Flying Magazine

Cage Match: Piper Matrix Versus Antique Cessna Cabin Class Twins

When I wrote my flight report/review of the new Piper Matrix, I knew I would be in for some grief. Moreover--unlike in real life--this time I knew precisely what form that grief would take.

The biggest complaint would be that the Matrix was a value reduced Mirage, merely an unblown version. This is largely true, but it's funny how people are offended when features are subtracted and the price is lowered when they're not phased at all by features being added and the price ballooning. Would I prefer a Mirage over a Matrix? Sure, if I could afford it, but even then not if I couldn't buy insurance for it. I pretty much dismissed those complaints. I mean what can you say when people are offended by what a product isn't? It's like saying that Diet Coke is a scam because for the same price you can buy Coke and get the sugar included. People have different wants and needs. I say, let the market decide, which is what Piper is doing, and the market seems to be saying, "good call."

Super Pilots, Risks, Rewards and Flying with Precision

I was at an Oshkosh get together last year, yakking away with some friends about G1000 that and Entegra this when I noticed that the eyes on this one guy standing with us starting glazing over.

"What?" I asked him.

It was nothing, he assured me, except that we seemed to be talking more about computer programming than about flying.

He was right.

Let me clarify that this guy is no ordinary pilot. He makes his living wracking himself and his airplane into ungodly configurations at airshows around the country, and in his "off time" he teaches innocent people how to do likewise. I'm not exaggerating to say that he lives for that stuff.

Which is all well and good, but let me clarify: he's a freak.

Will LSAs Fuel a New Growth in Aviation?

I don't know if there are any statistics on exactly who is buying light airplanes these days, but anecdotally, it sure seems to be a different kind of buyer than it was when my dad owned airplane dealerships (Cessna and Piper) in Southern California in the 1970s. Back then, new airplane buyers were not a whole lot different from new car buyers, except that they liked airplanes.

Today, everything is different, and people who sell airplanes, at least those who've been selling airplanes long enough to remember, know that.

The New Innovators: Cessna? by Robert Goyer

Ten years ago a small, nimble, entrepreneurial company called Cirrus Design began to make a name for itself by doing small airplane stuff differently, things like installing whole-airplane parachutes in every airplane; pioneering the low end of the flat-panel market (kudos to Avidyne on that count, too); and almost single-handedly legitimizing the fixed-gear high-performance market. Make no mistake: Cirrus has been great for innovation.

But there's a new leading player in that game to give the folks from Duluth some competition in that regard, and, surprise, surprise, it's Cessna, the old, staid, button-down mega corporate player who, over the last few years, has shown that it's in the little airplane game not just to participate but to compete to win, and it's doing that by changing the way it does business at the light end of the market.

NBAA Report: Jet Makers Do the Redo. And it's hot.

The 2007 edition of the National Business Aviation Association Convention in Atlanta is just finishing up, and the takeaway from it reaches in every conceivable direction of the aviation spectrum. I'll have more to say about many of those things in future posts, but the one note I wanted to make right now is that there were no new airplanes announced, though Adam did announce a new bathroom (hooray for good lavs) and Honda announced new paint schemes. Is that a first? Probably not, but it's the first time it's happened in a while.

And there's a really good reason for it, too.

ADS-B Contract Awarded: Will FAA/Industry get this one right? Robert Goyer

I've got to hand it to outgoing administrator Marion Blakey. She's got, what's the expression, gumption? Something like that. At the annual avionics show (AEA) in Reno last spring, Blakey had the unenviable task of standing up before a group that consisted almost exclusively of GA types, shop owners, avionics techs and manufacturers, and the GA working press, like me, and  with a straight face tell us that user fees were what we all needed. I kept waiting for people to start booing--maybe that's my shortcoming as a never-shy-about-sharing-his-disappoint Red Sox fan, but people just sat there open-jawed. If there was another person among the couple of thousand in attendance who agreed with her, it was probably only if her personal assistant had come along for the speech.

But the most remarkable thing she said at the event, the most staggeringly false piece of user-fee propaganda was this, and I paraphrase because I was too stunned to take proper notes: It was that the FAA has a perfect record in bringing major projects to fruition on time and under budget. No lie: she said that. People in the room were too polite to say anything, or maybe they were sharing a hall-wide mini-stroke, but Blakey's comment went unchallenged.

What does this have to do with ADS-B? Everything.

Talking on the radio: What's "correct" and what gets said.

I got an email from a reader, a really knowledgeable guy, a CFII from Southern California who says he has something like 8,500 hours of dual instruction. He sounds as though he knows his stuff, but that's not always a good thing.

He was writing to take me to task for some radio work I reported in a recent piece about flying the new Cirrus SR22 G3 turbo. I told the controller that I was "out of one-point-six for four thousand. . . ," a detail that the CFII took exception to. The use of "point," he pointed out, is reserved for talking about Mach numbers and frequencies.

He went on to imply that my flippant use of incorrect terminology was irresponsible, given my position of influence as a writer for Flying.

The email made me chuckle. He was right, of course. Just check out the AIM, chapter four, section two. But he's picking and choosing. Do you think he says "fife" for the number 5 or "fower" for the number 4? No way.

Wanna hear a funny story? I forget where I heard this, but it goes like this . . .