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Although not cheap to operate, the Aztec is exceptionally affordable to buy. Some models boast a ton of useful load.

After the wreck, itll be too late to consider whether your hull value is too high or too low. Heres how to get it just right.

The new centurys aviation success story hits the used market. Look for good buys on relatively recent models.

When a gyro rolls over and dies, should you fix it or buy a new one? Making sense of repair, overhaul and replacement options.

An affordable cabin-class twin made in wide model variation. Watch for a long AD list and high maintenance costs.

A classic taildragger straight from the 1930s, but with modern antecedents. Even later models are relatively inexpensive and the airplane remains in production as a light sport offering.

The choices are staggering when re-doing the panel in a high-performance airplane. Advice: make a list of the must-haves then pare that down to suit the budget.

[IMGCAP(1)]by Paul Bertorelli

When Bonanza owner Larry Hofmeister told us he had intended to ride out the vicious winds of Hurricane Charley in his hangar at Punta Gorda, Florida last August, we thought hed lost touch with reality. Were as fond of our airplane as the next guy but babysitting it through a Category 4 hurricane doesnt rise to the top of our to-do list.

Yet when Hofmeister arrived at the airport the day after, both his Bonanza and the hangar that housed it sat serene and intact amidst a scene of utter destruction elsewhere at Punta Gorda, with some 150 aircraft smashed to scrap metal by Charleys fierce 130-MPH-plus winds. The first question is glaringly obvious…

[IMGCAP(1)]If you want to go fast in an airplane and still grasp a thin straw of efficiency, you’ll also need to fly high. And to do that, you’ll have to make a choice: stick an oxygen hose in your nose or pay for the convenience of pressurization. Of course, if pressurization were easy and cheap, every airplane would have it. Few do and in the single-engine realm, there are only two choices: Cessnas P210 and the Piper Malibu.

Pressurizing anything, let alone a single, is fraught with difficulty. Part of it comes in the form of mechanical woes-the engines are short-lived, often don’t make it to TBO and they cost a lot to overhaul. Pressurization adds another complex system to maintain a…

[IMGCAP(1)]In times like these, I wish I hadnt snoozed through Mrs. Websters ninth-grade American lit class, at least the part where those more attentive than I-basically everybody-learned about the man-against-nature plot device. Given the events of the past six weeks-four major hurricanes pounding Florida and who knows what brewing-I could at least manufacture some entertaining fiction out of the entirely implausible tropical season unfolding.

Not that irony is in short supply. There’s something amusingly twisted about a knot of office workers clustered around a computer terminal browsing satellite images and arguing about outflow patterns and cloud top temps. Up north, you put a cou…

With an Avidyne glass panel, the 6X brings the Cherokee Six to state of the art. Load carrying and comfort are excellent but we pine for electrical back-up.

Wet vacuum pumps were once standard until cheaper-not necessarily better-dry pumps displaced them. Airwolf aims to make the wet design the Alpha dog of vacuum.