Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i Flying

THERE ARE SOME aircraft you can read about and see pictures of, but their sheer size still doesn’t hit you until you are up close and personal with them. The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy—the behemoth aircraft designed in the 1960s specifically to carry oversized loads, like the body sections of the Saturn V rocket—is one of those aircraft. During EAA AirVenture 2023 people marveled at the utter magnitude of the Super Guppy’s cargo compartment—a full 25 feet wide and 111 feet long—that is accessed as the entire front end of the aircraft opens laterally on a hinge actuated by an external electric motor. A control lock and disconnect system at the fuselage break allows the nose to be opened a full 110 degrees without disrupting the flight or engine control…

ON A DECEMBER evening, a turboprop Piper Meridian climbed out of Cody, Wyoming, for a 300-mile flight to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The flight must have been a pleasant one for the private pilot, 42, an orthopedic surgeon who lived in Steamboat Springs. He had a 40-knot tailwind at 25,000 feet and made a groundspeed of more than 300 knots. When he left Cody, Steamboat was reporting 4,500 broken and 7 miles. Every reporting station along the route was VFR. The forecast for his arrival called for VFR conditions with some light snow in the vicinity and some mountain obscuration to the east. It was dark when he approached Steamboat Springs. Cleared for the RNAV (GPS)-E approach for Runway 32 at Bob Adams Field (KSBS), he began his descent 20 minutes…

CESSNA CITATION ASCEND Since Citation Excel deliveries began in 1998, Textron Aviation (née Cessna Aircraft) has delivered more than 1,100 units, making it the firm’s most successful jet in its 96-year history. Based on the XLS series, the newest iteration of the model, the Ascend, offers a number of features de-signed to extend the winning streak, including the more fuel efficient Pratt & Whitney Canada PW545D turbo-fans, an upgrade from the Collins Pro Line 21 to Garmin G5000 avionics with standard auto-throttles, increased payload, and more range. Scheduled maintenance intervals have been stretched to 800 flight hours or 18 months, whichever comes first. The Ascend has new and larger flight deck and cabin windows, upgraded passenger seats, and improved acoustical insulation to soak up sound. The 8-inch dropped aisle has…

Though the dawn of electric aircraft rises in the east, we still rely upon piston-powered aircraft to form the backbone of the general aviation fleet. They serve as our primary trainers, recreational weekend flyers, and personal cross-country transport machines as they have since the Continental-powered Piper J3 Cub gained certification in 1938. But as a sign of evolving times, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) aircraft shipment reports now collect electric aircraft under the single-engine piston heading. And in 2022, GAMA recorded a total of 1,366 singles delivered—piston and electric, with 17 of those the Pipistrel Velis Electro, under European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approval as it awaits FAA validation. That’s better than last year’s 1,261 and 2020’s 1,164. Just 158 twins left the hangar in 2022—but that’s up…

EVER SINCE JOHN DOWD, a career crop-spraying pilot, flew his Yak-11 to victory at 376 mph in the Silver race at the National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada, in 2016, he felt the former Russian World War II trainer could do better. Following the race, Dowd was riding a wave of gratification, knowing he had at least set a record for aircraft powered by the Pratt & Whitney R1830 Twin Wasp engine, sourced from a Douglas DC-3. “That was the fastest that engine has ever gone,” he says. And while he is not the type to mention it, his Yak—named Lilya, for Russian wartime fighter pilot hero Lilya Litvyak—made the rest of the field, all North American P-51 Mustangs with legendary Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, look slow. Racing Costs Money…

IF YOU HAD TOLD me when I was 30 years old that someday I would own a Beechcraft Baron, I would have been ecstatic, but incredulous. If you had mentioned the airplane was pressurized and had amazing avionics, I would have been overcome by disbelief and gratitude. If you had asked me last month, my feelings might have been a bit more mixed. It is true that a P-Baron is the best fit for me and my family as I transition from flying our Cessna Citation CJ1 to an airplane that qualifies for BasicMed. I could not find a version of my old love, a Cessna 340, that fit the BasicMed takeoff weight requirement, so the smaller, sportier Baron was the best choice. A fabulous airplane to be sure, but…

The business jet market, paralleling the flight path of the general economy, is leveling off after two years of post-COVID soaring. The flattening is more pause than plateau, says Rolland Vincent, head of the market research and consultant company bearing his name in Plano, Texas. “Nothing surprises me,” says Vincent. “We were on a sugar high in 2021 and 2022, fed by essentially free money. Now with middle single-digit loan rates, we’re getting back to a more normal market.” Adds Ron Epstein, senior equity analyst at Bank of America: “The COVID recovery was kind of a weird thing. We’re getting back to a normal [growth] trajectory pre-COVID.” Rising interest rates haven’t yet been much of a damper on new aircraft sales, as up to 60 percent to 70 percent of…

Employing aviation effectively can bring people together and transport goods quickly, integrating societies around the globe. These are noble and worthy pursuits. Yet as demonstrated by broad participation in art, music, or sport, individuals seek more than practical solutions. Sometimes the activities that inspire us most are those which free our minds and lift our spirits. The aircraft in this portion of FLYING’s Buyers Guide this year might be called “joy machines,” for their mission is to elevate you—physically and emotionally. Welcome to recreational—and, yes, affordable—aviation. To offer a taste of the 158 aircraft the FAA has accepted as special (fully built) light sport aircraft (LSA)—plus more than 100 kit-built models—I’ve divided the subject aircraft into several categories, with three outlined here. These aircraft are good representatives but between them…

WE’VE HAD AN absolutely gorgeous spring and early summer in the Pacific Northwest, and if I had my druthers, I’d spend every glorious moment exploring the area with my pretty blue-and-green 1946 Stinson 108. But it’s been all work and no play for this dull boy, because as of early July, my wife Dawn and I are still not quite moved into our grass-strip hangar/apartment. We’re making great progress, mind you, with the punch list growing steadily shorter and the final inspection drawing closer. The place is really coming together and is becoming exactly the handsome, comfortable little adventure base I envisioned. Our excitement over our impending move has helped keep our noses to the grindstone, even on all these beautiful flying days when we’d rather be airborne. But today…

AT THIS YEAR’S Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) convention, Gary Reeves, aka the “Guy in the Pink Shirt,” indicated that Steve Jobs always wore the same black turtleneck and jeans in public to avoid the effects of “decision fatigue.” Although the statement may be a slight embellishment, it gave me pause for contemplation. Decision fatigue is one of Reeves’ iconic concepts. The theory is that humans, and more importantly pilots, have the capability of making only a finite number of good decisions in one day. Well, I gotta admit not having to choose attire for every trip reduced my preflight workload. Perhaps my less-than-desirable landings at the end of a flight now have an explanation…or at least they have a new basis for rationalization. The decision fatigue theory is just one…

AFTER THE IMPLOSION of the submersible Titan in June, my friend Howard Morland wrote to me: “Cameron said it was ‘insidious’ the way composite carbon fiber materials ‘fail over time.’ This statement made me think of Melmoth 2. Any relevance?” (Cameron being James Cameron, the film director and undersea explorer who was an early and outspoken critic of the Titan project; Melmoth 2 being my homebuilt airplane, whose wing structure consists mainly of carbon fiber composites. An unnamed third party in the drama is Stockton Rush, the designer of Titan and, like me, a selftaught amateur engineer.) Until the investigation of the accident is completed, we will not be certain why the submersible failed. But in case others wondered whether Cameron’s comments apply to carbon-fiber composites in aircraft… Deep-sea submersibles…

SHORTLY AFTER GETTING my private pilot certificate in 1966, I began my real learning in the form of a near-catastrophic mistake. Looking back now, it dawns on me that most of what I know today did not come from the normal, required syllabus training but from life experiences, along with an occasional hair-raising event, one of which I can finally share. Like many pilots, most of my private pilot training took place in a two-place Cessna. My CFI actually weighed a morbidly obese 350 pounds and was in his upper 60s. Were we always overloaded upon takeoff? No, because being a hard-working, skinny, 25-year-old, I carried maybe 120 pounds. My first solo, however, gave me a startling surprise, though, when the Cessna 150 trainer shot up so rapidly…I had just…

The turboprop market cruises along, still propelled by the surge in demand as the world worked its way through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022—though numbers have drawn back slightly. That’s a scenario that’s OK for most OEMs that have struggled with lingering supply chain pain points. *MANUFACTURERS 2024 PRICING; **TYPICALLY EQUIPPED LIST PRICE; OTHERS VALIDATED BY CONKLIN & DEDECKER; SUBJECT TO CHANGE In 2022, a total of 505 single-engine turboprops (SETs) were delivered, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), besting the 2021 and 2020 totals of 455 and 381, respectively. That’s a healthy market that should continue, even as pressure from the war in Ukraine continues in Europe with aftershocks globally. On the multiengine side, a total of 77 units went out the door in 2022,…

WHILE AN APPROACH to minimums in a light twin may leave you with your hands full, most pilots recognize the path to proficiency and success in this scenario. What may not be as clear—if you don’t come from a finance background—is how to turn the dream of owning an airplane into reality. As FLYING Media Group expands its portfolio of services to pilots, it recently acquired Sky Allies Capital, a nimble player in the aviation finance market, to help our readers find the path to aircraft ownership. Now, as FLYING Financial Group (FFG), the team we’re bringing on board will assist pilots in transitioning to owners, whether the deal is for a light sport airplane or a super-midsize jet. We sat down with Josh Colton, founder of Sky Allies…

THERE’S AN OLD JOKE THAT GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS: How do you know if someone is a pilot? They will tell you. As aviators we like to let everyone know, not only our own ability but that of our airplanes. We are proud of our dispatch reliability rate, the utility they afford, the ease of travel, and the time saved not standing in a TSA line. And we would love to tell you all about it in great detail. And yet, for all that talk, we don’t always communicate very well with our passengers when describing risk. We don’t want to scare the deer. Or show our airplane’s shortcomings. Or our own. But, yes, our little airplanes really do offer up all that utility. Add a Garmin suite of avionics…

MOST PEOPLE THINK that Icarus, human son of the Greek god Daedalus, crashed because wax that coated and formed his feathered wings melted when he soared too close to the sun. But, actually, his retracted legs got glued in the sticky mess, and he couldn’t get his gear down. Thus, the first of many gear-up arrivals. I was a kid hanging out in the old Lunken Airport control tower the first time I saw one…and it was pretty spectacular. It was the mid-’60s, and a derelict B-25 was heading for the airport with a cabin full of reptiles. Really! Some “wild kingdom” exhibition opening downtown was evidently in financial distress and badly needed to attract a good, paying audience. The pilot called far enough out and told the tower about…

THE AIR RACES at Reno, Nevada, have graced FLYING’s cover since 1964 when the magazine first ran a preview to the renewal of National Championship Air Races at what was then the Reno Sky Ranch. The hotly contested Unlimited and “midget and biplane” classes were among those to put up significant numbers that year, with the Unlimiteds running a five-pylon circuit and the smaller aircraft a two-pylon closed racecourse inside it. The ACME Special (above) is a Cassutt IIIM, originally built in 1978, destined for the F1 Class. Matt Moore acquired the project in 2017, and it was raced in 2018 at Reno and Wuhan, China, with Jason Barksdale flying. Moore took over flying duties in 2019 and 2021. Race No. 72 now resides with Dominic Cacolici of St. Petersburg,…