Home : Plane & Pilot Past Issues : April 2008

Plane & Pilot Past Issues

Aircraft

$1,000 Per Month Airplane
An affordable way to own
by Barron Thomas Because response to Plane & Pilot’s “$500 Per Month?” article [October 2007] was so overwhelming, we decided to take the idea to the next level.
2008 Piper Malibu Matrix PA46-350
Airplanes, Cars—What’s the Difference?
What you need to know, on the road and in the air
by Tim Kern
What’s the difference between car (or motorcycle) engines and aircraft engines? It’s a perennial question with a series of stock answers, none of which is sufficient.

Flying Into The Future

Behind the Bonanza’s anniversary makeover

by James Wynbrandt

Baby boomers can appreciate the urge to have a little work done as a milestone birthday approaches: tone up the body, smooth out a few wrinkles, all to reflect the youthful zest we still feel in our hearts. So when Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC, formerly Raytheon Aircraft) prepared for the Bonanza’s 60th birthday, celebrated last year, the company decided a makeover was in order.

Hawker Beechcraft G36 Bonanza

Piper Matrix: The Pressure Is Off

Piper unveils its take on a turbocharged, four-place single—with two extra seats

by Bill Cox

Marathon Key gleams in the late-afternoon sunshine. It’s like an emerald in Florida’s highway of island pearls, which dot Route 1 from Miami to Key West. Marshmallow cumulus graze on the rainbow of color beneath us. The Caribbean waters translate from jade and lime green to a myriad of blues—sapphire near the land to azure offshore to indigo and navy in the deep.

Project 182, Part I

Let’s say you own a 1981 Cessna Skylane with adequate avionics, an old paint job and a pedestrian interior, but want to increase capability and safety. What would you do first?

by Bill Cox

Here at Plane & Pilot, we seem to enjoy lavishing full rebuilds on old Skylanes. Back in the late ’70s, I found and negotiated the purchase of a 1963 Skylane for the magazine as a reader project airplane. A few years ago, ex-editor Lyn Freeman purchased our current project airplane, yet another C182.

Proficiency

The Ugly Side Of Spring

Winter hasn’t released its icy grip yet

Whether Punxsutawney Phil sees his own shadow or not, winter is losing its death grip. But it isn’t dead yet. Widespread icing still exists during the transition months of March and April. Gulf moisture, warmer temperatures and an overactive jet stream guarantees that convective SIGMETs will begin to spring out of hibernation. With temperatures slowly on the rise, you need to tailor your briefings to focus on key weather products that track the vernal transition.

Products

April 2008 Readback by The Editors

Aviat Aircraft announced that the first Husky A-1C is on the flight line; it will be delivered to a buyer in Wichita, Kans. The new 200 hp model has strengthened main and tailwheel gear components and a total gross weight of 2,200 pounds. Other changes include a lowered angle of incidence for the horizontal stabilizer and a new tachometer.

Lightspeed Zulu

So comfortable and quiet, you’ll want to experience it beyond the airplane

I first learned about the Lightspeed Zulu from a friend at the Reno Air Races last September. He was as pleased as he could be, enough so that he seemed like a walking advertisement for the product. I was a little skeptical about the durability of a Lightspeed headset in my aerobatic Edge 540, but he insisted it was truly great and described a change that had occurred within the company. Lightspeed has always focused on providing a good value headset with great comfort and outstanding customer service, but now they have such a high-quality piece of equipment that there’s little need to use their world-class service department. The active noise-reduction (ANR) headset includes features such as Bluetooth wireless capability, an audio-in jack for MP3 players and leather ear seals.

Pilot Talk

From The Editor: Cars & Planes
Safety skills transcend both
by Jeff Berlin About a year ago, I was driving north on the 405, a freeway in Los Angeles that’s usually a huge, 10-lane parking lot unless it’s during the wee hours or a weekend. It was nighttime and I was probably scooting along at about 80 when I saw a flash of lights in my rearview mirror. My heart skipped a beat, though traffic often moves that fast on the freeway. I reflexively let up on the gas and looked back again. This time, there wasn’t just one police car, but many, in pursuit of a single vehicle, not a police car, closing on me fast. I darted rather urgently to the innermost lane as a white Honda or Toyota, followed by about seven police cars, passed me like I was standing still—and I was only down to about 70. I thought, “Welcome to Los Angeles, land of the car chase.”

LSA Safety

Analyzing some recently investigated accident statistics

by Peter Katz

We seem to be at the dawn of a new era of hope for general aviation’s future with the steadily increasing popularity of light-sport aircraft (LSA). For many, the light-sport license is a lower-cost entry into the pilot community. For others, the ability to use a driver’s license in lieu of an FAA medical certificate offers a way to continue flying as long as it’s possible to self-certify that there’s no medical condition that would stand in the way of safely performing light-sport pilot duties. For everyone, an LSA’s lower fuel consumption offers hope that the cost of the $50 fly-in hamburger may someday really drop back to $50—something we haven’t seen in years!

Safety—A Tough Sell

Blame it on pilot error

by Bill Cox

Woody was one of those pilots we all thought would live forever. He was something of a legend in the ferry-flying community: an aviator who had been everywhere in pretty much everything, had never wrecked an airplane and seemed to live a charmed life. A former African missionary, he was a friend for 20 years who knew more about flying the world than anyone else I had ever met, and we all assumed he was invulnerable to the dangers of ferry flying.

The Four Aviation Food Groups

Man does not live by cross-country alone

by Budd Davisson

Balanced aviation nutrition is like nutrition of all types in that it has to support and nurture the body, the soul and the mind, but not necessarily in that order. Without it, the entity that is the aviator will, if not wither and die, at least not realize his full potential. The aviator’s growth, thinking and spirit will be stunted, and he or she will probably not even realize it. To maintain an aviator’s body and mind in peak condition, it’s essential that it be fed the proper balance of nutrition from each of the four basic av-food groups.

Travel

LightHawk: The Truth From Above

Making a big difference with little airplanes

by Rick Durden

Among the earliest things we learned during our initial flying lessons, just after we sorted out the challenge of flying both straight and level at the same time, was that the view of our planet from an aircraft was utterly captivating and that the world was laid open in a fashion we had never imagined. The stunning sights we saw from aloft were the first things we described to our nonflying friends in our excitement at learning to fly.

News

April 2008 NOTAMS
Plane & Pilot’s Guide to aviation's most current promotional deals
by Staff In aviation, the learning process never ends. Sporty’s Air Facts DVDs address this fact with host Richard L. Collins, a renowned aviation journalist with thousands of hours of GA experience. In each program, Collins presents the knowledge acquired through years of real-world flying and teaches you how to apply the same veteran techniques and skills. Thirty-three informative programs on nine DVDs teach you to manage the risks of flight and increase flight safety. Order through Sporty’s and pay just $110 (cut from $225) for the whole series.