Aircraft

When I became a first lieutenant aircraft commander in the B-47 Strato-Jet, the most beautiful airplane ever built, I had many lessons to be learned. As to emergency situations, our instructors always advised us to maintain control of the airplane and then handle the emergency. I, however, had another type of control to learn. In […]

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) has announced plans to ask the U.S. International Trade Commission to look into the issue of unfair competition in business aircraft production. His state is home to Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft and Learjet, and Brownback has suggested that foreign competitors — specifically Embraer of Brazil — have enjoyed government subsidies in developing […]

The fastest civilian airplane now climbs higher and faster with graceful new winglets.

In many ways the Cessna Citation X is an extreme airplane. Its radically swept wing, huge wing-to-fuselage fairing and enormous vertical fin are unique in the business jet world. The X looks like it does because that’s what it took to reach the goal of being the fastest civilian airplane now in service. With its […]

My balloon career launched modestly (sort of) when a delightful, brilliant, eccentric friend named Frank Wood decided he had to have a balloon for fun and to promote his rather outrageous WEBN radio station in Cincinnati. He built it and aired a classical music format until son Beau convinced him that wouldn’t “fly” and they […]

We get hot, high and heavy with Cessna’s six-seat piston hauler on a challenging real-life mission.

The FAA recognizes that pilots of conventional aircraft can have dangerous difficulty transitioning to Light Sport Aircraft (LSA). Light aircraft react differently from heavier, more powerful GA aircraft, and have different vulnerabilities based on their low wing loading and other factors. But the agency is in a logjam on how to approve training in such […]

There is no such thing as “normal” for new business jet sales. It’s usually a cycle of extreme highs and deep lows, with occasional periods when the market can’t seem to decide which of those two to choose. According to Bombardier Aerospace, the painful debacle from the past two years’ economic slowdown is showing signs […]

I may have been the last person to consider bringing the late Stelio Frati’s F-22 Pinguino to America. Mooney apparently looked at the program, and Roy LoPresti, who also sought to produce the SwiftFury, was interested. By the time I arrived at the General Avia factory in Perugia, Italy, on a frigid January day in […]