Purchasing

Part of my job description is to hang around people who sell airplanes, or try to. In Cessna’s salad days, the company clearly knew how to sell and it helped that the market was ready to absorb thousands of new airframes. Now, not so much. The definition of a circular argument is to ask whether […]

One of the best flying examples of an F-86 Sabre is for sale by its Canadian owner for the seemingly bargain price of $795,000 USD. Vintage Wings of Canada is selling its Canadair MK-V Sabre, named Hawk One, which has been used as an air demonstration aircraft since 2009. The airplane was flown on behalf […]

During the opening of the Aircraft Electronics Association show in New Orleans Monday, AEA chairman David Loso made a remark that caught my ear. He said it was time to think about life after ADS-B. Welcome as that sounds, I’m not sure we’re quite there yet. The ADS-B 2020 mandate is but 33 months away […]

The Cirrus SR22T G6 is the sixth-generation SR22, which was originally introduced in 2001. For 2017, the G6 SR models are equipped with the new Perspective+ integrated avionics, new interior appointments and new Spectra wingtip lighting, which was designed exclusively for Cirrus by Whelen. For this flight report, Aviation Consumer Editor Larry Anglisano flew the […]

In our series on the growing world of aircraft refurbishing, we’ve looked at every phase of a total refurb from avionics to interiors and from engine replacement to paint. In this article we’ll deal with what is either the start or finish of a refurbishment—buying an airplane you intend to refurb or one that has […]

Sales of piston-powered, fixed-wing aircraft were flat for the third year in a row, says the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) year-end report issued Wednesday—1,142 piston airplanes delivered in total, down slightly from 1,265 in 2015. Since 2009, sales of piston airplanes have hovered around 1,000 units per year, down from a modern-era peak of […]

It’s probably a journalistic pretense to imply that there’s anything practical about light sport airplanes. Few of them are used for travel and even fewer are flown in the kind of weather that a utilitarian airplane like a Bonanza or Cirrus has to tackle to earn its keep. So in reviewing LSAs, we’re talking about […]

So now it’s finally reality. The Third-Class medical exemption is a real thing, or at least it will be in May. Oddly, I am underwhelmed; like winning the lottery and learning that money can’t buy happiness. (OK, but all the same, I’d like a new TBM.) I think I’m not alone in this sentiment, yet […]

If Santa did a flypast of your hangar this year, you could go after him at Mach 1.3 in your own CF-5 Freedom Fighter. The little fighter, based on Northrop’s design, was built under license by Canadair in the 1960s and 1970s and this aircraft is being sold by a private owner in St. Augustine, […]

This article started with an email from a reader asking whether a Cessna 150 would be a good floatplane. It morphed from conversations with experienced floatplane pilots about the 150 on floats—okay, but not great—into what makes a good floatplane, what to look for when buying one and what’s involved in putting floats on your […]