“My plan is not to plan.” These are the words and advice that Colin Hales offers to would-be adventurers who are toying with the idea of flying their airplane around the world. “Just get in your airplane and go — figure it out along the way,” he adds.
The Groppo Trail: The LSA world’s best kept secret
The Trail is available as a ready-to-fly LSA with the Rotax 912 ULS. Price with the standard panel is $74,900, while it is $77,900 with the electronic panel.
Teenager restores vintage plane to award-winning condition
Most people spend their teenage years planning their future. But Dillon Barron, who just turned 20 in June, spent a good portion of his teen years with an eye to the past as he restored a 1950’s-era Cessna 170B to fresh-from-the-factory condition.
Flying Just Aircraft’s SuperSTOL Stretch XL
How do you improve on a popular backcountry aircraft design? If you are the folks at Just Aircraft, you make it larger and with the ability to support a more powerful engine. That best describes Just Aircraft’s SuperSTOL Stretch XL. The red high-wing, tailwheel-equipped airplane mounted on tundra tires stole the show when it debuted […]
Educating the public — and pilots — about RPAs
Can you imagine ordering an aircraft off the Internet, then learning to fly it by trial and error without knowledge of physics, weather or airspace? That’s what’s happening when people buy Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), also referred to as drones or unmanned aerial systems (UAS). These non-commercial RPAs can range in size from under five […]
Wrong frequency, wrong runway
The student pilot reported that he was flying the Piper Cherokee from Oklahoma to California in pursuit of employment opportunities. During that trip, he attempted a night landing at an unattended airport in Cottonwood, Ariz., in order to refuel.
Solberg Airport wins in court
Score one for Solberg-Hunterdon Airport (KN51), the embattled privately owned, public use airport in Readington Township, New Jersey. On May 4, Superior Court Judge Paul W. Armstrong dismissed the township’s lawsuit to acquire the development rights to the airport through eminent domain.
VFR into IFR kills two
The private pilot had logged 175.7 hours, including18.1 hours in the Cessna 182 prior to the crash. He obtained an abbreviated weather briefing, filed an IFR flight plan and took off on a cross-country flight to Fredericksburg, Texas. The pilot was accompanied by his wife. The purpose of the flight was to celebrate their wedding […]
Slow approach leads to fatal stall
The private pilot of the Cessna 170, 59, had logged 476.2 total flight hours, including 432.1 hours in the Cessna 170, including 3.75 hours in the previous 90 days. A friend of the pilot said he saw the Cessna 170 enter the traffic pattern at the airport in Auburn, Calif., but didn’t watch the full […]
Cub strikes power lines
The instructor pilot and a student were flying in the Piper J3-Cub near Selma N.C., when the CFI attempted to make a landing on a grass strip.
Poor planning leads to off airport landing
The owner of the Cessna 182 and a flight instructor departed on a 90-minute flight, which included multiple practice takeoffs and landings at three different airports.
Student pilot lands short
The student pilot was making an approach to the airport at Newcastle, Wyo., in a Cessna 172. When the airplane was about 20 feet above ground level and about 15 feet short of the approach end of the runway, it began to sink.