More and more pilots show up on the AME’s doorstep armed with the wrong or not enough paperwork to pass an FAA medical exam. That could be mean waiting a half year or more for the FAA to issue a medical when you could have been issued a certificate on the spot if you only […]
For a fee, this new third-party aeromedical consultation service could be the key to seamless FAA medical certification.
In a connected world with everyone wearing earbuds, it’s logical to consider an in-ear headset for the cockpit. Although they aren’t for everyone, if you haven’t tried them, you should. While flagship ANR models from Bose and Lightspeed deliver big on comfort and performance, we’ve long appreciated the freedom and decent audio quality from a […]
Keep a straight face. Couldn’t do it, could you? This subject is proof positive that every pilot’s idea of humor effectively stopped developing as a four-year-old making potty jokes. We’ll go further than making fun of discomfort and express our concern that the pressing need for a bathroom may we’ll be a safety of flight […]
When the dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in mid-March 2020, airline bookings shortly fell off a cliff and the rest of the aviation industry held its breath. And sure enough, the phones stopped ringing in the finance offices where aircraft loans originate. Prospects seemed even grimmer than during the 2008 deep recession. But within […]
Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of the Evektor Sportstar. We had (past tense) several of them here in southern Indiana, and I administered a lot of checkrides in the Sportstar. I believe that the Sportstar is a major player in the LSA community, with a couple hundred of them flying in the U.S. At one point I think they were the third most numerous LSA, behind Flight Design and Legend. That would put them in the middle of the pack of the ones you considered. And I know the Sportstar had its share of accidents. Why did you omit the Evektor from your accident statistics?
Any owner with the financial wherewithal to step into the world of aircraft with engines that go whoosh is smart enough to immediately talk the idea over with his or her insurance broker. In addition to getting a ballpark estimate for the cost to insure a used King Air, Citation Mustang or new HondaJet, one of the first things the prospective owner will hear from the broker is that any insurer is going to require upgrade training at a facility approved by the insurer.
In our July issue we published a survey of some of the tugs on the market that are suitable for moving airplanes weighing less than 6000 pounds. We reported on 20 tugs put out by seven manufacturers and found that electric models had come to dominate the field. We somehow managed to overlook one manufacturer: Best Tugs (www.besttugs.com) of Spanish Fork, Utah. Best Tugs offers three sophisticated electric tugs that fall within our under-6000-pound area of interest.
Bad Elf also suggested that flyGarmin customers who want to use the Wombat wait until the subscription has expired and then switch to the Jeppesen JDM because the cost is nearly the same and it will allow them to use the Wombat for remote avionics data updates. Worth mentioning is that Garmins Flight Stream 510 wireless card that performs a similar function (plus a variety of other ones, including flight plan transfer and data overlay) is in the $1500 price range, compared to the $250 Wombat piston model.
The panel will come on with the master avionics power, but the small rotary knob serves double duty as a power control (its a push-in-and-hold switch to eliminate inadvertent power cycles) and pilot/copilot intercom volume. The larger knob is for passenger volume. Green LED bars to the left of the knobs illuminate when you turn the knobs, showing relative volume. The volume controls are linear throughout the range and there was more than enough gain through our Bose A20 headset.
In each July issue of Aviation Consumer we pick 12 products, services or companies that were standouts over the editorial year. You know, the best of the best. We don’t take our Editors Choice Gear of the Year awards lightly, but when we handed the keys to Cirrus Jet N52CV back over to Cirrus Matt Bergwall after flying it halfway across the country (and spending a couple of days on the factory production floor) we knew we had this years winner.
I saw your editorial and video coverage on Aspens new E5 low-cost EFIS. While I was initially excited, Im struck at how familiar this seems. The new Aspen Evolution E5 is basically Aspens 1000 VFR model with an approved TruTrak autopilot interface and also an updated processor so that it runs faster. It might be cheaper than the old entry-level display (I don’t recall the price) but I don’t see the VFR model on Aspens website anymore.
