Aircraft

While I scribble this on a grocery sack from the back seat of a 172 and gaze at the lush, green ridges and valleys south of London, Kentucky, I’m thinking these hills and “hollers” probably look the same as when Daniel Boone and the settlers came through the Cumberland Gap just east of here. Even […]

My test flight in Continental Motors’ developmental Cirrus SR22 was among the most unusual and interesting of my career. That was in part because I was testing a major mod of an airplane in which I have a lot of flying experience, and in part because I was glimpsing into the future by flying a […]

If you own an SR22, Continental Motors wants your business. Well, it wants more of it anyway, so it is in the process of developing an STC to put a factory-turbocharged Continental engine in existing normally aspirated and turbocharged Cirrus SR22s. As you know, Continental and Cirrus Aircraft are not new to each other. Since […]

It was odd that, as I taxied out in the number three prototype of the Diamond D-Jet, the last thing on my mind was that there is only one engine. As with any other business jet you can’t see the engines, and the sounds and sensations of one jet engine spinning away are the same […]

On Aug. 6, 2009, I went to the Torrance Airport near Los Angeles to meet Mike Blyth and James Pitman, two guys from South Africa who were on their way around the world in what would be an LSA if this particular one had not been equipped with extra wing tanks. Holding 120 gallons, they […]

“Holy Cow, it goes on forever!” exclaimed my friend’s 16-year-old son, Connor, who was experiencing his first Oshkosh. He stared wide-eyed at the endless field of planes as we moved along the flight line from the homebuilts to the classics, to the antiques, to the ultralights, to the amphibians — almost halfway to the seaplane […]

The great thing about Oshkosh is that everybody who is anybody in aviation is there, and in that environment hanging around the world’s busiest airport for a week, there is plenty of time to talk. Because of the variety of people and the time we all have, I probably learn more at Oshkosh than any […]

One of the best resources that I can access in the cockpit is available without a three-ring binder. This resource does not involve a red warning light, an electronic siren or a SATCOM radio. The best resource that I have is by far the guy or gal who’s seated to my right. At no other […]

For the first time since it began seven years ago, the annual “migration” of Cirrus owners will not flock to Duluth, Minnesota, but rather to Dayton, Ohio next June 17-20. Curtis Sanford, president of the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association said the group is moving from the place “where two brothers brought a new generation […]

Out of the mouths of babes, seen through the eyes of a child; you’ve heard the clichés that describe the cut-to-the-heart-of-the-matter thought process of children. What, I wondered, would Oshkosh be like this year with a youngster in tow? Would a child’s needs slow me down or would a child’s view take me somewhere I’d […]