Search Results for: pilots world train cessna aircraft

If you had the choice between buying a real J-3 or an LSA knockoff of a J-3, wouldn’t you pick the real McCoy? I used to think it was a no brainer. I’m not so sure any more. I stopped by the home of the American Legend Aircraft Company in Sulphur Springs, Texas, located about […]

One of the time-honored conventions of aviation journalism is that every article about metal fatigue has to start with mention of the “ill-fated Comet.” That requirement has now been met. Metal fatigue did not begin with the Comet. By the middle of the 19th century ferrous metals-irons and steels-were in common use in industrial machinery, […]

The era of the light sport aircraft is here, and pilots are working hard to understand what, if anything, it means to them. The 452-page rule that the FAA put into law last fall is a complex one, to be sure, defining a whole new category that encom-passes a number of very different types of […]

Somewhere beyond our Cessna 172’s windscreen, the world must still exist. Somewhere out there must be a sky, a horizon, stars, and-a few thousand feet below us-an arid landscape dotted with spinifex grass, red sand ridges and dry river beds winding their way across the vast, uninhabited stretches of the Simpson Desert. At the moment, […]

In the mercilessly cruel financial world of small airplane companies, and the new companies that plan to build airplanes, bankruptcy may offer the only chance of success. Nobody can, you see, sell enough airplanes quickly enough to recover the development costs of starting a company and designing and certifying an airplane. That means somebody needs […]

“Are you sure you don’t need anything else?” Karen Anderson asked. “No. No, I’m fine. Really.” “But your bottled water’s gotten warm,” she said. “Let me get you a cold one?” It’s hard to resist an offer like that. She took the warm water bottle and made her way to the galley at the back […]

The folks at Adam Aircraft don’t particularly like it when their new airplane is referred to as a “push-pull,” the most common (and cleanest) name attached to the Cessna Skymaster that made its debut about 40 years ago. The concept of centerline thrust, tandem power, was actually patented by Claudius Dornier in 1937 and developed […]

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I think the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is out to get us. Somehow, the powers that be at the TSA have become convinced that, although small airplanes were not involved in the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center, they pose a serious risk to the country’s security. The evidence […]

Are the $100 hamburgers getting old? Have you visited every airport restaurant within 100 miles so many times that the staff greets you by name and has your favorite meal ready? Did you already give all your friends rides, so that you are now reduced to approaching people on the street, like the press gangs […]

Fractionals is the informal name for companies that operate shared ownership business jets, a service that is rapidly growing. An owner purchases a fraction, typically one-sixteenth or more, of an airplane and is entitled to fly a set amount of hours in that airplane or any of its companions in the fractional fleet. The fractional […]