Search Results for: Cessna 172

In the summer of 1967 I was a 16-year-old student pilot flying out of Cornelia Fort Airpark in Nashville, Tennessee. This historic airport had been around since 1944 and was still surrounded by farmland. I had been flying since I was 14 with the local Civil Air Patrol unit. By the time I decided to […]

Imagine sliding open the door to your hangar, unplugging the power cable snaking from your airplane to a quick-charging station on the wall and taking to the sky in a sleek four-seater powered only by the smooth, quiet, nonpolluting whir of an electric motor connected to rows of lithium battery packs nestled in the wing. […]

Cessna Skyhawks equipped with Centurion diesel engines, a retrofit installation recently offered as a part of Redbird Flight Simulations’ Redhawk conversion and Premier Aircraft Sales’ Skyhawk upgrade program, can now get another upgrade, which promises better climb rates and faster speeds. The FAA has signed off on a supplemental type certificate that allows for the […]

Flying behind air-cooled powerplants, free of radiators or coolant tanks, it’s easy to forget most aircraft still need liquids of some type to operate safely and reliably. When those fluids are put under pressure to actuate a mechanism, we’ve created a hydraulic system, sometimes defined as something “using pressurized fluid to drive machinery or move mechanical components.” It also can be defined as transferring “energy by pressurizing fluid to force movement of a slave to produce the action sought.”

When I set out to learn to fly at the age of 13, I did not actually want to learn to fly. I wanted to be a pilot, and if I could have snapped my fingers and instantly acquired all the necessary skills and knowledge, I would have. I am sure I am not alone […]

Pilots who transition from flying strictly for pleasure to a combination of pleasure and utility face a whole new set of challenges. For instance, weather conditions that might have kept a pilot on the ground if he had no place in particular to be suddenly present a conundrum for the same pilot who has made […]

Since shortly after World War I, civilian pilots have longed to recreate the exploits of famous aviators. Heroes and villains of the Great War, from the Red Baron to Eddie Rickenbacker, inspired people to fly and, in some cases, to fly like fighter pilots in military-inspired racing planes. But it was in the three decades […]

It’s been almost 20 years now that diesel technology has been a promising alternative for light general aviation, though the adoption of compression engines has taken longer and has suffered more teething pains than its proponents anticipated. I’ve had the chance to fly five different airplanes with four different diesel engines — the original Thielert, […]

Recently departed AOPA president and CEO Craig Fuller is joining flight simulation/training company Redbird Flight Simulations’ board of directors, Redbird founder and chairman of the board Jerry Gregoire announced. Fuller’s addition to the board, Gregoire told Flying, would give Redbird the capability to give new focus and energy to expand its offerings from simulation and […]

It’s been just over a decade since the FAA commissioned WAAS for general aviation use. So these days I am so used to having WAAS that I don’t think twice about it, particularly when flying behind a Garmin G1000 panel. But if you are purchasing or renting an airplane that is a few years old, […]