AOPA Pilot Magazine - Turbine Edition

Beechcraft King Airs have had a firm hold on the twin turboprop market ever since the first of the brand debuted in 1964. With total sales topping 6,500 airplanes, King Airs continue to dominate, with the biggest, top-of-the-line King Air 350 series holding onto a lucrative niche.

With the market the way it is right now, we’ve seen a huge uptick in the number of people looking to get financing on airplanes that have 9,000, 10,000, even 13,000 hours on their airframes. Normally buyers don’t even look at these airplanes, but because that’s what’s available, that’s what they’re settling on.

It’s a foggy Monday morning on Nantucket, and while the weekend on the beaches was right out of a tourism ad campaign, work calls and you really need to get back to the office.

In this installment of AOPA Pilot, Turbine Edition, Senior Content Producer Ian J. Twombly gives us a feature article on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) (“Waste, Not Watts”).

Perhaps the first stirrings of the electric-aviation movement came in the early 2010s, when the Volocopter made its debut at Germany’s Aero Friedrichshafen show.

From a lawn chair under the hangar door, John Williamson looks out over his creation.

Despite the beautiful fall weather here in the Northeast, the skies the evening of September 11, 2001, were silent—nearly every civilian aircraft grounded.

“Fun, simple, and safe.”

Jordyn Haught, the director of OZ1 Flying Club at Bentonville Municipal/Louise M. Thaden Field (VBT) in Arkansas, is explaining the impressive success of her 272-member club. Her eyes are sparkling with a secret she’s dying to reveal, but she wants me to discover it for myself. The same sparkle is pervasive around Summit Aviation, the entity at Thaden Field that runs an FBO with a trendy restaurant, a flight school, OZ1 Flying Club, and Fly Oz, a network of backcountry strips. The people at Summit are on to something spectacular and they know it.

September 11, 2001, is a day that I will never forget.

Letters to the editor

Many people have a minor legal issue in their past they’d rather forget, such as a youthful indiscretion that led to a run-in with the police or an unpaid parking ticket that meant a suspended license.

I sped the six-airplane Thunderbird delta formation toward Falcon Stadium for a tribute to the U.S. Air Force Academy’s newest graduates.

In the 1939 movie classic, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her misfit group of travelers seek the help of a great and powerful wizard.

An advantage to being a first officer for an airline is that he or she becomes exposed to the experience and wisdom (usually) demonstrated by their captains.

The new heading from the controller allowed me to cut the corner, bypassing the Hagerstown, Maryland, VOR and turning me more northerly toward my destination of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

Travis Ludlow was flying over desolate terrain in Russia when he realized the enormity of being alone for six weeks during a solo circumnavigation in a diesel-powered Cessna 172 Skyhawk.

In light of the recent and short-sighted FAA directive governing flight training for compensation in certain categories of aircraft, AOPA President and CEO Mark Baker sent a strongly worded letter to FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson, asking the agency to immediately withdraw or delay the rule.

By Larry E. Nazimek

If you’re a pilot, you’ve probably been stuck in traffic where you subconsciously applied back pressure to the steering wheel, as if you were trying to climb above the traffic.

While this 16-foot canoe designed by Sea Eagle Boats Inc. of Port Jefferson, New York, won’t fit easily in every general aviation airplane, it balances capability, stability, and stowability.

“Go fast, turn left, and don’t hit anyone.”

Located near the center of the state, Casper/Natrona County International Airport (CPR) is dubbed the Gateway to Wyoming.

Shimmering lakes, rolling hills, tailwheel airplanes, and all only 43 miles from New York City. That’s a combination that makes Aeroflex-Andover Airport in rural New Jersey a big-city pilot’s dream.

The 2021 AOPA Foundation High School Aviation STEM Symposium Presented by Boeing is a go for Orlando this November 14 through 16.

Explore new products and aircraft at AOPA’s one-day 2021 Aviator Showcase events in Manassas, Virginia, and Fort Worth, Texas.

I finally received the email I had been waiting for. The subject line read, “Test Flight Time!”

There are more than 700 memorials of every shape, size, and dimension; living gardens and trees; and in materials such as stone, glass, steel, and light across the United States remembering the victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

I was delighted when Dave bought a Piper Comanche 180 and moved it into a hangar two down from me.

The sight and sound are jarringly incongruous. A beater Cessna 172 with peeling paint and tattered seats seems humble and forlorn—but its V-8 engine growls like a hotrod Corvette with a raw abundance of power ready to be unleashed.

Much to my wife’s dismay, I have a huge, chaotic library consisting of not just airplane manuals and other aviation-related documents, but also other books relating to past interests, like photogrammetry, geology, and ham radio.

It was supposed to be a quick down-and-back flight, but it didn’t exactly turn out that way. You see, my fiancée wanted to spend a few days with her favorite uncle, who’d just been discharged from the hospital after surgery.

Nailing the power-off one-eighty is a source of pride for aspiring commercial pilots. It’s a precision maneuver done with throttle closed on the downwind leg of the pattern abeam a designated touchdown spot on the runway, often the 1,000-foot markers. An acceptable landing falls not before and within 200 feet beyond the spot; otherwise, it’s a practical exam bust.

Sometimes it can be fun to dream. Fun to ask, “What if?” So, we did.

By Julie Summers Walker

The AOPA government affairs team, with offices in Frederick, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., and regional representation throughout the states, exists to protect, defend, and promote the incredible privilege that we call general aviation.