Quest Aircraft’s Kodiak has successfully completed its 50th flight, just three months after the airplane took its maiden flight. With 40 flight hours on the prototype, the company is approaching its formal certification flight test program. The utility aircraft has successfully flown at maximum gross weight as well as in various CG scenarios, including extremes […]
Let’s Talk: What we have here is a failure to communicate
Aviation must learn to speak with one voice, writes Steve Bill Hanshew elsewhere in this issue of General Aviation News. It is a theme which we have tried to nurture in the past, with little to show for it. We still think it a good — indeed a vital — idea. Hanshew cites the National […]
Less than a warm welcome
I too, like Brian Sheets, have less than a “warm welcome” for the Sport Pilot certificate. I believe that when you have three government agencies, DOT, OMB and the FAA, very seldom does anything good come of it. Sport Pilot is an example of government at its finest. Take something simple and make it complicated. […]
Sport Pilot Safe Pilot
In the Letters to the Editor in the Dec. 10 issue, Brian Sheets of Beaverton, Ore., presents his grave concerns about the potential disaster that will befall all of us after people have availed themselves of the advantages of the Sport Pilot Rule (Sport Pilot: A disaster waiting to happen). On the other hand, I […]
Get the word out
I’m a GA mechanic in southeastern Ohio and I work for an outfit that owns two PA-28-181 Archer IIIs, a 1995 model and a 1996 model. Both are equipped with a Lycoming O-360-A4M and a 10-5193 carburetor. The most recent revision to the TCDS 2A13 shows a specific requirement for a 10-6102 carburetor for that […]
Growing the next generation
I read the articles on youth in aviation in your Dec. 10 edition with interest. I especially enjoyed the five tips on being an ambassador from Mr. Larkins and his point that the education needs to be ongoing. In the 20 years I have been instructing I have flown with many young people on “intro […]
Planes and parks can share space
n the Dec. 10, 2004, issue, Meg Godlewski noted that the city of Chicago’s director of planning and development had stated that “There are no parks where airstrips are a compatible use” (Can planes and parks share space?) In fact, an excellent example of such peaceful coexistence is the relationship between the city of Palo […]
An inspiration
I wanted to thank you for Meg Godlewski’s article about Rob Drake and Christy Helgeson, which ran in the Christmas Eve issue. Thanks for showcasing the diversity of our aviation community. At the risk of sounding clichéd, it is an inspiration to read about Rob’s passion for flight, and how his circumstances aren’t getting in […]
Say again
I enjoyed reading Meg Godlewski’s article about Rob Drake and his instructor, Christy Helgeson (Say Again Rob: Deaf student pilot takes to the skies over Seattle, Dec. 24, 2004, issue). I’m deaf myself, but I have the benefit of a cochlear implant. When I got my third class medical in 2001, I was profoundly deaf […]