There’s no top of this list of planes they totally need to bring back, but if there were, the Tiger would be right up there. The four-seat, all-metal, roll-back canopy low-winger was one of the greatest accomplishments of the late Jim Bede’s aircraft design legacy. It was revolutionary—its unassuming looks fool people into thinking it’s plain vanilla, but it’s got a free-castoring nosewheel, bonded wing skins and lightweight, expanded-aluminum airframe structures. And it flew great. Introduced by American Aviation of Yankee fame, the AA-5 first flew in the summer of 1970 and had its first keys tossed to a customer the next year, but the first model called the Tiger hit the airways a few years later. By then, it had gotten the correct engine, the 180-hp Lycoming, which gave it the kind of Skylane-level cruise speeds and sprightly climb performance that made owners fall in love with it. I flew one for a few years. It might be my favorite airplane ever. Nostalgia, perhaps, but it’s a great ride. Surprisingly roomy, visibility to die for, low maintenance costs and a great instrument platform. No fewer than five different companies have signed up to build the Tiger after their predecessors shut the hangar doors. It’s currently not in production, and with 3,282 built over 35 years (with several long pauses along the way), there really aren’t that many out there. Bring it back!
