Search Results for: uma inc

There are certain things we have always with us; the Bible mentions the poor, but believers in the ultimate superiority of flying wings are another, and almost equally persistent, category. Like devout knights bent upon finding the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper, they keep their eyes unblinking on the prize. Their Grail […]

In a move designed to capture what Piper believes is an attractive niche market, the company recently unveiled a pair of upgraded six-place fixed-gear PA-32s. The airplanes’ new names pay homage to their Cherokee Six origins. The 6X is powered by a 300-horsepower normally aspirated Lycoming IO-540, and the 6XT is turbocharged. The airplanes, said […]

On several occasions after the breakup of the Space Shuttle Columbia on February 1st, I found myself in conversations about the safety of the space program. Actually, my knowledge is limited to much lower altitudes and speeds and much more prosaic equipment. On a few occasions, nevertheless, I felt obliged to put in my two […]

It was a disparate group of musicians, artists, pilots and friends attending Craig Peyton’s art exhibit called “Environmental Forms.” As diverse as the members of the group were, they had one thing in common-their enthusiasm. It was contagious. The multimedia exhibit combined three of Craig’s loves-music, photography and aviation-and was composed of six video segments […]

“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 […]

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 […]

The late September rain is pounding on the fuselage above me and coursing across the narrow, rectangular windscreen that sits less than a foot in front of my face. The frigid Alaskan ocean lies only 400 feet beneath us, but if we went any higher, we’d be in the clouds-clouds that are obscuring a line […]

Some time ago I wrote about the relationship between thrust and horsepower, and the question of why one is used to describe the output of pure reaction engines and the other that of engines driving propellers. I argued that the reason was historical. The great majority of engines-steam, gasoline or what have you-have been designed […]

“Uh … Cherokee Five Two Five Lima Charlie, confirm level at 5,000?” You glance at your altimeter. It reads 4,600 feet. The pointer on the vertical speed indicator is steady on 500 feet per minute down. The sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach is not caused by the rapid movement of back pressure […]

On the morning of a late fall day in 2000, a Utah rancher took up two passengers in his Cessna 175 to search for stray cattle. It was part of the fall roundup, an “annual event looked upon with anticipation by many.” After spotting a few head, they flew toward a bluff where several cowboys […]