Search Results for: Lear 45

A handful of eco-friendly aircraft battle it out in Santa Rosa, California.

(October 2011) In today’s challenging used biz-jet market, it’s safe to say that value is everything and that even then it’s sometimes not enough. This has led to some remarkable refurbishment programs designed to take much of the used airplane part out of the equation while actually giving buyers better performance — in some cases […]

(September 2011) Anyone who’s been around aviation for any length of time knows that there’s no such thing as a perfect airplane. As good as they are when they come out of the factory, they can almost always be made better with the application of some ingenuity and some well-thought-out hardware. Seemingly simple solutions and […]

_(September 2011) _Just fly it like a Cessna 172,” said Tecnam’s demo pilot David Lubore as we approached to land at Plant City Airport (KPCM) in Florida, just west of Lakeland Linder Airport, at the completion of our demo flight. I set the airplane up on downwind at around 90 knots with the gear down. […]

November 12345, turn right, heading 140, vector around traffic.” So begins yet another excursion off our planned course, courtesy of ATC: a vector. In their primary role-helping prevent us from swapping paint with each other-controllers use vectors to maintain spacing or establish sequencing for a runway. Other reasons for a vector include helping keep us out of weather or airspace, or because we request it. In fact, ATC always is supposed to tell us why were being vectored, something well get to in a moment. The reality in todays go-direct-everywhere ATC system usually means a heading to fly is not something we want or appreciate, since its usually an off-course delay, lengthening our trip and wasting time and fuel. But there are times-in terminal airspace especially, or when circumnavigating special-use airspace while en route-when vectors are good things and can help us cut various corners.

__One of the things I love best about airplanes is their back stories. While the **Embraer Legacy 650** is a brand-new airplane, its story stretches back 30 years to when the Brazilian company first decided to start building airliners. My personal tour of the cockpit of the Embraer Legacy 650 immediately reminded me of the […]

Bringing one of the original Tuskegee Airmen trainers is back to life.

(August 2011) It’s certainly not hard to understand the allure of a new airplane. There’s nothing quite like the smile on the face of a buyer who has just been handed the keys to a brand-new bird. There’s an undeniable pride of ownership there, along with other advantages. New airplanes have the latest features, they’re […]

__For more than six decades after its birth in 1937, the North American AT-6 Texan and its offshoots (the Navy SNJ and the Canadian Harvard) were used throughout the world as advanced trainers, artillery spotters (in Korea and Vietnam among other theaters), and even as counterinsurgency and fighter-bombers by numerous developing countries. The last known […]

(August 2011) Just after 11 o’clock on a chilly San Francisco morning, Jan. 18, 1911, a 24-year-old civilian demonstration pilot named Eugene Ely coaxed his 50 hp Curtiss pusher biplane into the sky, made a wide circle over San Francisco Bay and set down on the deck of the anchored U.S. Navy armored cruiser USS […]