The Latest

Short of an erroneous forecast or calibration issue with your immersion thermometer, if you can remain below the lowest freezing level during your entire flight, there’s typically no chance for an encounter with airframe ice. Induction ice is certainly possible, but not airframe ice. If you plan an altitude where the temperature aloft is zero […]

A new FAA program should reduce the difficulty of finding spare parts needed to keep vintage aircraft flying, according to the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). The Vintage Aircraft Replacement and Modification Article, or VARMA program, allows maintenance personnel to validate that “low-risk,” off-the-shelf replacement parts are suitable for use in type-certificated aircraft without requiring a […]

Sun n’ Fun’s Paradise City is home to Lakeland-Linder International Airport’s grass strip where homebuilts, ultralights, gyrocopters, LSAs, and the like make their base camp during the week of the Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo’s displays, demos, and flying. It is also the home of the STOL Corral, which this year was open to the […]

Regular readers know I have closely followed the Merlin developments. I use plural because developer Chip Erwin has steadily built this single seat flying machine into a whole fleet of its own. At Sun ‘n Fun we saw a display of three airplanes in different variations. Let’s begin with a focus on the modest cost of Merlin. […]

Picking out a gift for a pilot can always be a challenge, especially when they already have a great headset and flight bag. With graduation season approaching, and Mother’s and Father’s days around the corner, there will be plenty of gifting opportunities for pilots this spring.  Aeroswag, an aviation website that specializes in print on-demand […]

CubCrafters has never made an aircraft powered by a Rotax engine. Images accompanying this article portray their very first example using the 9-series engine in a model intended for production. Most of their factory pilots or dealers have never flown behind a Rotax. Yet Carbon Cub UL is also the first aircraft in the world […]

It’s rare to find a pilot these days who doesn’t rely on a digital service for their flight planning, management, or debriefing. Often that means using multiple platforms—until now.  ForeFlight, a Boeing Company, has announced its acquisition of CloudAhoy, a debriefing software provider. According to a post on the ForeFlight blog, the acquisition was completed […]

During 2023, in only three months, I’ve lost count how many airframe producers have told me a story that goes something like this… “We (some manufacturer) offer two 100-horsepower choices: a Rotax 912ULS (carbureted) and 912iS (fuel injected), plus the new 141-horsepower 915iS (fuel injected, intercooled). Yet everyone is ordering the 915.” More power always […]

Textron Aviation said it agreed to deliver 15 new Cessna 172 Skyhawks to Epic Flight Academy as part of a plan to expand the flight school’s fleet. The companies announced the deal during the recent Sun n’ Fun Aerospace Expo. Epic, based at New Smyrna Beach, Florida (KEVB), has been training pilots since 1999. Its […]

‘Plane & Pilot’ will continue as a monthly print magazine focused on the piston aviation community, available via subscription and on the newsstand.