Glasair

A monthly summary of recently published NTSB preliminary accident reports involving general aviation and air carrier aircraft.

Consider these expert tips before purchasing a homebuilt aircraft.

With light-sport aircraft manufacturers seemingly popping up all over the world like mushrooms sprouting after a good rainfall, you may wonder why any company would decide to get into this saturated market. In fact, light-sport guru Dan Johnson currently lists 143 LSA models on his bydanjohnson.com website. But after Glasair was bought by the Chinese […]

Glasair Aviation USA has handed over the assets of the Glasair II and III to Redding, California-based Advanced Aero Components. The company has purchased the parts inventory, tooling and other intellectual property related to the speedy side-by-side two-seat airplanes. The Sports Class at the National Championship Air Races has been won multiple times by a […]

Morning fog gradually gave way to sunny skies and pleasant temperatures near 80 degrees as the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo opened its doors to the LSA community yesterday at the Sebring Regional Airport in central Florida. It was a marked difference from last year’s show, when wind and rain put a damper on the five-day […]

In a recent feature, we outlined some of the reasons light-sport aircraft are experiencing a resurgence in the general aviation industry — and why now is a good time to look into LSA ownership. Whether you’re in the market for an LSA or just enjoy looking at interesting airplanes, the aircraft below will give you […]

Small, simple, affordable: From vintage Piper Cubs to Aeronca Champs, Ercoupes, Taylorcrafts and Luscombes, these are the airplanes that kindled America’s love affair with general aviation in the 1930s and post-war 1940s. Their common appeal, of course, centered on their minimalist approach to construction, which made them easy to repair when they broke down or […]

(function(d, s, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) return; var js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = ‘//cdn4.wibbitz.com/static.js’; d.getElementsByTagName(‘body’)[0].appendChild(js); }(document, ‘script’, ‘wibbitz-static-embed’)); A successful third edition of Flying Aviation Expo included some notable firsts that made the show in Palm Springs, California, over the weekend one that attendees will be talking about for a long time […]

Glasair announced yesterday that it has achieved SLSA approval for its Merlin light sport aircraft. While the Arlington, Washington-based company has been in the business of making experimental airplanes since the 1980s, including the Sportsman four-seat airplane built through the two-weeks-to-taxi program, Merlin is Glasair’s first production airplane. Merlin will not be offered as an […]

Whenever two or more pilots get together in the same place, the conversation eventually gets around to which of them has the greatest number of flight hours. The yardstick of how much time youve spent aloft is more than just small-scale bragging rights, of course-it also can determine whether youre eligible for a subsequent certificate, or even legal to carry passengers. And then theres the matter of insurance coverage.The simple fact is that most of the aviation world measures how competent we are in the cockpit by how much time we may have spent there. The inference is that high-time pilots are safer, and that low-time pilots are less safe. The fallacy is highlighted if we put someone with 20,000 hours as PIC of a 747 into a piston single and ask him or her to perform an engine-out approach from downwind: Without some practice-i.e., some experience with that particular operation-its not likely to turn out well. What is experience? How to measure it? Most important: If its so valuable, how can we get more of it?