Search Results for: build your own airplane

“Hey, Dick, whatever happened to your Mustang purchase?” I hear this all the time. And, after reporting in the January issue that I’d plunked down $10,000 at the NBAA Convention as a down payment on Cessna’s new jet, I got a burst of mail, not all of it supportive. So I thought I’d tell you […]

The private pilot license has outlived its usefulness, and it’s time to create a new pilot certification system that addresses more specifically the way people choose to fly today. The one-size-fits-all training progression through the private, commercial and instrument rating certificates just doesn’t serve today’s needs for safety and airplane utility. There are really two […]

“Ten seconds.” This is it: the end of a 21-year countdown. The 9,600-foot Mojave runway stretches out in front of me, the chase plane is coming up from behind. It’s clear and calm this November 1st-the day when, as I heard someone explain yesterday on NPR, “the barrier between the living and the dead is […]

When I heard a few years back that the folks behind the Europa two-seat kitplane were in the process of making what amounted to a certified version, I was excited but, frankly, a bit skeptical too. The Europa, a popular kit made in the United Kingdom, is a terrific little kitplane, but I wondered if […]

||| |—|—| | | | The morning was still clear and cool when I pushed the Cheetah’s throttle forward and lifted off from Runway one-four at Santa Rosa. At first it was a takeoff like any other I’d had with the plane, and I let out a sigh of relief at finally being off on […]

Here I sit in the right seat of a fine old 172, inside the marker on an ILS approach, my first ever instrument student refusing to correct for the wind. I watch the localizer needle drift off and feel myself twisting my entire upper body to force it back to center. Should I tell him […]

When newly formed Tiger Aircraft announced a few years back that it was going to reintroduce the four-seat AG-5B Tiger, last produced back in 1993, it seemed like a natural. Unlike a number of more forgettable and more obscure airplanes that have been returned to production (sometimes successfully, more often not) since the bust of […]

I have had the opportunity to watch many, many start-up companies try to build their first aircraft, and the record of success is dismal. But I was pleasantly surprised when I visited Adam Aircraft’s operation in Denver. I think this company has a good chance to make it. The new airplane is named the CarbonAero […]

What is it with pilots and fuel? The most obvious requirement for continued powered flight-fuel in the tanks-seems to confound pilots more than P-factor. It’s impossible to know for sure how many pilots run out of fuel each year, because many power-loss events do not result in an accident if there is no serious personal […]

||| |—|—| | | | The notes are cryptic; scattered snapshots of a life that would mean very little to anyone except me. Two words-“By myself”-are all that denote the cascade of emotions, experience, fear, excitement and joy that accompanied my first solo in my Cessna 120 taildragger. “Familiarization,” reads another stoic entry explaining 15 […]