Aircraft

Our crew began to assemble in the lobby of the Barcelona hotel. Outside on the street, pilots and flight attendants from the arriving flight collected their bags from behind the jitney bus that had driven them from the airport. They shuffled into the hotel. One of the arriving flight attendants murmured something about the electronic […]

In 1991, Bobby Bishop and his father were operating a skydiving operation out of Celina, Texas. They had a Cessna 182, a Pilatus PC-6 Porter, a DC-3 and a de Havilland Caribou. But they wanted something in between the Porter and the DC-3/Caribou size aircraft. A de Havilland Twin Otter didn’t seem cost-effective, and the […]

The scoop on engine conversions.

Sitting at Mickey’s Diner in Enfield, New Hampshire, across the lunch table from my almost 90-year-old father, I tell him about the heater on the Cheyenne. The heater had stopped working on a flight from Tampa to New England. It got very cold up there at 25,000 feet, so we landed at Westfield-Barnes Airport in […]

Eurocopter announced last month it was developing new technology to reduce the noise generated by helicopter rotor blades. The company has named the new developments “Blue Edge” and “Blue Pulse” technology, and has tested them on an EC155. The reshaped Blue Edge blade tip reduced noise by up to 4 decibels with its cranked leading […]

This was a day of contrasts. It started with my lesson in the P28. Weather looked ok at the time of briefing but had changed somewhat after we got through the preflight. A wind change meant a different runway and the direction we planned to depart toward had become “dark”. A new plan. So instead […]

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and that cliché applies more in aviation than just about any other field — with the possible exception of training attack dogs. Old Bonanzas like mine have Continental E-series engines, similar to later O-470s, but with enough differences to make operating one a constant source […]

The six-seat Piper singles deliver a lot of utility for the price on the used market.

It’s been 45 years since Piper stretched the Cherokee fuselage to create the Six, and the much refined version of the airplane remains in production as the Saratoga II. That kind of production longevity is proof that Piper found an enduring market niche for the PA-32 family, and solid demand on the used market even […]

What really scares pilots and airplane owners? Is it an instrument approach to minimums? Not really. With proper training and a good flight director, nailing the approach is a piece of cake. How about a crosswind landing? They’re tough, but with practice you can learn how to master the technique. Maybe thunderstorms? Nah. Having satellite-delivered […]