Aircraft

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University ordered 10 Diamond DA42 L360 Twin Stars for use in its training programs at the Daytona campus. ERAU plans to take delivery of the airplanes and have them up and running in time for the start of the fall semester. The L360 version of the DA42 replaces the turbodiesel Thielert engines with […]

Robinson Helicopter has been building its piston-powered helicopters in Torrance, California, for decades. Because they build so many of the parts that go into their aircraft, as opposed to most manufacturers who contract out many subassemblies, Robinson employs a lot of workers and uses a lot of factory floor space. The result is a busy […]

Viking Air, the British Columbia company that successfully reintroduced the Twin Otter last year, has made a pitch to the Canadian government to consider something old in its quest for a new search and rescue platform: the Buffalo, a heavy-duty midsized utility transport hauler. Last produced in the ’70s by de Havilland, the Buffalo is […]

The new Air Tractor AT-504 ag aircraft is a side-by-side trainer that has full capability for aerial application. The ranks of experienced ag pilots are being thinned by age so it is essential that new, younger pilots be trained in the demanding flying of aerial application. But the high-performance agplanes from Air Tractor and others […]

Continental has reduced the price of its factory-new or factory-rebuilt engines by 10 percent. Unlike a major overhaul done on your existing engine when unexpected problems can be found after work begins, you know exactly the price of the new or rebuilt Continental, and it’s now 10 percent less. Rebuilt is the FAA term for […]

Cirrus Aircraft has introduced its lineup for 2009, and the new airplanes come with some very impressive available features. The big news is a known ice protection system, but there’s a raft of other recently announced upgrades, too, with a whole host of advanced acronyms available, EVS, SVT and FIKI, among many others, making the […]

It wasn’t much of an afternoon to go flying. The weather was less-than-great VFR, though any VFR at all was a good thing because the airplane we were flying, the Remos GX, is a light sport aircraft, or LSA. And LSAs, as you probably know, are by regulation and without exception VFR-only machines. The Remos […]

No one at the Lockheed Skunk Works would ever have envisioned the U-2 still being the cutting-edge platform for Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions more than half a century after its first flight. But over the years, the Air Force has invested close to $2 billion on enhancements to both the airplane […]

In a web conference late last year, Cirrus Design announced some key performance figures and weights for its Cirrus Vision jet, and it laid out a series of changes it has made to the jet as development has progressed. The four- to six-seat jet is slated for certification and first deliveries in late 2011 or […]

It was a cruddy day to go mountain flying. A ragged gray overcast stretched over Western Washington State, high enough to make for good VFR under the deck near Spokane, but it promised to be a more complicated journey to the east, where the spine of the Bitterroots juts out, rising to 10,000 feet at […]