Engines

The Grumman Cheetah and bigger-engined Tiger may be overlooked by some buyers searching the crowded under-$50K used airplane market. In fact, among entry-level Cessna and Piper models, the AA-5A Cheetah could very we’ll be a used market leader. With a sporty slide-back canopy, snappy handling and reasonable cruise speed for its fuel-sipping 150-HP powerplant, a Cheetah works for training, traveling and for tooling around the local area. On the other hand, the 180-HP AA-5B Tiger might be the better of the two cats when more climb performance and load-hauling is needed.

Altitude encoders are the doorstops of the avionics world. You have to have one, but don’t expect a sweep through the list of available hardware to yield impressive lists of features and capabilities. After all, all the gadgets do is electronically deliver altitude data to a transponder that then reports your altitude to ATC-Mode C.

The Gold Wing in the main photo was shot at Honda Aircraft Companys massive headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina. Its the first thing you see when entering the main lobby, and presumably its there as an important reminder of Hondas heritage. In 1946, Soichiro Honda established the Honda Technical Research Institute to develop machine tools and engines. In 2017, the brand name is delivering an ultramodern jet. For motorheads and curious consumers alike, the Honda timeline of milestones is an interesting read.

Given its European roots, Diamond came at the DA40s design as sort of a hybridbetween the sleek glass gliders the company started out producing when it was Hoffmann Flugzeugbau and more traditional aircraft U.S. customers are accustomed to. This yielded what we think can arguably be called a world airplane.

Cold starts, hot starts and over enthusiastic priming are just some of the scenarios that can lead to an airplane sitting on the ground because the engine refuses to fire. The best way to ensure a quick engine start is to boost the energy to the spark plugs because with enough spark, the fuel and air mixture will certainly burn. Champion Aerospaces SlickStart magneto booster promises to do just that. Heres how it works, plus an overview of aircraft piston engine ignition theory.

The Gold Wing in the main photo was shot at Honda Aircraft Companys massive headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina. Its the first thing you see when entering the main lobby, and presumably its there as an important reminder of Hondas heritage. In 1946, Soichiro Honda established the Honda Technical Research Institute to develop machine tools and engines. In 2017, the brand name is delivering an ultramodern jet. For motorheads and curious consumers alike, the Honda timeline of milestones is an interesting read.

With some new flagship piston singles flirting with the $1 million mark, its logical that qualified buyers are eyeballing the entry-level turboprop single market. That could give Texas-based Evolution Aircraft (previously Lancair, before it was sold last summer) more opportunity to sell its Evolution Turboprop experimental airplane kits.

Diamond Aircraft CEO Christian Dries is nothing if not a pragmatist, albeit an adventurous one. At Aprils Aero in Friedrichshafen, Germany, he showed both sides of the same coin when he announced three new single-engine piston models, one powered by an untried new gasoline engine from Lycoming. The latter even he concedes is an admission of sorts. The diesel engines Diamond has championed for 15 years havent fared we’ll in the high-performance single-engine market simply because the power options havent been there.

For the 2017 model year, Cirrus released the G6 SR20, which gets both an avionics upgrade and a new IO-390 Lycoming engine. Cirrus said its decision to re-engine the entry-level SR20 is significant for a couple of reasons. For one, it plans to aggressively market the aircraft to fleet operators whove expressed a strong preference for a four-cylinder Lycoming over a six-cylinder Continental. Moreover, the IO-390 substantially reduces weight, while also stretching the TBO for high-use operations.

There are good reasons to make oxygen available at altitudes less than those recommended by the FAA. Face it, unless youre using a pulse oximeter on every flight (we certainly don’t when flying at lower altitudes), you don’t really know how your physiology is reacting on a given day. We think blood oxygen saturation is an important biometric to keep on top of.

Touring either Lycomings factory in Williamsport or Continentals in Mobile is like a stroll through time. Cheek by jowl with ancient hand-operated machine tools are modern CNC machining centers that would be at home in a Ford or GM plant. In late March, Continental revealed that its ready to scrap the old stuff for good.

Is there a value proposition in an airplane that cruises two-thirds as fast as a near million-dollar Cirrus, uses only one-quarter the fuel and costs one-fifth as much? The Bristell LSA, an Eastern European import were examining here, certainly tests the notion. Like the Tecnam Astore we reviewed in the January 2017 issue, the Bristell NG5 stretches the slow-simple-cheap ethos of the light sport airplane to the breaking point. Given its sophisticated avionics, high cruising speed and attention to interior and baggage space, the Bristell is clearly conceived as a high-end traveling machine, not a bump-around-the-pattern flivver.