Flying Staff

||| |—|—| | | | Pilots and controllers are doing a pretty good job of keeping airplanes apart on the runway. During the four-year period from 1997 to 2000 there were 266 million takeoff and landing operations at the country’s 459 tower-controlled airports, and only 1,369 of those operations involved a runway incursion. That means […]

Solaris Aviation of West Palm Beach, Florida, has launched production of the Sigma line of airplanes, updated and expanded from the Ruschmeyer R90, a German-built all-composite, retractable four-seater. Ruschmeyer certified the R90 in the early ’90s and built about two dozen of the airplanes before production was halted. The company plans to offer retractable and […]

Superior Air Parts will market a pair of aero diesel engines manufactured by Thielert (pronounced “tea-lert”). The TAE 110 and TAE 125 engines produce 110 and 125 horsepower, respectively. The 110 has already won JAA certification; the 125 is said to be close, and FAA approval for both is expected to follow soon. Initial U.S. […]

The natural evolution of airplanes is to increase the power, and that is just what Cirrus Design has done with its new SR22. Where the original production Cirrus, the SR20, flies with a 200-horsepower IO-360 six-cylinder Continental, the SR22 has an IO-550 Continental six that develops 310 horsepower. That is a big increase. Even though […]

||| |—|—| | | | The pilot was really excited. After taking out a second mortgage on his house and forgoing the purchase of a new car, he finally had his new IFR-certified, panel-mounted GPS with all the bells and whistles. Shortly after the installation was complete and approved he headed off on a flight […]

Cessna’s 2001 Skylane has a new letter, jumping from the 182S to the 182T, and when the turbocharged version is considered it becomes the T182T. The model change is justified by a lot of small tweaks that cleaned the airplane up enough for a cruising speed increase of at least four knots. The avionics package […]

A tuned exhaust system, developed by Power Flow Systems, is now approved for installation on the Piper Cherokee 140 and on Cessna 172s equipped with 180-horsepower engines. According to Power Flow, a Cherokee powered by the 150-hp Lycoming O-320-E2A engine and fitted with the new exhaust system demonstrated a 40 percent increase in rate of […]