Search Results for: general aviation inc

Several of our previous issues have included articles about the benefits of angle-of-attack (AoA) indicators, including discussions of how and why to install them, and how to fly with them. In recent years, reduced costs for many of their components—including processors and displays—has increased their popularity.Several of our previous issues have included articles about the benefits of angle-of-attack (AoA) indicators, including discussions of how and why to install them, and how to fly with them. In recent years, reduced costs for many of their components—including processors and displays—has increased their popularity.

Short-field landings are all about using excellent technique to get your airplane into a tight spot. That same technique, however, can put you in an even tighter spot when it’s time to leave.

As pilots, we spend a lot of time focusing on obvious hazards to our flight operations: convective activity, icing, low ceilings and other conditions. Pilots who fail to manage such risks constitute a disproportionate share of fatal accidents. These flight conditions, however, are not the only potential hazards that we should consider for the purposes of managing risk. Tasks and procedures required on every flight are also potential hazard sources and should be viewed through the risk management lens. These include such routine and necessary tasks as takeoffs and landings, even under benign conditions, as well as operations under calm skies in VMC conditions when there is still other traffic to avoid.

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.”

At the General Aviation Manufacturer’s Association state of the industry press conference GAMA president Pete Bunce and GAMA chairman Steve Taylor, who is president of Boeing Business Jets, shared a promising picture of the health of the GA manufacturing sector in 2013, with overall sales experiencing a modest bump in activity and sales of high-end […]

The past several years have seen some pretty frosty sales reports from light airplane manufacturers. But in advance of yesterday’s General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) luncheon, Beechcraft, Cirrus and Piper reported that sales are heating up. On the cusp of its ownership transition to Textron, Beech looked back fondly on its first year as an […]

Illustrations by Luis Ruiz| The accident statistics don’t lie, and they are chilling. Since the FAA began collecting records in the early 1980s on the number of fatalities, the number of deaths in general aviation accidents has topped 400 every year. The good news is the number of accidents, fatal accidents and fatalities has dropped […]

The FAA’s recent announcement that it is going to make the installation of angle-of-attack indicators in light general aviation airplanes as easy as possible is an incredible development. Why would the FAA reduce the certification barriers of a flight-critical instrumentation system? The answer is simple: AOA indicators are long overdue in general aviation airplanes, and […]

For many pilots, the thought of stepping out of the house, getting into an airplane and taxiing just a few hundred feet to the runway — all without ever touching a car door — is the ultimate fantasy. For the thousands who live in residential airparks around the country, that way of life isn’t just […]

Illustrations by Matthew Laznicka| Clayton, New Mexico — way east of the Rocky Mountains, out on the Great Plains. A humid June afternoon. We had finished up in court and were sitting around in the judge’s office. The phone rang. The judge handed it to me. My friend, the airport weather forecaster, spoke abruptly: “Margaret, […]