Editorial

After more than 100 years of prop production, Ohio company continues its move into electric power.

Mike Jones highlights Lock & Key refurbs and tough standards at his Murfreesboro maintenance shop during Sun ‘n Fun 2025.

Hats off to the FAA for finally suggesting that all airplanes be equipped with angle of attack systems. The agency recently published a special airworthiness information bulletin (SAIB) recommending that AoA systems become standard equipment in new airplanes and retrofitted in existing ones. As background in the bulletin, the FAA calls attention to the 2009 […]

It’s only an RV-12—a little ELSA with 100 HP. A modern trainer. Years in the making, our early-gen 12 kit project is almost ready to fly and I’m already getting stomach cramps from the fear of ham-fisting the little bird around the local patch—free entertainment for the tower cab. Seriously, I’ve flown the little RV-12 […]

Remember when in the thick of the supply chain crisis you couldn’t get a common oil filter for months? Or when overnight the price of a plain vanilla starter or alternator almost doubled in price? I sure do and while the supply of consumables and replacement components has loosened, their prices keep increasing. And so […]

Who Needs VORs? When pilots hit me up for help planning their panel upgrades, one of the most common questions is whether it’s safe to ditch VHF nav systems from the panel. You know, finally get rid of that well- worn King KX155 or KN53. Ask me that a couple of years ago and nine […]

Walking the floor of a hustling maintenance shop the other day, it was easy to spot planes—old Rockwells, twin Cessnas, Bonanzas—you would want to buy because these days, the better shops only work on well-maintained machines. If you buy a rat with pages of major squawks, don’t be surprised when a shop manager unapologetically tells […]

I shot the image from the back of this 2007 Cirrus SR22 G3 Turbo at this year’s AirVenture. The video, and the short show report seemed worth shooting not really to show what a top-to-bottom retrofit Garmin system looks like in an old Cirrus, but more of a tip of the hat to a small […]

As we put the finishing touches on this August issue of Aviation Consumer, thoughts are on the big show at Oshkosh coming on in just a couple of weeks. For me, AirVenture has always been the place to buy—gadgets, avionics, aircraft and engines. For a nostalgic shopping experience, stroll the Fly Market for lightly used […]

That’s the least of the chores at hand. A woman who lives in Wethersfield, Connecticut, said she was nearly mowed down by a low-flying airplane when she was walking her dog. It was flying so low, she claimed, the pair had to duck. And so goes one piece of the buffoonery that doesn’t help the […]

The NTSB holds a fascinating position in our government—it is the righteous gadfly buzzing around the federal regulators of transportation safety, annoying them, criticizing them and constantly urging them to act more resolutely to decrease the number of deaths and injuries to Americans due to any mode of transportation.  The NTSB has no regulatory power. […]

After giving a presentation to a bunch of homebuilders on ways to choose an avionics suite, more than one kit builder told me he was holding out on buying any avionics for a few years because by the time his project is ready for the electronics, iPads will dominate the panel-mount avionics market. Eh, I’m […]