Now at Aircraft Spruce is the PropPastie, a new style spinner cover, designed to minimize snow, ice, and water from lying on your propeller hub and bearings and freezing inside your spinner. PropPastie fits all light aircraft. The proper way to position a propeller in the winter is to have a blade vertical on the bottom to […]
Hawker 800XPR certified
Hawker Beechcraft Global Customer Support (GCS) has received FAA approval and supplemental type certification of the Hawker 800XPR powered by the Honeywell TFE731-50R engines. The upgrade package, available exclusively through factory-owned Hawker Beechcraft Services (HBS) facilities, offers performance and capability improvements by replacing the aircraft’s original engines with new technology TFE731-50R powerplants and improved aerodynamics […]
Vaughn College taps Kaplan for new initiative
Vaughn College in Flushing, N.Y., has appointed Ken Kaplan to head its newly created Aviation Outreach Initiative. A pilot since age 16, Kaplan has been a publisher and trade show producer, chief executive of three businesses and most recently an executive with King Schools, a leader in aviation distance learning. In his new position, he […]
Camp returns to Elliott Aviation
Andrew Camp has re-joined Elliott Aviation as regional sales manager, based in Grand Rapids, Mich. Camp, who served as regional sales manager for Elliott Aviation from the company’s Omaha, Neb., facility from 2009 to 2010, has more than 21 years’ experience in the aviation industry. He most recently worked as a regional sales manager for […]
Poor fuel management leads to off-airport landing
This August 2009 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others. Aircraft: Mooney M20F Injuries: 1 Serious. Location: Suffolk, Va. Aircraft damage: Substantial. What reportedly happened: According to the pilot, when he took off the fuel […]
Knock free
In one of my recent columns I stated that if an engine runs knock free on an 87 octane fuel, using a higher octane fuel will not benefit you in any way. I received several inquiries about whether this was for automobiles or airplanes. Basically it applies to both. In your automobile, if the owner’s […]
Avgas production lower than reported
While searching for recent usage stats for auto gas and ethanol production I stumbled across this table in the EIA data. I had never seen this table before when analyzing avgas stats. What an eye opener! The first thing that struck me as odd is that there is no avgas produced in PADD 1, which […]
Proposal to fix flaw in Sport Pilot rule
The FAA has posted to the federal docket a petition that seeks to fix a flaw in the original Sport Pilot Rule. The petition, signed by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), and the National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI), seeks to fix […]
Race pilot performs aerobatic routine on alternative avgas
Matthias Dolderer, a Red Bull Air Race pilot and co-organizer of the Tannkosh airshow presented an aerobatics display Aug. 24 with his engine running on the new SwiftFuel 100SF — a first in aviation history, according to Swift officials, who note this was also the European debut of a single engine aircraft running on biofuel. […]