I spent the weekend up in Susanville with some friends. We departed out of Oxnard Airport on Friday and apparently made the front page of the newspaper as we did so: That’s our Skylane in the background. According to the newspaper article, the Warrior in the foreground had experienced an engine failure after takeoff and the pilot elected to return… Read more →
Month: May 2006
The End of the Line
Another nail in the coffin of Southern California’s once rich aviation community. A friend writes about the end of the line — literally — at Long Beach: I witnessed the final death blow this morning as the last MD-717 lifted off and departed for delivery to the customer, TransAir. Unless a miracle occurs it will be the last jet airliner ever… Read more →
Jet Powered Volkswagon
Forget that sport pilot stuff. If I ever lose my medical, I’m building one of these: Even Bubb Rubb wouldn’t be able to handle this thing. According to the builder: This is a street-legal jet car. The car has two engines: the production gasoline engine in the front driving the front wheels and the jet engine in the back. The idea is that… Read more →
Time Machine
With four million people living in Orange County, there are undoubtedly quite a few folks who make the drive from Santa Ana to Carlsbad on a daily basis. I’m not sure how long it takes. Traffic being what it is, anywhere between 90 minutes and two hours seems like a reasonable estimate. Figure three to four hours for the round trip in a car. I… Read more →
Econo-maniac
Dan writes about fuel economy experiments in his RV-7. It’s interesting that he managed to get 35.4 statute miles per gallon out of his airplane. With a slight headwind, no less. I’ve never seen more than about 20 mpg out of a Cirrus, even with a tailwind. That’s on par with far draggier airplanes like the strut-braced Skylane. For such… Read more →
Glass Panel Failures
I recently returned from Duluth, MN, where I had the pleasure of picking up a brand new Cirrus SR22 from the factory. The experience left me feeling that we’re becoming a bit too complacent about the miracle of glass avionics. During the obligatory tour of the Cirrus plant, I was surprised to learn that starting with the 2006 models, they no longer manufacture airplanes… Read more →
Avgas Prices
Think it’s expensive to fill up your car? According to AirNav, aviation fuel is now running as high as $6.79 a gallon. Yes, you read that right. We’re pushing seven dollars per gallon. Anyone want to take a guess about how high it will go? Eight dollars? Ten? Assuming a fuel flow of 30 gallons per hour on takeoff, an SR22 would… Read more →