Splog

While you continue digesting FAA’s 318-page thriller on Mosaic, here’s a fun aircraft that does not have to spend even one minute meeting those new rules. I’ve written about the Part 103-compliant Dingo from Future Flight before (this article) but the delightful biplane is now entering production. Tom Peghiny of Flight Design USA fame, wrote, […]

Whenever I write about FAA’s Mosaic regulation, especially when I mentioned the date they predicted, a substantial percentage of all readers shrug this off, believing that FAA will never complete it on time. What if I told you they were ahead of schedule? Is that an unbelievable claim? Perhaps, but the proof is right here, […]

Can you hear it? Do you notice pilots all around you preparing for the annual pilgrimage to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for AirVenture 2023? Preflights happening. Engines firing up. Courses set on the EFIS. We’re off to the biggest aviation week of the year! One pre-show announcement came from one of our most stable and long-lived producers […]

Naturally, sharp-eyed ByDanJohnson.com readers already know about Chip’s big idea. See this article; scroll down. What you didn’t know is that this idea was unique enough to win a patent. That’s uncommon in recreational aviation, though, of course, an idea like this may go far beyond sport flying. Chip Erwin is one of those restless […]

A dozen years ago, fixed wing pilots thought very little about “gyrocopters” — as some people called them. Actually that word is a model name established by Igor Bensen, widely thought of as the father of this activity along with Juan de la Cierva of Spain, known for his pioneering autogyro work. The preferred term […]

If you listen to perpetually-excited media, air taxis will soon be shuttling people hither and yon in all the big cities of the globe. Executives and shoppers will be whisked around downtown skyscrapers silently, quietly, swiftly, and the cost will be modest. Do you buy all that? I’m not holding my breath. Oh, these air […]

When this series started, Icon’s shapely A5 LSA seaplane topped the list. Handsome as it is and like most seaplanes, A5 is not particularly fast. The subject of this second in the series of 50 aircraft is Porto Aviation’s Risen. You might say it is on the other end of the speed spectrum Risen rips! […]

My most ambitious series ever is a showcase of the best of the best. In this series beginning right now, I will explore dozens of top videos made by my partner-in-movies, Videoman Dave, known properly as Dave Loveman. The videos aren’t my picks or his, though. They’re yours! In each article, I will go beyond […]

From dawn to dusk, we hear how electric propulsion is going to save the Earth. Whatever your belief about the hazards of fossil fuel, electric propulsion is coming. When is another matter. Air taxi ventures based on multicopter designs are drinking up funds by the tens or hundreds millions of dollars, probably billions by now. […]

It was one of those fortuitous incidents. For my next subject aircraft, I chose the Altus motorglider because this particular aircraft was personally intriguing to me. I enjoy soaring, gliders, and therefore motorgliders. However, it’s not an ego thing. Motorgliders have a very special niche in American aviation. I’ll get to that below. What made […]