Search Results for: Garmin G1000

The Cirrus SR series of single-engine airplanes has been controversial since the beginning. The beginning, as some of you might recall, came in 1995 when Cirrus, which had before then been a kit manufacturer, announced the existence of “Hangar X,” the secret facility in which it was building its mysterious to-be-certified entry. When the mystery […]

When you look back at the historical arc of light general aviation, a few airplanes stand out as being so important that their introductions changed the way we flew and the way we looked at flying. At the certain risk of leaving out a few favorites, you can’t talk about the history of light aviation […]

Using a single-engine airplane for long-distance, literally cross-country trips, usually isnt a good choice. That is, of course, until you survey all the other choices-including the airlines-and decide the flexibility and utility of using a personal airplane is the only way to go. Often, of course, the flight is the trips purpose, not the act of getting to a destination. Watching various landmarks and other magnificent scenery slide underneath the wings-albeit relatively slowly-makes up for the time it can take, especially when headed west into prevailing winds.

(February 2011) — It has been seldom in the history of aviation that a single technology has revolutionized the way we fly by addressing multiple problems facing the industry and solving them all. The most important such event was the widescale adoption of the turbine engine in the 1940s. Turbines, as you know, remedied (and […]

Sights and scenes from the Helicopter Association International’s biggest show ever.

More than 20,000 rotorcraft aficionados descended on Orlando, Florida, for this year’s Heli-Expo, held at the Orange County Convention Center from March 6 to 8. Helicopter manufacturers unveiled several new models at the show and offered special pricing that for many apparently was too enticing to let pass. Eurocopter kicked things off with the introduction […]

It hasn’t happened very often this winter: For one full day last week, the weather from Maine to Florida was severe VFR. I’d been keeping an eye on the long-range forecast for days in a sincere desire to avoid areas of icing for a planned trip from New Jersey to North Carolina. Never once did […]

(January 2010) — We were settled in at 24,000 feet, cruising along at around 225 knots true, burning 24 gallons of 100LL every hour while watching the nautical miles slip behind us. We’d taken off from Orlando Executive (ORL) in a Cessna Corvalis and were an hour into our flight, cruising at an altitude that […]

Sitting in the glass cockpit of the 50th anniversary edition of the Beechcraft G58 Baron, its precision-engineered Teledyne Continental Motors engines ticking away effortlessly, I’m struck by a thought: This airplane was introduced when President Dwight Eisenhower was still in office. It’s a hard notion to reconcile. With a bright and colorful flat-panel avionics suite, […]

AUGUST 2010 The more you think about it, the more the economics of the Cessna 206 make sense. Unlike some of the airplanes, such as Otters and Caravans, that ply the same missions as the 206 does, the Stationair is a true light airplane. It is powered not by a turboprop but by a conventional […]