable for a light GA aircraft. It can […]

I spent a good portion of January conducting interviews and research for a major print piece on electric aircraft to appear in the March issue of Aviation Consumer. My impression is that there’s as much going on in this field beneath the surface as there are known projects. Expect to learn more in 2016. Last […]

In rural Holden, Missouri, roughly 50 miles southeast of Kansas City, is a 10-acre island of recreational aviation in a vast ocean of corn and soybeans. The pole barns adjacent to its 1000-foot grass strip look like those on neighboring farms, until you look inside. The hulking gray lathe, milling machine, and drill press don’t […]

A 30-year-old man is in jail after causing up to $30,000 worth of damage to a former military aircraft that he thought belonged to Microsoft founding partner Paul Allen. The man was spotted inside the fence at Arlington Municipal Airport, north of Seattle, allegedly breaking pieces off the exterior of a Dornier Alpha Jet, a […]

With the exception of tiny squiggles up and down, the general aviation fatal accident rate remains stubbornly at about 1.0/100,000 hours. That’s down a little from a decade ago, when it was 1.28 and down a lot from the early to mid-1970s, when it was more than 2.0. In GA, we tend to resist the […]

Proposals for new autopilot upgrades can be shocking. Even entry-level wing-leveling systems start at $10,000, not including installation. But that won’t buy much. Higher-end models with add-on options can easily snowball a project to $40,000. That’s roughly the cost of an average engine replacement—or an average Skyhawk. For years, S-Tec (now Cobham Avionics) has dominated […]

What to make of Mooney’s new M20V Acclaim Ultra? It’s at once more than I ever expected and less than I might have wished. Then again, in this business, the survivors learn that the orbits of expectation rarely intersect with those of reality and we all know about wishes, horses and beggars. But give the […]

Apparently responding to buyer complaints about complex ADS-B Out solutions that require expensive WAAS upgrades,Garmin International has announced two all-in-one transponders that will allow owners who don’t have WAAS GPS receivers to upgrade to ADS-B Out as simply as possible. One version of the new product combines both In and Out in a single box, […]

Aspen’s angle-of-attack indicator doesn’t require any additional hardware beyond the Evolution Flight display. AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli took it for a spin recently and prepared this video report. Although it’s intended for stall awareness, it can also be used to improve approaches. view on YouTube

The Pitts Special aerobatic airplane is not for every pilot, of course. Its small stature, dictated by the need to keep things light and strong, means a short fuselage and stubby, relatively highly loaded wings when compared to most other personal airplanes. All of this results in an airplane responsive to the slightest control input, […]