Beyond simply wanting you to have a smooth aircraft purchase and operating experience, we counsel extreme caution in the purchase process because trying to make things right after you discover that the aircraft is junk can be frighteningly expensive—and often with little chance of success. The first thing to understand is that while the design […]

Aircraft buyers value the phrase “no damage history” so highly when searching for a flying machine to buy that it has caused a certain subset of aircraft owners and brokers to take sometimes drastic steps to cover up the fact that the airplane they want to sell has been damaged and repaired. After all, if […]

As the average age of general aviation pilots continues to climb—during a “hard” insurance market—we hear horror stories of pilots being unable to find coverage, having coverage canceled or facing premium price increases they simply cannot afford.  As we started our look into the matter, we found consistent evidence that once a pilot hits 70 […]

While conducting the extensive research into aging pilots and insurance for this article, I came to realize that, inherent in the aging pilot insurance issues, is the need to talk frankly about the elephant on the flight deck—how does a pilot recognize that it’s time to stop flying as pilot in command?  Everyone is aware […]

You’re a pilot, so you’ve said it at least once about every airplane you’ve owned: “It’s a great airplane, but it just needs a little more power.” It’s different this time. You’re serious. You’ve had the flying machine for a few years and you’ve gotten the avionics where you want them, the airframe and systems […]

When the single alternator in a single-engine airplane decides to take the day off in the middle of a flight, the resulting unpleasantness spans the spectrum from inconvenience to terror depending on the weather and the endurance of the aircraft battery—and individual batteries for instruments and portable devices that can help the pilot keep the […]

In February, Aviation Consumer editor Larry Anglisano asked that I use Garmin’s new inReach Mini 2 for a few months and write up my experience with the unit. I live in rural North Idaho and am often out of reach of cellphone service at backcountry airports, remote lakes and on hikes. When I’m flying in […]

When it comes to affordable methods of increasing aircraft performance—notably cruise speed—drag reduction is the most common. Approaching performance enhancement from the other end of the equation—applying more power—initially seems unrealistic because of the depressing realities of squared functions when it comes to power needed to obtain more speed. Plus, we’re quite aware of the […]

Speed costs money. That’s why few airplanes coming out of the factory were optimized for speed—it costs staggering sums of money to certificate a production airplane and at some point, the engineers and bean counters threw up their hands and shouted, “That’s enough!”   While the cruel realities of squared functions when it comes to […]

We regularly view Sporty’s (www.sportys.com) flight training videos and recently got word that they had updated their Sport Pilot training module in their $279 Learn to Fly Course, so we figured that we’d take a look.  To start with, the Learn to Fly Course is a video ground school that is designed to take a […]

As we’ve watched aircraft and fuel prices skyrocket amid a “hard” insurance market, we’ve been wondering whether those variables are conspiring to push prospective pilots to work for a sport pilot rating rather than the private ticket and whether current pilots are downsizing to light sport aircraft and taking advantage of the more liberal sport […]

Three weeks ago, I started checking out an owner in his new-to-him Bellanca Scout, a 180-HP, constant-speed prop tailwheel utility airplane of the sort I’ve flown on and off for 40 years. However, the first takeoff was a revelation—it  performed far better than any 180-HP Scout I’d ever flown. Asking about it, the owner told […]