Despite pilots most intense desires, airplane components wear out. Fortunately for their wallets, the major stuff on general aviation airplanes that are hangared and flown a few hundred hours a year-the airframe parts and pieces-should last the better part of a century. Along those lines, the things used by pilots to see through portions of the airframe, the windows, generally have a useful life measured in decades.
In previous Aviation Consumer evaluations, Icoms A22 portable comm transceiver got high marks for durability, reliability and ease of use. After nearly a decade of use and abuse, a vintage A22 soldiers on in our own flight bag. We like the Icom portables in part because a radio used for emergency backup should be easy to use in a pinch. Plus, it must have a simple feature set when used as a primary radio in lesser equipped aircraft.
Its axiomatic that four-place airplanes are flown with two or three seats empty for most trips. But its just as true that some owners want not just four seats, but a bunch of payload even beyond that. Thats why we have the Cessna 182 and the Piper PA-28-235/236 series. That there arent many of the latter suggests that owners hungry for hauling are a fraction of the market, at least for Piper.
The first of Cessna models to be built in volume was the diminutive Cessna 140, followed a month later by a stripped-down version called the 120. At the time, the Cessna 120/140s were perfectly serviceable and practical two-place airplanes. They were reasonably priced to buy and economical to own. There was a reason for that.
To date, even the lowest-priced mandate-compliant ADS-B Out solutions require opening the airframe for a major installation. Whether installing a remote ADS-B transmitter or a new transponder, its realistic to plan on nearly two days of shop time. In round numbers, that could mean a $1600 invoice-just for labor. But not with the uAvionix skyBeacon, a bolt-on, two-wire solution.
As a Lake owner with 25 years experience flying it from South Florida to all corners of the continent, I would like to correct certain information published about Lake amphibians in the September 2017 Aviation Consumer. Some of my quotes in that review were made over 10 years ago and deserve a refresh.
The logical alternative to circumaural (over the ear) and supra-aural (on top of the ear) headsets is an in-ear design. These are basically ear buds attached to a thin head frame that also accommodates a traditional microphone. Their purpose is obvious and simple, which is to allow more freedom and comfort than you might experience wearing a traditional headset.
Its routine: We get in, strap in without thinking about it and beginning running the checklist. Putting on and tightening up the restraint system is probably the most basic of automatic tasks any of us do as pilots-without the reassuring pressure of the belt and shoulder harness attaching our torso to the airplane, most of us wouldnt hit the starter.
If point-of-view or action cams are as common as iPads in the modern cockpit, buyers may be getting a little bored with the ordinary flat footage they produce. Enter the 360 camera, a gadget that literally has eyes in the back of its head. The 360 market hasnt exactly exploded, but there are a half dozen to pick from, with more on the way.
At nearly every airport you’ll find aircraft that havent flown in years. Some are hidden in private hangars, some are stashed in the corners of maintenance shop hangars and some are ramp derelicts that are begging for rescue from the harsh elements. Is it worth getting involved with these neglected birds given the number of airworthy ones on the current market? The short answer is maybe, but only with the right approach and a healthy dose of realism. Hint: Seldom is there a great deal.
Someone just flipped the switch and shut off summer. Aircraft owners who live in the temperate climes are preparing their machines for the demands of winter. Unless those owners have been living under a rock, they know that part of that preparation involves figuring out a way to start the engine when the frost is on the pumpkin because they know that firing it up in very cold weather, without some form of preheat, can do a lot of damage to the engine.
It wasnt long ago that subscription-based satellite broadcast weather systems lost traction in a market flooded with ADS-B weather receivers. WSI is canceling its InFlight data service at the end of this year and Avidyne discontinued the MLB700 Sirius weather receiver. This leaves Garmin as the dominant supplier of SiriusXM (SXM) weather receivers.
