Aircraft

When taking a closer look at the Tecnam P2006T Twin, the airplane appears to merge features that are commonly found on training airplanes with design elements that are mostly used for much larger, faster airplanes. The result is an airplane that is well suited for the training market, particularly the international market with the capability […]

_(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. […]

A rare all-female crew from the 908th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron (EARS) recently completed an aerial refueling flight in a KC-10 Extender over southwest Asia. “It wasn’t about doing a ‘first,’ although this is rare,” said Lt. Jen Carter, KC-10 pilot in the 908th EARS. “We usually have no more than two females on any […]

Five days of wind tunnel testing for the Stratos 714 very light personal jet (VLPJ) have been completed at the University of Washington Aeronautical Laboratory (UWAL) in Seattle, Washington. More than 90 tests were conducted on a one-fifth-scale aluminum, polycarbonate and composite model of the single-engine jet design.** ** Engineers are still analyzing the data […]

Multiple performers were killed during a tragic weekend for the airshow circuit that included three separate fatal incidents. One of the first occurred on Saturday at the Bournemouth Air Festival in England, when a Royal Air Force pilot who belonged to the elite Red Arrows aerobatic team died after the Hawk T-1 he was piloting […]

__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 […]

_(August 2011) _The Cessna Cardinal RG was sitting forlornly at the edge of Montgomery Field in San Diego with a “for sale” banner hanging from its propeller. As we came out of the parking lot after having lunch at a sushi restaurant across from the airport, Judith pointed at the Cardinal. Isn’t that one of […]

(August 2011) It has often been said that accidents result not from one big cause, but from a lot of little ones that happen to converge in some unforeseen way. Nevertheless, many fatal accidents do arise from one simple cause: VFR pilots flying into IFR weather. This happens so regularly, and in so monotonous a […]

My wife and I visited Bell Helicopter in Texas recently for recurrent training in the Bell 407. The day following completion of our training, we had the opportunity to make a 90-minute flight in the new Garmin G1000-equipped Bell 407GX. I have extensive Garmin experience, and have flown G1000-equipped fixed-wing aircraft since Cessna first offered […]

The incredibly popular PA-28 Cherokee line was launched in 1961, but the 180 horsepower engine was not introduced until the 1963 models. This configuration was later to become the Piper PA-28-180 and PA-28-181 Archer. While the Cherokee 180 model underwent various upgrades through the years, its basic design has remained remarkably unchanged — a tribute […]