Aircraft

(August 2011) It’s certainly not hard to understand the allure of a new airplane. There’s nothing quite like the smile on the face of a buyer who has just been handed the keys to a brand-new bird. There’s an undeniable pride of ownership there, along with other advantages. New airplanes have the latest features, they’re […]

__For more than six decades after its birth in 1937, the North American AT-6 Texan and its offshoots (the Navy SNJ and the Canadian Harvard) were used throughout the world as advanced trainers, artillery spotters (in Korea and Vietnam among other theaters), and even as counterinsurgency and fighter-bombers by numerous developing countries. The last known […]

(August 2011) Just after 11 o’clock on a chilly San Francisco morning, Jan. 18, 1911, a 24-year-old civilian demonstration pilot named Eugene Ely coaxed his 50 hp Curtiss pusher biplane into the sky, made a wide circle over San Francisco Bay and set down on the deck of the anchored U.S. Navy armored cruiser USS […]

Cessna Aircraft and King Schools have developed the Cessna Instrument Pilot Course kit — a web-based instrument pilot course similar to the Cessna Sport/Private Pilot Course already in use at Cessna Pilot Centers. The course is scheduled to launch at the end of the month and will be accessible from any computer or iPad with […]

A PT-13D Stearman used to train the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II touched down in Washington last week, carrying with it the stories and memories of men who helped shape not only the history of aviation, but the history of a nation as well. The airplane, known as the Spirit of Tuskegee, was used […]

It appears someone took a pot shot at a medevac helicopter flying over northern Ohio on Monday, an incident that federal law enforcement officials are taking very seriously but which was shrugged off by local police as probably nothing more than a lucky hit by a kid with a rifle. During a routine pre-flight inspection, […]

Economic hardship continues to challenge general aviation aircraft manufacturers, and a disappointing first six months of 2011 underscored that point. According to aircraft shipment and billing figures recently released by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), airplane shipments worldwide dropped 15.5 percent during the first half of 2011 compared to the same time frame last […]

Gulfstream Aerospace last week announced the promotion of company veteran Larry Flynn to president, a move that will take effect next month. Flynn will replace another Gulfstream veteran, Joe Lombardo, as president, though Lombardo won’t be going far. He will continue to oversee Gulfstream, along with Jet Aviation, as vice president for parent company General […]

Learjet. It sounds fast and it is. This airplane has had a place in our aviation consciousness for a long time as the ultimate in speed, wealth, luxury and convenience. When first introduced by Bill Lear in 1964 it became synonymous with these things and more. Lear had bought the tooling for a Swiss ground-attack […]

Like early models of many well-known airplane types, the first Cirrus SR22s felt lighter than they do today. In part, that’s because they were light, and in part that’s because Cirrus has learned over the years how to make an airplane be both substantial feeling, which we pilots like, while staying light. They also felt […]