Ice Pilots, Flying Wild Alaska, and Airplane Repo immediately come to mind, and each has featured general aviation airplanes in a starring role. However, turn the clock back a few years and TV and movie star pilots were nothing new in the post-World War II American landscape. Academy Award winner Jimmy Stewart was a decorated WWII bomber pilot and starred in a series of aviation-themed movies after the war, most notably 1957’s Spirit of St. Louis. 

Meanwhile, on the small screen, the Golden Age of Television was in full swing. Arthur Godfrey, a star of both radio and TV and an accomplished pilot, regularly featured his flying exploits with Eastern Airlines and Captain Eddie Rickenbacker on the radio and later television. And, of course, who can forget Milton Caniff’s comic strip “Steve Canyon,”  the mythical lieutenant colonel  who seemingly flew every aircraft in the Air Force inventory, brought right into your living room by the magic of TV. 

Along with these military-themed shows, over the next few decades several weekly television series leveraged the allure of the small single- and twin-engine planes of the time to create drama, comedy, and hopefully strong ratings. As we will see, some did, and some did not. 

‘Out of a Clear Blue of the Western Sky Comes…SKY KING!’

The first and arguably most successful of these aviation-themed adventures was the weekly series Sky King. 

This adaptation of a 15-minute radio serial featured the adventures of Arizona rancher Schuyler King, a former naval aviator-turned-rancher, and his air racer niece Penny. But the real star of this children’s show was their trusty Cessna Twin, the Songbird, that flew into your living room each week from the Flying Crown Ranch. 

• READ MORE: ‘Masters of the Air’ Miniseries Is Must-See TV for Aviation Buffs

When most people think of the Songbird, they see the beautiful 1957 Cessna 310B, N5348A. However, this particular airplane was only one of several aircraft used in the filming of the series from its inception in 1951 to its final episode in 1959. 

So, let’s talk about the two Cessnas that proudly carried the Songbird legacy and a few of the extras found hanging around the set. 

The Original Songbird, the Cessna T-50 Bobcat

In fact, the Songbird twin that appeared in the first 39 episodes of Sky King was a Cessna T-50 Bobcat, owned and operated by aviation film legend Paul Mantz. 

The T-50, or “Bamboo Bomber” as it was often called, was produced from 1939-44. To conserve strategic materials for the war effort, the T-50 was constructed of wood, fabric, and steel tubes, hence the nickname. More than 5,000 were built for service with the Army Air Corps and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Bobcats trained pilots, navigators, and bombardiers, as well as performing liaison and passenger-carrying duties. The military designation for this versatile aircraft was the AT-17 or UC-78. The particular aircraft used in the series was originally an Army Air Corps UC-78 purchased as surplus and registered under a civilian type certificate as a T-50, N67832. 

The little Bobcat was the perfect aircraft type to operate out of Sky King’s Flying Crown Ranch. From there, it would land on some backcountry strip or country road to catch the bad guys or rescue Penny from the clutches of some new villain. Its taildragger configuration featured partially retractable landing gear,  a sturdy spruce spar, fixed tailwheel, and a roomy cabin with large windows. The big windows made filming those close-up shots of Sky and Penny much easier. Power was supplied by two 245  hp Jacobs 7-cylinder radials. Sky could count on a cruise speed of around 170 mph, a stall speed of around 65 mph, and for those backcountry emergency takeoffs, a takeoff run of 650 feet. 

Of course, Sky (played by Kirby Grant) and Penny (portrayed as his teenage niece for nine years by Gloria Winters) did not actually fly the Songbird. That chore fell to Mantz and the professional Hollywood pilots he employed. This original Songbird was featured in the first 39 episodes, filmed between ’51 and ’56, and soldiered on in the role until it began to show its age. By then, Cessna had a new twin-engine plane on the horizon it wanted to promote. 

Songbird No. 2, the Cessna 310B 

The Songbird that many of us remember from our childhood was the elegant Cessna 310. However, this was not just any 310. 

Cessna, eager to promote its new twin, loaned the second production Cessna 310B, N5348A, to the production company and provided a company pilot to fly it. This original version of the 310 was unique in many respects. It featured the straight vertical tail common to Cessna singles at the time, two Continental O-470-M engines with large extractor tube exhausts, and two large 51-gallon tip tanks in which all the aircraft fuel was carried.

The theory at the time was that keeping the fuel as far away from the occupants as possible was a good thing. The new 310B cruised at a bit over 200 mph, could range out nearly 900 nm from the Flying Crown, and in its distinctive Songbird paint livery looked the part. This particular 310B was featured in the final 32 episodes of Sky King from 1956-59. Of course, both Songbirds lived on in endless Saturday morning reruns for the next 30 years, many which can still be found on YouTube.  

And the Rest of the Songbirds

First, a word about Hollywood TV production. The Flying Crown Ranch, located in the mythical town of Grover, Arizona, was actually a film location in Apple Valley, California. And the two Songbirds were not the only ones required for filming. Two additional T-50 Bobcats, plentiful in postwar 1950s America, were used for additional scenes inside the cockpit and on the ground. 

Once the 310 became the star of the show, Cessna provided a 310 fuselage section, with the windows removed, for interior filming. When the original Cessna 310 was destroyed in an accident in 1962, a Cessna 310D became the public appearance stand-in for the series, which was still in syndication. If you watch the series, you can see each of these Songbirds at work. 

The good news is that the final Cessna 310D used for publicity photos and personal appearances, a Cessna 310D named Songbird III, is still flying and appears regularly at EAA AirVenture in July at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and airshows around the country.  No worries that Songbird III has a swept tail and an upgraded paint scheme. It keeps the spirit of Sky and Penny alive for a new generation. 

The New Bob Cummings Show

Just as Sky King was wrapping up production, another of Hollywood’s most accomplished pilots, Robert Cummings, combined his vocation, acting, and his avocation, flying, in a TV series. The New Bob Cummings Show featured Cummings’ personal airplanes, including the revolutionary Aerocar I, considered one of the world’s first practical flying cars.

Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1910. Cummingssoloed an airplane in 1927 and was active in the Civil Air Patrol during WWII.

Legend has it that when CFIs were officially licensed, Cummings held flight instructor certificate No. 1. In the 1950s, with his movie career beginning to fade a bit,  Cummings shortened his name to Bob and began a successful career on television. His most successful series, aptly titled The Bob Cummings Show, was on the air from 1954-59 to good reviews.

Returning to the small screen in 1961, his next series, The New Bob Cummings Show, combined his love of aviation with the light comedy roles that had made him famous.  

The Aerocar

The star of the show was none other than Moulton “Molt” Taylor’s unique Aerocar. 

The premise for the series was that Cummings portrayed a professional charter pilot who flew the Aerocar in and out of a series of personal adventures. The Aerocar in question, N102D, was the last Aerocar I of the four manufactured and was Cummings’ personal airplane.

In addition to the four Aerocar I models, an additional Aerocar II and Aerocar III (modified from an Aerocar I) brought the total production to five, or six, depending on how you count. Aerocar N102D is in private hands today and is reputed to be the only one maintained in flying condition. It was most recently on public display at the Kissimmee Air Museum in Florida, until it closed its doors in 2021. However, each of the Aerocars survived, and most are on display at various aviation museums around the country. 

Cummings’ Aerocar I was the only example to feature the more powerful Lycoming O-360, the remainder featuring the O-320, which gave it a little better performance. The transition from airplane to car, and vice versa, is an orderly yet complex one. In the air, the Aerocar features a strutted monoplane wing and pusher propeller driven by a long driveshaft. The Aerocar climbs at 600 feet per minute, cruises at nearly 90 mph, and has a theoretical 12,000-feet service ceiling.

On the road, the 4-cylinder-opposed Lycoming is mated to a three-speed transmission and can propel the little two-seater to 60 mph. However, the noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) left much to be desired, both then and now.

The Aerocar featured a compact two-seat cabin and motorcycle fenders. Once on the ground, the wings would fold back against the tail boom, and the propeller shaft disconnected from the rear of the car, the socket being covered by the license plate.

With the wings and tail converted into a roadable trailer, the pilot turned driver could either leave them parked at the airport or trailer them along with the car to the next destination—a handy feature if the ceiling and visibility closed in unexpectedly.  Advertising materials of the time boasted a transition from car to airplane of five minutes. While the transition process is simple, a little more time spent in the transition might provide more  peace of mind.  

Sadly, The New Bob Cummings Show lasted only one season and was canceled in 1962. However, the star of the show was the world’s only certified flying car. Taylor Aerocar advertisements of the period proudly proclaimed, “featured on The New Bob Cummings Show.”   

Wings

Arguably one of the most successful aviation-themed TV series, Wings enjoyed a successful eight-season run from 1990-97. 

The comedy featured actors Tim Daly, Steven Webber, and Crystal Bernard, and was based on a fictional airline, Sandpiper Air, based at the equally fictional Tom Nevers Field on Massachusetts’ Nantucket Island. 

The airline’s single aircraft was a venerable 1981 Cessna 402C, N121PB. Sandpiper Air was loosely based on a series of charter and scheduled airlines using this general aviation workhorse, the most recognizable of which may be Provincetown-Boston Airlines (PBA) and Cape Air. 

The 402 series was designed as an unpressurized, reliable, and relatively inexpensive to purchase and operate light twin. It comes in two flavors, the Utiliner is a more spartan 10-passenger people hauler, and the Businessliner sported a plusher interior more suited to private or corporate ownership. The C model sported two 235 hp Continentals and traded the tip tanks of earlier models for longer wings. More than 1,500 were built from 1966-85. 

The 402 series remains an excellent step-up airplane for multiengine-rated pilots, and when operated single pilot on medium-length legs, it has become a workhorse around the world. A 10-seat cabin mock-up (with the windows removed for filming) provided a roomy setting for some of the most memorable moments of the show.

It was only fitting that the aircraft used in the flying scenes during the show was eventually sold to Cape Air and soldiered on carrying many happy passengers to Nantucket and other East Coast destinations, just the way it had on Wings.  

And Then There Was The Tim Conway Show

Not all TV series featuring likable characters and a classic airplane were created equal. In fact, Wings was not the first show to feature a GA twin serving as a one-horse airline. 

Twenty years before the debut of Wings, multiple Emmy Award winning comedian Tim Conway premiered on what seemed a surefire-hit show centered around two happy-go-lucky pilots making a living flying people and cargo. The Tim Conway Show was the home of Triple A Airlines and featured a single Beechcraft 18, named Lucky Linda. It paired Conway with future McHale’s Navy costar Joe Flynn. 

The comedy was slapstick, and the flying scenes featured frantic takeoffs, bounced landings, and incredibly smoky engine starts thanks to the Twin Beech’s radial engines. While Conway and Flynn went on to greener pastures, blessedly The Tim Conway Show did not. It premiered in January 1970, lasted a scant 13 episodes, and was off the air by the end of June of the same year.  

Flying Wild Alaska

These days, reality TV series feature daring pilots, usually flying well north of the 49th parallel, and serving as the link between civilization and the isolated villages of the north country.

One stands out for its use of an iconic general aviation aircraft. Flying Wild Alaska ran for two seasons (2011-2012) and featured the exploits of the Tweto family, especially Jim Tweto, the chief operating officer of Era Alaska, and his youngest daughter and reality TV series regular, Ariel Tweto. 

The series, set in and around Unalakleet, Alaska, often featured the workhorse of the Era fleet, the Cessna 207 Skywagon, and Jim Tweto’s personal tundra tire/ski-equipped Cessna 185. 

The Skywagon is pretty much a flying SUV. It seats seven and is similar in capability to the Cherokee Six. However, its high-wing configuration allows for greater clearance between snowbanks and on unprepared airstrips.

With fixed landing gear, an immense cargo door, and a stretched nose that contained an additional baggage compartment, the 207 is sort of an ultimate Cessna 172, and well suited for the rugged conditions. Powered by a 300 hp Continental, the production run spanned more than 600 examples. The Cessna 185 remains a backcountry favorite that’s able to get in and out of incredibly short landing strips and sandbars.

As a sad footnote, the aviation community lost Jim Tweto in 2023 in the crash of his beloved Cessna 185. 

So, there you have it. Several TV series attempted to show the drama, excitement, and good humor that each of us has found in GA—some successfully, some not so much. From the many Songbirds, to the unique and wonderful Aerocar, and each of the others, the airplanes played a leading role. In this age of computer-generated imaging (CGI), superheroes, and rom-coms, we will just have to settle for binge watching Ice Pilots. However, if you search on YouTube for 1950s aviation TV, you may hear: “Out of a clear blue of the western sky comes…SKY KING!” 

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: When TV Stars Had Wings appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Tough as nails, able to get in and out of small unimproved runways or high mountain lakes, while carrying a ton of freight, ponderously slow and superbly stable, the Beaver led a renaissance in backcountry air service. It also set standards for safety and reliability in the far-flung wilderness of northern North America.

It spread those attributes around the world, achieving previously impossible results from the Sahara to Mount Everest and both poles. There were 1,167 built, and they remain coveted and useful platforms in myriad roles almost 80 years after the first was finished in 1947.

• READ MORE: WWII-Era ‘Philippine Mars’ Transport Seaplane Headed to Arizona Museum

CF-JOS (now C-FJOS) has toiled most of its life on British Columbia’s rugged West Coast, initially as a lifeline for loggers, miners, and anglers, and most recently, as one of dozens of Beavers providing scheduled floatplane passenger service for Harbour Air Seaplanes between Vancouver and Seattle and about a dozen coastal communities. 

C-FJOShas been written off twice and rebuilt (Beavers are often rebuilt from the data plate alone), has tens of thousands of hours and a million stories, including its own electrifying one. Now, at 68 years old, this seemingly vintage aircraft sits at the forefront of a massive technological renaissance in air travel. 

In 2019, Harbour Air fitted C-FJOS with a magniX electric motor, batteries, and control system, and it has since accumulated more than 78 flights. Based on the experience of the past four years with C-FJOS, Harbour Air has ordered 50 electric propulsion systems from magniX to convert its whole fleet of Beavers and will likely become the first airline to use electric power in scheduled passenger service, possibly by 2026.

In doing so, the chunky, awkward-looking, sheet-metal creation of another era will climb slowly past sleekly modern multicopters and other futuristic designs to serve the market the new aircraft were supposed to generate.

It’s a story of innovation tempered with practicality that is a common thread in the development of aviation as it takes on a future that demands a nimble and responsible industry.

The original Beaver was a fuel hog whose radial engine spewed so much oil in normal operation that de Havilland put an oil filler spout in the cockpit so the sump could be replenished in flight. That unrestrained use of petroleum products is receiving considerable scrutiny these days and the public, through its governments and regulators, want an aviation industry that can get it anywhere on earth in less than a day without beating up the planet.

• READ MORE: Elfly Adds Facilities at Torp Airport to Build Fjord-Hopping Electric Seaplane

It’s a tall order. It takes a lot of energy to hoist a few hundred people to 35,000 feet and move them thousands of miles. But progress is being made, and the goal of making aviation a net-zero-carbon creator by 2050 is considered doable.

Electric aviation is just part of that solution. Hybrid systems using hydrogen show promise, but it’s unlikely that hydrocarbon-fueled aircraft will become obsolete anytime soon. But with developments in the production of sustainable aviation fuels, much of it from agricultural waste and overcapacity, they can be made much better for the environment.

The quest for environmental stewardship in aviation has already paid dividends. The latest  aircraft engines are up to 30 percent more fuel efficient and have the side benefit of being much quieter than previous generations because noise is the sound of energy being wasted.

The environmental shift is also leading to a change in aircraft design philosophy, although it’s fair to say that most of the futuristic designs on the drawing boards are nothing new. 

The physics of flight are well understood, and the blended bodies and truss-braced wing concepts now being explored are the results of technology catching up to those seemingly radical designs.

In the longer term, there are concepts that seem right out of science fiction that are being seriously studied. One that stands out is using nuclear fusion to power aircraft.

• READ MORE: Connecticut Airport Keeping Seaplanes on the River

But if that sounds ridiculously far-fetched (and by the way the concept of nuclear-powered aircraft emerged in the late 1950s), imagine telling one of the folks at de Havilland in 1956 building CF-JOS that it would fly on electric power. 

The plane was built at the height of the Beaver’s popularity. Orders were pouring in from all over the world, and its many innovative and performance features for the time made it a state-of-the-art aircraft.

Creativity and big ideas have always driven aviation, and there’s no sign of that letting up. But what’s interesting and different about the industry is that when something is developed that just plain works, its life is practically endless through continuous improvement. Just ask a Harbour Air pilot, or the crew of a B-52, which is about the same age as a Beaver and is forecast to have a service life of 100 years.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: From Radial to Radical appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Once a pilot adds an instrument rating, they’re legal to fly an ILS in blowing snow all the way to 200-foot minimums with an 1,800 RVR. But few of us would actually attempt such a demanding task with only our training and perhaps a bit of experience in actual conditions under our belt. I’ll call those folks “pilots with an instrument rating,” differentiating them from someone with more experience who would confidently undertake that operation. I’ll call that person an “instrument pilot.”

So, if your goal is to gain high levels of proficiency, experience, and comfort to ultimately grow from being a pilot with an instrument rating into an instrument pilot, how can you do that? I’m glad you asked because that’s just what we’re going to cover here.

Why Do It?

Why might you want to do this? It’s a lot of work, will take time, and generally involves nontrivial expense. What’s to be gained? Everybody’s answer will be somewhat different, but I can help you find yours.

Perhaps the most important question is, “Why did you get the instrument rating in the first place?” Maybe you did it to meet career aspirations. Or possibly you did it just to improve the utility of your basic private certificate, allowing you to go when the weather had been keeping you on the ground as a VFR pilot. 

In both of those cases, I’ll—perhaps argumentatively—encourage you to be the best pilot you can be. As a professional, your clients will certainly expect and deserve that. You should be able to competently complete any flight that’s both legal and safe for the aircraft. If you can’t, well, reread the previous sentence.

• READ MORE: How to Meet Instrument Rating Requirements

But what if it’s just you trying to go visit a friend? Don’t you deserve the same level of competence and confidence in the management of your flight and control of your airplane? It’s common during those personal flights to bring along a friend or family member. They deserve the same level of consideration as any paying passenger, so you owe it to yourself and your passengers to, again, be the best pilot you can be.

On top of all that, there’s a certain degree of pride involved. How would you feel after that ILS at the destination if your needles were bouncing from peg to peg, and you somehow managed to luck out enough to see the runway as the needles passed through the center? Compare that with the satisfaction, and yes, the pride, in sliding down the approach with needles that barely migrated off the center circle. Challenge yourself to always do better, and you’ll rarely find yourself performing poorly. But if you do, you’ll almost certainly know exactly why, and you’ll resolve to recognize the same situation next time and surely use that recognition and anticipation to perform better.

What’s the Difference?

I’ve talked about pilots with an instrument rating versus instrument pilots, but what’s the difference? Defining “instrument pilot” is a bit easier, so I’ll start there. Note that all this is a distinction of my own creation, so if you talk with others about it, you might get that thousand-mile stare until you explain.

An instrument pilot is one who has had enough training, enough experience, and most critically maintains enough proficiency that they can handle most anything that a given flight might be expected to throw at them. That doesn’t mean comfortably flying your Cessna 182 into an area of moderate icing. But it does mean that the pilot is both comfortable and competent to handle an inadvertent encounter with more significant weather than on the day of the check ride. 

• READ MORE: Instrument Rating Can Expand Your Travel Horizons

That weather might include ice, moderate turbulence, significant gusty crosswinds, and, yes, lower visibility and ceilings than forecast—possibly all at the same time. Naturally, these conditions will produce a greater concentration and focus on the job at hand by the pilot, but they shouldn’t bring so significant a ramping of anxiety that performance or judgment suffers.

On the other hand, a pilot with an instrument rating is a newbie. But by newbie I don’t mean that the instrument check ride was recent enough that legal currency hasn’t yet lapsed. I mean that the pilot doesn’t have much (or any) experience with a broad enough range of weather and atmospheric conditions to remain mostly calm and focused in handling that. This pilot likely still views anything worse than basic VMC as a reason to reexamine the go/no-go decision and might (or should) have personal minimums not much lower than 1,000-3.

Your Path Via the Right Seat 

Say you recently aced your instrument-rating check ride. Or perhaps you’ve long had the rating but never really had both the opportunity and confidence to “get your nose wet” much more than in benign conditions. Regardless of your starting point, how do you get to be a confident, competent instrument pilot? 

Like many things in aviation, the answer to that question is “it depends” and has multiple paths. 

Say your ultimate goal is employment as a pilot. It doesn’t matter whether you want to end up at the airlines, freight pilot, charter pilot, or even personal or corporate pilot. Work hard to build your experience to the point where you can get that first job beyond a CFI at the local flight school. 

Your short-term goal should be to fly in the right seat in a two-pilot operation, so possibly the entry-level freight or medical transport jobs might not be the best choice. 

Having that experienced captain next to you will serve multiple purposes. First, it will allow you to experience more varied conditions than you might feel comfortable tackling on your own, especially at first. Also, while your captains might not be CFIs, you’ll receive a lot of instruction. Many captains in this environment understand your need for experience and further education and happily provide it. Others might not want that role, leaving you to provide your own education through quiet observation.

• READ MORE: Instrument Rating: Why Are You Waiting?

Either way, flying with someone who’s both more experienced and has ultimate responsibility for the outcome of the flight is a wonderful way to learn. You should be as cautious and as methodical as you would be if you were solo, but ultimately it will be the captain who evaluates the conditions and assures the safe outcome. This allows you to learn the safe capabilities and limits of that operation in those conditions. You get to see what can be done and how to do it.

This route also will expose you to multiple captains, each with a different style. I remember vividly when I went through upgrade training at an airline, a member of management came into our class on the first day and asked us to reflect on our time in the right seat and try to identify the best captain we had flown with. After we considered that, he then asked us to think back over the same experiences and identify the worst captain we had flown with.

Everyone in the class had the same reaction. We were unable to identify a single-best captain. Instead, multiple captains were identified, each with some different traits that made us think of them. But everyone was instantly able to identify the single-worst captain with whom we had flown. 

As the class discussed, the manager then simply told us to determine the traits in the best captains that we wished to emulate and exactly what made that one person the worst captain and vow to never do any of those things we disliked.

If you’ve got your CFI or CFII, do as much advanced instruction as you can. Lacking a CFI, go around to all the pilots you can find and offer to fly with them as a safety pilot. Doing either of these won’t be as beneficial as flying with some 10,000-hour captain, but it’s still valuable experience to aid in your growth as an instrument pilot.

Learn from the Left Seat

But what if you don’t want to become a professional pilot and just want to be the best possible private pilot you can with the tools you have? There are a lot of paths you might choose, and I’ve got some recommendations that you can find your own variations along.

First, you must fly as often as possible. Every time you fly as pilot in command (PIC), fly IFR. I don’t mean 20-30 hours a year. I mean 10 hours or more a month, usually just about every week. This allows you to continue building on your experience rather than the ever-so-common two steps forward, one back. Even if the weather is “severe clear,” fly in the system to gain more experience and comfort within it. Rarely accept a visual approach at the destination. Fly an approach, even if it’s in VMC without a view-limiting device. If you can take a safety pilot, fly under the hood.

Don’t be afraid to tackle increasingly challenging weather conditions. Sure, if you just got your instrument ticket, you want to be very careful. But as you gradually gain more experience, put it to use. If you have a trip planned and the weather forecast stretches your comfort, that’s good. I often say that you can’t expand your comfort zone from within it. If the operation stretches your comfort more than you’re willing, find an instructor with plenty of experience and ask them to accompany you.

Watch for those marginal VMC and benign IMC days and go out to the airport and fly a few approaches on your own. As you do that more often, you’ll gain more comfort with those conditions.

I’m a strong believer in the value of simulators. I’m not going into a long discussion of sims, but here are a few basic points: If you can afford it, fly an approved sim, a Basic or Advanced Aviation Training Device (BATD/AATD). The difference to you at this point is largely irrelevant, so pick what’s available. Also, to the greatest extent possible, find something that simulates as closely as possible the aircraft you fly, both from an aerodynamic perspective as well as the panel. 

One of the lowest-cost approved simulators I know comes from Gleim Aviation. It’s a BATD that emulates a Cessna 172 SP with your choice of analog six-pack instruments or a Garmin G1000. If this is sufficiently close to what you fly, it’s an excellent choice for only $8,500.

If what you fly isn’t readily emulated with an approved simulator (which is common), you can build your own. My personal belief is that a sim that isn’t approved but closely emulates your aircraft is superior to an approved sim that isn’t close. That’s my thinking, but others disagree. 

My reasoning is simple. This is my example, but it applies broadly across the entire GA fleet. I fly a Cessna 340. Nobody makes an ATD for a C-340. The closest is usually a Beech Baron, but Precision Flight Controls can emulate a 414. Then, my airplane has full EFIS—there’s not a round dial on the panel. ATDs for any type might offer a G1000, but the retrofit stuff in my airplane is far different from a G1000. So to emulate my aircraft, I need to build the sim myself, and that won’t be approved for logging time. I’m OK with that. If I need to log some instrument time, I’ll go rent an approved sim for a few hours or get the time in my own airplane under the hood with a safety pilot a few times a year.

Once you’ve got access to a sim, fly it regularly, always in low-IMC. Fly approach after approach. Some weeks you’ll just fly approaches, repositioning yourself to the IAF and going in from there. Other weeks, practice with failures. On other sessions try doing a full flight from departure to destination. 

As you fly the sim more, add precipitation, ice, gusty winds, etc. In other words, build the severity of the weather until you can handle most anything. 

Then after completing one of these paths, you too will be an instrument pilot.

But There’s a Risk

Not long after I retired from 121 flying, I fell out of currency and needed the ol’ six-in-six to regain it. I hopped into an AATD and flew the requisite approaches, holds, etc., using raw data with no autopilot or flight director. The instructor was impressed. I was too, as I had never flown that sim before.

I figured it was all my experience as an instrument pilot. After all, that level of proficiency doesn’t leave you too quickly—or so I thought. Then a couple years later, repeat. Um, my performance was dismal, even with the flight director. What happened?

Well, instrument flight skills are highly perishable. If you’ve spent years comfortably flying as a proficient instrument pilot, well, reread that previous sentence. Once you no longer fly that often, you will lose those skills you worked so hard to gain. Trust me, it’s only through constant exercise that you can retain them.

So here’s my warning: Once you gain the competence and proficiency that you seek, you’ve got to continue working to maintain it. If you don’t keep flying at nearly that frequency, you risk reverting to just another pilot with an instrument rating. Although you might not have to start over to regain instrument-pilot status, you will have to work at it. You invested too much to get there in the first place, so don’t allow that proficiency to lapse.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Instrument Rating vs. Instrument Pilot appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The same could be said about managing the risk of general aviation. We—both FLYING and the industry as a whole—spend a lot of time preaching to pilots about the mechanics of understanding weather forecasts, determining if the aircraft is capable, and making honest evaluations of our own performance in considering how and when to conduct a flight. But once we identify the need to mitigate a risk, we sometimes have little space left over to describe the tools we can use.

Let’s try to fix that. 

The typical GA pilot is exposed to three broad areas of risk: weather, aircraft suitability, and pilot capability. When the proposed flight raises complications in these three basic areas, we should consider what we can do to bring the increased risk down to acceptable levels while still accomplishing the mission.

WEATHER

To me, weather is the factor posing the greatest risk to safely and reliably operating a personal aircraft. To properly manage it, we first have to understand it then evaluate the options we have. 

Weather is a “what-you-see-is -what-you-get” kind of thing. You can’t change it, but you usually can work your way around the worst of it.

1. Get a Thorough Preflight Briefing

I frequently see National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reports in which there was no record of the accident pilot obtaining a weather briefing. The results include classic VFR-into-IMC controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents.

There really is no excuse for not obtaining a thorough preflight weather briefing of some sort. You can call Flight Service on the way to the airport. You can pull up anything you want on your phone before takeoff. The tablet you use in flight probably has the capability to download a complete briefing, including graphics, and organizing the results for you.

• READ MORE: Pilots Don’t Always Communicate Well When Describing Risk

“Thorough” is doing a lot of work here. What we need on a severe-clear daytime flight in search of a familiar $100 hamburger will be a lot less than a wintertime night flight near the Great Lakes. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a preflight briefing’s detail level should be based on the briefing itself.

2. Timing Is Everything

Another popular saying about weather is something along the lines of “if you don’t like this weather, just wait a bit and it will change.” This truism would seem to have been tailor-made for aviation since that’s pretty much exactly what happens: If you wait long enough, the weather will improve.

Often the weather is moving and—since you can’t do anything to change its trajectory—the smart thing to do is let it go by. If there’s a cold front approaching your departure airport, and you don’t want to fly through it, stay on the ground. It’ll soon pass overhead, and you can launch into clearing conditions.

Afternoon thunderstorms and early morning fog all move and evolve but perhaps not on our desired schedule. Tough—change your schedule. Leave a day ahead or later in the day. The point is to remain flexible in your scheduling to allow for poor weather.

3. Go Around the Problem

Some weather conditions don’t move quickly, or they occupy a wide area. The low ceilings and visibility sometimes associated with a warm front come to mind, as does the wintertime in-flight icing risk. But you have an airplane. Use it to fly around the problem areas.

This plan of action doesn’t work well, of course, if your departure or destination airports are socked in or covered with ice-laden clouds. But those conditions will change, eventually. Sometimes it’s worthwhile to get as close as you can to the weather problem and go the rest of the way the next morning.

• READ MORE: How Do I File a Pilot Weather Report Online?

I’ve often told a tale about a planned trip to Key West, Florida, in the winter that didn’t happen due to widespread IFR conditions. I didn’t have an instrument rating at the time, but I also didn’t think about it long enough to realize I could have gone around the conditions by abandoning a direct route. I would have had to stop for fuel anyway, but I was so focused on flying direct that it never occurred to me that I could go around the problem.

4. Change Your Altitude

A lot of weather problems can be addressed with altitude. Icing above 12,000 feet usually isn’t an issue at, say, 8,000, presuming terrain allows cruising that low. If it doesn’t, find a route around the icing at an altitude that resolves both the icing and terrain issues. If you can’t find one, wait.

A lot of weather and related risks can be mitigated by changing altitude. If there’s a deck of clouds you don’t want to fly in, there’s likely an altitude that will keep you out of it. By the same token, the jaunt across Lake Michigan to get to Oshkosh from the East Coast is a lot less risky at 10,000 feet than it is at 4,000. Headwinds often can be at least partially mitigated by changing altitude, presuming terrain allows.

AIRCRAFT

The old drag-racing sentiment—there’s no replacement for displacement—also rings true in personal aviation. I’m a strong advocate of using as much airplane for the task as you can afford.

As I’ve written (and been chastised for) in the past, my personal minimum for a traveling airplane on “real” cross-countries is 180 hp. In some areas of the U.S. and elsewhere, you can “get by” with less, but you also give up some flexibility and capability. In some areas, 180 hp might not be enough. And almost anything with less power takes too darn long. If the airplane isn’t right for the mission, wishing and hoping it’ll be OK won’t make it better.

But there’s more to choosing the weapons with which we do battle against the elements than just horsepower. What about avionics? Is the airplane’s installed equipment up to the proposed task? You’re not trying to make up for its equipment shortcomings by using portable devices, are you? Got current databases, right? Beyond avionics, what about filled TKS fluid tanks, or supplemental oxygen for climbing high and survival gear for the terrain and season? What about loading—will your at-gross 145 hp Skyhawk crap out at 8,000 feet in the summertime with all its seats filled? (Hint: Probably.)

5. You Can Never Have Too Much Fuel

Just as with getting a preflight briefing, I’ve always been one to maintain that there’s simply no excuse for running out of fuel. Yes, headwinds happen, and FBOs sometimes close at inconvenient times. Deal with it.

Ensuring there’s adequate fuel is one of the responsibilities you accepted when you went for your private check ride. That responsibility doesn’t change when you overfly the last fuel stop before your destination because it will take too long.

You have a number of options: Land short of your destination if headwinds are stronger than forecast. Stop halfway, take a break to help fight fatigue and stretch your legs before tackling the last portion of the flight. Choose a different airplane, one with greater range or better fuel economy.

6. Faster Is Better

If 180 hp is the minimum for cross-countries, it’s implied that more horsepower is better. The same is true when it comes to cruising speed. And not just because you arrive quicker.

Greater speed means you can accept a spirit-deadening headwind and complete relatively short trips without a fuel stop. It means you can cover a lot of territory—and see a lot of weather—in just three or four hours. Most importantly, it means you can fly around, outrun, or outmaneuver more easily the kind of weather that would otherwise keep you on the ground or holed up short of your destination when flying a slower airplane.

• READ MORE: The Ins and Outs of Pilot Weather Reports

One rule of thumb often overlooked when choosing among piston-powered, single-engine airplanes of the same basic configuration is that it can take the same amount of fuel to get from point A to point B no matter what you’re flying.

7. Higher Is Better

 As a reader recently pointed out, flying cross-countries at relatively low altitudes in a single doesn’t make much sense. Flying high in that same single affords you much more time to find a place to land or resolve the problem when an engine acts up. There’s less traffic, and you’ll burn less fuel in cruise once you get there. If that’s not enough, there are other reasons to get as high as you can.

One of them is for a smoother ride in clearer, cooler air. In the summer, it might take a while to climb on top of the haze layer, but the benefits are worth it, especially since doing so allows you to more easily see the way cumulonimbus clouds are arranged and plan your route around them. At lower altitudes, haze and other reductions to visibility can mean stumbling into a situation you don’t want and can’t handle. Climbing to maximize a tailwind’s benefits can also push you beyond poor weather more quickly than if you have to slog through it down low.

The only two downsides of using a higher cruising altitude is the possible need for supplemental oxygen and the greater amount of time it will take to get down in a hurry if you need to.

PILOT

After we mitigate the risks imposed by poor weather and resolve mechanical or equipment issues with the airplane, what’s left falls into a big bucket labeled “pilot related.” That means you.

8. How Are You Feeling?

Launching on a four-hour flight after a full day at the office isn’t the smartest thing I’ve done. 

Especially when getting eight full hours of sleep and launching at zero-dark-thirty to make it on time to a distant appointment is an option. The truth is we often fly when we’re less than 100 percent. The challenge is to ensure the 10 or 20 percent of human performance we might be lacking won’t be needed on a given flight.

9. Are Your Skills Up to the Task? 

Tackling low IFR at your destination, busy terminal airspace, a complicated departure procedure, or an in-flight emergency without the necessary skills is a recipe for disaster.

While we probably have learned how to do all that at one point or another, it’s likely to have been a while since we practiced some of the skills needed to pull it all off. Yet we can be confronted with all that and more almost any day.

Get frequent training in these and other areas.

10. Imagination Is the Limit

The last item on this list isn’t as objective as the others. Instead, it’s a challenge for you to think outside the box a lot of our training puts us in.

Some proposed flights simply can’t be accomplished on the day or time chosen, with the airplane you have and the condition in which you find yourself. It’s the wise pilot who accepts this reality and lives to fly another day. 

That same wisdom also tells us that some flexibility and compromise, along with a little imagination (and plenty of fuel) might allow us to complete the mission anyway, no matter what the aviation gods throw at us.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Top 10 Tips for Mitigating Risk in the Air appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The terrain is unremittingly flat, the roads checkerboard at right angles, and farming is what matters. Irrigation ditches and muddy tracks entering and then tapering off on the county roads are too numerous to notice, and the vastness in the crop rows and vault of open sky keeps human activity properly scaled inside nature’s expanse.

But it is California. The land work is mainly agribusiness, row crops defer to orchards of nut and fruit trees, and corn is something that happens elsewhere. Those majestic peaks suggest things aren’t the same everywhere while State Route 99 rumbles and roars its endless nose-to-tail hustle of tractor-trailers and passenger cars traversing the world’s fifth-largest economy.

A couple miles from that highway an industrial park sprawls before giving way to the main business of California’s central valley. And there, sandwiched between a multiacre pallet manufacturer and pump specialists, an unremarkable cluster of single-story metal buildings and open yards make up the Ly-Con Aircraft Engines huddle.

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One is tempted to say “campus” to describe this jumble of buildings, yards, shipping containers, and open-air pallet racking stacked with tired aviation hardware, but the connotation is too collegiate. Likewise, “village” is too visually congenial and hamlet dismissive of the overpowering mechanical nature of the place. But if the correct label is elusive, there’s no doubt exceptional general aviation engines emerge from here.

‘Tunnell’ Vision

Central to the Ly-Con story is founder Ken Tunnell, a native of the next big farming town down the road, Porterville. Just 23 years old and starting to settle from a rambunctious youth along with a three-year stint in the Marine Corps, Ken had already been working in a five-man aviation engine shop when in March 1980 he thought he could do better by opening his own place.

His dad borrowed against his modest retirement to purchase a few basic machine tools in exchange for a stake in the business, and married-with-a-mortgage friend Bruce Bennet came on board three months later when Ken was sufficiently established to afford employee insurance. Ken recalls Bruce as a great engine guy, but he left Ly-Con after a couple of years to pursue his own interests.

In the beginning Ken says Ly-Con was like everyone else in that it would take new parts out of the box and start assembling engines. But as the engine count grew, Ken realized new parts weren’t always perfect—or even correct—and customer comebacks didn’t make them happy or make money.

And so the Ly-Con obsession with measuring, verifying, and accurate machining began. This now 44-year fascination with improvement through better processes and tools has been Ly-Con’s hallmark and the main generator of its worldwide reputation for dependable, powerful engines.

It’s likely the dogged zeitgeist of the place has been set by its geography. Visalia and Porterville are successful, somewhat isolated farming towns. Getting up in the morning and getting to work is native to the area, as is the resolve to use the best tools at hand and to get better ones tomorrow. Ken and his 36 employees are all salt of the earth, typically self-taught but ready to work and willing to try something new or learn from others. Their methods are empirical, and if there’s not a single engineering diploma hanging on the office walls—or a pilot’s certificate in anyone’s wallet—there are a hundred signed photos from pleased customers showing off every sort of flat-engined airplane winging via Ly-Con power.

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A textbook definition of a mom-and-pop store, Ly-Con remains Ken Tunnell’s fiefdom, with just wife Darla (accounting) and brother Bryan (racing shop) also involved. There’s the efficiency of a benevolent dictatorship in the arrangement but also the bottleneck of everything going across Ken’s paper-covered desk. As the business has grown, so have the responsibilities, including the impedimenta associated with FAA Repair Station status and doing business in the Golden State. Ken and Darla have been at the shop seven days a week forever, and if there is a complaint from the field, it’s that Ly-Con is a slow shop, a place where engines languish and getting Ken on the phone is tough to do.

It’s tough because there is so much to attend to, and once you get Ken on the line, he tends to stay there until things are fully settled. He isn’t one to cut corners, and projects can pile up. He says most of the caterwauling is from customers hoping to speed up things, but dawdling on the payment continuum or from pilgrims thinking engine shops keep rebuilt engines on the shelf waiting to go. With an average turnaround time of eight months, the reality is Ly-Con’s delivery schedule compares well with the year or years now common from the OEMs.

Early On

Today, Ly-Con is noted as a horizontally opposed specialist with a strong sideline on performance engines, but those are learned behaviors.

“When we first started, we did [Pratt & Whitney] 1340s and 985s due to crop dusting around the valley,” recalls Ken. “But it was 250 man hours to do a radial and 40 hours to do a flat motor, and you made about the same money. So we started leaning toward flat engines and away from radials. But we did some [Warner] Scarabs and Franklins before they all faded away.”

One niche picked up via Bob Penland was helicopter engines.

“He taught us the VO (helicopter) engines,” Ken says. “Penland in Long Beach was the helo king in those days. We still do 435s, 540s, and all that stuff…We still build ’em for helos all around the world—Germany, Canada, New Zealand. People are scared of ’em, but if you do a good job, they’re a really durable engine.” He adds with a grin, “Unless you don’t have a prop governor and overspeed ’em!”

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In the early years Ly-Con was just one of many engine shops in the valley, so capitalizing growth in the company was difficult. Characteristically unafraid to try something different, Ken saw an opportunity when Rocky Harrow, another local machinist, ran into trouble. With the bank ready to repossess Rocky’s shop, Ken paid off the debt then moved Rocky and his entire operation, including a lathe, mill, and pantograph, into Ly-Con.

“We brought him into the shop to do machining, reground lifters, connecting rods, that sort of stuff,” Ken says. “And so I spent some of my time hustling machine shop stuff. We made helical gears for a printing press company. I got the right wire and spray welding on the gears so Rocky could go portable to fix those gears when they dropped a screw in them or something.”

Eventually Rocky left, but by then Ly-Con was established in the aviation engine scene, with good contacts and a growing customer base.

“We were on the [Visalia] airport for nine years,” says Ken, noting he made the painfully disruptive move to the company’s present industrial park location a couple of miles away in 1989.

He says he was encouraged to relocate due to a 60 percent rise in rent in just two years, along with a court order kicking them out after he disputed the rent increases.

“We almost went out of business because of the move,” he says. “We were just five people and 3,000 square feet, but it took [electrical utility] Edison a long time to put in three-phase power [and there was no money coming in the meantime.]”

Ken came to see the move off-airport as a plus.

“It was a lot cooler being on the airport, but you can’t own anything at the airport, the city owns it,” he says. “Here you can build equity in the real estate, so it was a blessing getting off the airport.”

Enter Performance

Earning competence with stock rebuilds marked Ly-Con’s start, so when Ken hooked up with Southern California speed guru Steve Mehalick, the company was ready to add performance. The pivot was John Harmon—just down the road in Bakersfield—building the first two Van’s RV-3-based Rockets.

The first used a stock Lycoming, but backer Jim Ewing wanted more horse pressure in his Rocket engine that Ly-Con was building. So Steve taught Ly-Con about porting, high compression, and other power-building tips he’d learned working with Dan Gurney, JE Pistons, Jim Fueling, and others in the extensive Southern California speed scene. Ken credits Steve’s knowledge and industry contacts with quickly pushing Ly-Con to the front ranks of performance aircraft engine builders, and it was a tough loss when Steve medically retired far too early 20 years ago.

Ly-Con’s other performance pioneer was Sean Tucker.

“We did his stuff for 43 years,” says Ken. “He was a crop duster in Salinas…He used to hock his house to get parts to do his engines.”

Sean didn’t have to hock his house forever, and Ly-Con rose up the performance ladder with his outstanding career. Other major aerobatic acts gravitated to Ly-Con’s thumping, lightweight parallel-valve AEIO-540 engines, including Jim LeRoy, Skip Stewart, and about three-quarters of the Red Bull Air Racing field until they went to spec engines from Thunderbolt to limit costs and performance.

Improving performance is catnip to Ken. He can come across as aw-shucks, but that’s just his native impishness papering over a deep competitive streak.

“I just like to have the best stuff,” he says. His attraction to the latest tools also means satisfaction in turning out no-excuse stock engines plus winning races and being the big dog on the pro airshow scene. He really doesn’t like second place.

No doubt the most visible of Ly-Con’s power habit has been air racing, with the Formula 1, Biplane, and Sport pits at Reno, Nevada, presenting an almost embarrassing array of Ly-Con stickers. Like the early Red Bull series, Ly-Con’s penetration of Formula 1 was typically more than half the field, and it was something similar in the hot-rodded Biplane class.

The Biplane efforts have been capped so far by overwhelming Ly-Con power (think almost 400 hp from a naturally aspirated IO-360) in Phantom pushing lap speeds over 260 mph. In the major-league Sport Gold division, Ly-Con provided the 580-cubic-inch foundations for class dominator Jeff LaVelle’s 410 mph Glasair III along with numerous other competitors.

All of these engines bend the status quo when it comes to power, but the 900-plus hp under LaVelle’s cowling truly stretches the imagination regarding what’s possible with the same cases and crankshafts the rest of us fly behind.

For sure, Ly-Con’s push to performance has paid dividends for all its customers. It was broken counterweight ears on the hardcore tumbling aerobatic engines that led to the cryogenic solution Ly-Con now offers. If a daily driver customer balks at the thought of 10:1 compression pistons, Ly-Con can authoritatively speak to what happens not only at 10:1 compression, but 11:1, 12:1, even 14:1 because it has built and run numerous engines at all of those power levels. Or 5.5:1 compression for turbo fans.

The same goes for about every sort of power trick imaginable because Ly-Con has firsthand experience developing those engines, along with the customer feedback plus tearing down and eyeballing the results.

In the Shop

Today Ly-Con’s 36 employees work on a 3.2-acre lot holding four buildings, two dyno cells, one vertical test stand, and several yards full of shipping containers and pallet racking containing the company’s extensive core engine collection. There are approximately 26,000 square feet under roof and 7,000 square feet of working shop space. You’ll have difficulty finding an unoccupied horizontal surface large enough to set down your coffee cup.

Collectively, the facilities support an FAA Repair Station, including engine and engine accessory overhaul. The FAA sees Ly-Con as two entities, one repairing and building certified engines, which makes up about 70 percent of the overall business, plus the experimental engine work making up the remaining 30 percent.

The certified and experimental work pass through the same workstations—that is, there is no separate building or shop dedicated to either class of engines—but the parts, processes, and paperwork are carefully segregated to ensure compliance.

Organizationally there is the business office, teardown, cleaning, inspection, painting and coating, welding, porting, cryogenic, case, accessory, assembly, dyno and shipping shops or stations.

The parts department is its own business—Kendra Air Parts Inc.—but located with the rest of Ly-Con. There’s a room dedicated to Ly-Con’s proprietary line of NFS pistons too.

You could also say manufacturing is a Ly-Con subset as it makes its own adjustable oil pressure regulators and dabbles with custom valve covers and other miscellaneous parts, but this work slots in among the regular jobs. The same might be said about the more experimental work, such as flow testing cylinder heads or trying new coatings, but again those workstations are shared with the mainstream certified efforts.

The Machine Age

Consistently adding new machining and testing capabilities means Ly-Con reached the usual level of in-house capabilities long ago.

Those few specialized machining steps—crank grinding and machining engine cases are good examples—are or were farmed out to specialists just like every other engine builder. With the basics covered, Ly-Con eventually moved into unusual capabilities rarely offered by an aircraft engine builder, mainly driven by its need to step up its experimental engines as the aerobatic and racing customers asked for more power or ran into longevity issues.

One of the first of these was a wet flow bench for flowing carburetors and fuel injection parts but also key to developing cylinder head ports. By adding on to a commercially available automotive performance flow bench designed to move just air, the fuel bench does the same task but while flowing air and solvent. The combination fuel and flow benches have been educational as carburetors, injection, and cylinder heads got tuned up for racing, as well as serving as a great calibration tool for verifying performance of stock parts for certified applications. Originally built with analog instruments, the fuel bench was later upgraded to digital data acquisition and remains in daily use.

A fundamental part of engine building is improving the ring seal between the cylinder walls and piston rings. This has always been a sloppy thing in big-bore, air-cooled airplane engines—it’s the nature of these beasts—but Ken Tunnell has always been improving ring seal both to increase engine power and reduce oil consumption, along with speeding engine break-in and thus avoid oil-slurping during the engine’s entire lifespan. Key to this is precision in honing the cylinder bores along with experimenting with piston ring material. 

Building so many racing and aerobatic engines gives Ken the opportunity to continuously try different ring/bore combinations, and making some rather large investments in the latest cylinder hones has allowed improving the cylinder finish and chokes. For decades a Sunnen CV-616 hone has been swirling out the cylinders at Ly-Con, but after reaching the limits of that machine on the latest experimental jugs, a new Rottler automated hone was added. That’s a six-figure investment, but Ken needed it for the increased precision, plus, as an automated machine, it will speed cylinder production throughout Ly-Con’s workflow.

Sixteen years ago when Ly-Con wanted to improve crankcase parting-line sealing by replacing the stock sewing thread method with a rubber O-ring set in a machined groove, it needed the hugely increased precision and speed of an automated milling machine for this complex tool path. That meant funding the purchase of a 20 hp CNC machining center, a first in aviation engine rebuilding. Of course, the five-axis Haas Automation CNC mill has since improved or supported all sorts of tasks previously done manually or not at all.

Another unique Ly-Con capability is cryogenic heat treating. This is the use of liquid nitrogen to chill parts to minus-305 degrees Fahrenheit then heating them to 300 F before bringing them back to room temperature. It normalizes the crystalline structure of metal (and other materials) and has proven a godsend in strengthening crankshafts in high-power engines. With “cryo” proving useful throughout an engine, Ken bought out an entire cryo facility and set it up inside Ly-Con. It’s proven popular with performance customers and suggests the way to greater longevity on stock builds as well.

Another big plus are the two engine dynos.

These have been upgraded over the years with good data acquisition systems offering major benefits. First, customers have objective data on how their engine runs, the engines are delivered leak-free and fully vetted as to function along with being well along the critical break-in period. Furthermore, the dynos prove whatever was done in the shop.

Especially for the experimental engines, the dynos close an essential feedback loop on what works or doesn’t when improving engine builds. Having just brought both dynos to identical specification and data capabilities has sped workflow as it’s no longer necessary to wait for one or the other dyno to open up for a specific testing need.

Increasingly coming on line at Ly-Con is a small shop dedicated to servicing engine cases. This is unique for an engine builder because, as long as anyone can remember, case align boring has been the private domain of Nixon on the West Coast and, especially, Divco, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

But now Ly-Con has purchased its own align boring machine, along with a smaller CNC center and repurposed mills for various supporting tasks, allowing full servicing of engine crankcases for its in-house needs (no one in Visalia is out to corner the market on case rebuilding). This case shop is still new and developing its working protocols, but it’s primarily designed to give Ly-Con more control over this critical aspect of engine building and hopefully a small gain in profit margin eventually.

The latest gizmo is a laser welder in the welding shop. Barely unpacked during our visit, the welder promises to allow heretofore impossible aluminum repairs, but that’s something still theoretical. Like many of the ideas Ly-Con has brought to fruition as FAA-approved processes, laser welding is something the Visalia team will practice with on scrap parts, and if those work, it will move to dyno testing, followed by use on experimental engines run by trusted customers willing to try something new.

Applying for a process approval for certified engines remains well in the future, assuming it even works and makes business sense. If it doesn’t, it won’t be the first time what sounded like a great idea didn’t pan out.

Basics First

While Ly-Con is well known for its innovation and performance successes, sometimes Ken Tunnell laments the shop is perceived as something out of left field, a place for wild experimental engines, when the reality is its livelihood is dependable daily driver overhauls, inspections, IRANs, prop strikes, and all the other work found in the certified world. It’s understandable as racing garners much publicity—and hardly any income considering the work and sponsorships involved—while the certified overhauls are the true work but take place in relative obscurity.

In reality the performance and certified work is complementary. Racing has improved the breed, the lessons learned around the pylons or in front of the airshow crowds inevitably finding good employment in the certified world. Ultimately building great performance engines—and daily drivers—is all about making the flat parts really flat and the round parts really round. There are no secrets, just a will to best understand the engine’s needs and a near slavish adherence to eliminating oversights through constant checking.

In the end that’s really what goes on at Ly-Con.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Ly-Con Still Going Strong appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

More than anything else, it was my subscription to FLYING Magazine, beginning with the January 1955 issue, that created a thirst for additional knowledge and achievement. I was not alone. A lot of builders and dreamers were entering the private aviation industry in that era, helping transform it from a time of tube-and-rag taildraggers to sleek transportation aircraft.

In the mid-20th century, America was uniquely positioned for the creation of a modern noncommercial aviation system. There was a need for airplanes that could transport families and business people across the vast distances of North America, we had an airport of some sort in nearly every community, and our personal freedom and finances encouraged the utility of light aircraft. The inefficient war-surplus airplanes and vintage taildraggers leftover from the 1940s no longer sufficed. We were ready for easier-to-fly, purpose-built airplanes.

And experienced, visionary heads of aircraft companies were ready to provide them. As with the automotive industry, we had the Big Three—Beechcraft, Cessna, and Piper—plus eager-to-compete smaller companies like Aero Commander, Bellanca, Champion, Maule, and Mooney. As the 1960s arrived, new models and improved veteran designs showed up in the marketplace. Likewise, a new term, avionics, was coined, referring to a fresh crop of highly capable radios for our instrument panels, thanks to transistors and compact power supplies that shrank space requirements. 

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Powerplants also underwent development. Fuel injection and lightweight turbochargers were added to piston engines, small turbojets encouraged the concept of business jets, and new medium-horsepower turboprops filled the gap between 300 hp opposed recips and burly radials. By 1970, GA shoppers were able to buy anything from aerobatic two-seaters to pressurized, cabin-class twins. Available business aircraft ranged from turboprop executive airplanes to fanjet-powered corporate barges. Airports and airspace routings had been improved to accommodate GA’s growth. This laissez-faire ’60s atmosphere kept the industry’s engineering departments working overtime.

The declared goal during the frenetic ’60s and ’70s was to create “gap fillers.” Every company wanted to provide an airplane to suit every need and keep customers loyal to its brand. Piper had a fleet of Cherokee derivatives, from the 2+2 Cherokee 140, the everyday 180 and beefy 235, and the stretched Cherokee Six, leading to retractable Arrows and Lances, and even twin-engine Senecas and Seminoles. Piper’s earlier high-performance Comanche line was retained through 1972 in single and twin versions, with normal and turbocharged engines. And the company also offered heavier twins in various piston-engine Navajo and turboprop Cheyenne models, all while still building the venerable Aztec twin—not to mention the agricultural Pawnee airplanes and an occasional Super Cub.

Beech Aircraft also tried to fill every gap in the market with a Beechcraft. It expanded its line  downward from the three Bonanza models with a lighter Musketeer series, offered in trainer, cruiser, and retractable variants, and it even fielded a light-twin Duchess, all the while offering Baron twins in as many as five styles, plus the sexy Duke and cabin-class Queen Airs. Meanwhile, Beech’s King Air turboprop line grew longer and more capable, even leading into commuter-airliner variations. To round out its offerings, Beech acquired upscale business jets from Hawker and Mitsubishi. 

Cessna, meanwhile, outdid everyone, developing model after model to plug any sales leak in its line. At one time in the ’70s, I counted 22 singles and 13 twins among its offerings, in addition to the burgeoning Citation business jet lineup. Whatever you needed, from two-place trainer to pressurized single, from push-pull “safe twin” to back-door executive twin, agricultural airplanes and bushplanes, Cessna had them all. There seemed to be no end to the swelling Cessna tide, which amounted to 50 percent of the industry’s unit output during the boom times.

At the same time, little Mooney expanded its basic M20 retractable into longer and more powerful models, Rockwell developed single-engine and ag planes to supplement its piston and turboprop twin-engine line, Bellanca/Champion offered a half-dozen two-seat tailwheel airplanes to compliment its Viking retractables, Grumman was making two- and four-seat airplanes plus a twin-engine model, and Maule tweaked and stretched every possible variation from its tailwheel utility aircraft. 

Present Day Flying

Today, we are still enjoying the fruits of these developments in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.

Refurbished examples of the golden age general aviation airplanes sell for many multiples of their original sticker price, while the limited-production, new single-engine airplanes are astronomically unaffordable. The promised introduction of “light sport” airplanes that would provide economical new aircraft hasn’t worked out. They are priced at about twice the expected figure and often don’t have sufficient payload to accommodate two adults plus full fuel. 

A serious implosion in light airplane production took place during the mid-’80s, closing many production lines and shrinking the supply of available models. This was due to an oversupply of airplanes during economic malaise, coupled with the growth of rapacious product liability lawsuits and concurrent manufacturer insurance costs. Most of GA’s growth shifted into big-ticket aircraft such as turbine-powered business airplanes, utility and owner-flown, single-engine turboprops, and fast-glass, piston-engine singles.

As the new millennium arrived, Cirrus Design brought not only a new sleek composite-construction personal airplane but a fresh approach to marketing it. With its integral emergency parachute, side-stick control, video-screen, GPS-based avionics and automotive interior styling, the Cirrus SR series appealed to a new generation of entrants to GA. The company quickly filled a void abandoned by the traditional airplane companies that had been acquired by corporate conglomerates that were more interested in selling big-ticket business aircraft than entry-level models. 

• READ MORE: GA, Private Aviation Dodge Worst of Cyber Outage Impact

The real revolution now stems from the utility gained by effortless navigation provided by GPS data flowing into advanced computing capability, so that panel-mounted displays can not only show current position but flight plan routing, all linked to advanced autopilot technology taking care of most cross-country piloting chores. With uplinked, in-cockpit weather integrated into tablet-based “electronic flight bags” or the avionics suite, there’s no longer any excuse for pressing on into unflyable conditions lurking over the horizon. 

Retrofitting this advanced technology into legacy aircraft is simply a matter of allocating enough money to make the airplane useful. The ADS-B mandate of 2020 has given more flexibility to ATC handling of any size of aircraft—at the cost of privacy and freedom. Yes, we deal with a multitude of airspace rules and restrictions, but we had to negotiate many of those same encroachments in the late 20th century, and with less computing power in the cockpit back then to help us avoid them. 

Airport infrastructure has shifted away from providing accommodations for all comers to building for the biggest user, leaving light general aviation to occupy the corners of the ramp or a remote edge of the airport. Stand-alone, family-operated FBOs have been replaced by chains of opulent palaces catering to the jet set. We can expect to pay for what used to be free services, because our minuscule fuel business is no longer important enough to be willingly subsidized by the big iron customers. 

Expectations are greater in the 21st century—in all aspects of life, not just GA. New entrants to flying expect seamless air conditioning, push-button actuations, plush accommodations, and high levels of service, compared with their more-tolerant parents and grandparents. If passengers can’t have Wi-Fi on board, they don’t want to ride with us. Privileges have their price, reflected in million-dollar sticker prices on new limited-production piston singles and multiple millions for personal turboprops. 

At least we still have options, even though we may have more money tied up in our instrument panel than a first-class traveling airplane cost back in the late 1900s. We’ve lost many airports to housing and industrial developments, but many remain, still giving access to communities via general aviation, providing transportation and utility possible in no other way. 

Flying’s Future

The future, from my jaded perspective, will be different, perhaps not to the tastes of my generation but still suitable and rewarding to those who’ll be doing most of the GA flying.

Accommodations might have to be made for the hyper-promoted electric urban air mobility (UAM) vehicles, manned and unmanned, in various stages of development for a market that may or may not exist. If airspace, bases, and routes have to be carved out for these anticipated thousands of mass-transit conveyances, we may see some disruption of traditional air traffic.

• READ MORE: Hangar Shortage Spurs 2 GA Pilots to Launch Development Project

The big unknown is the impact of governmental and public policy interference on a limited-participation activity like general aviation. Regardless of the facts, the loudest voices get the most attention at law-making levels, and well-meaning but shortsighted regulation can wind up stifling the freedom of flight enjoyed by private citizens. We must continue to support our GA membership organizations, and these associations must link arms with other interests, such as business aviation, helicopter operators, agricultural aviation, flight training, avionics shops, and FBOs, to ward off possible restrictions and bad laws stemming from class-envy and special-interest rhetoric targeting the industry.

I remain eternally optimistic about aviation, because I’ve always observed humankind’s innate desire to fly. From the days of the earliest prehistoric human watching soaring birds, there’s always been something urging us to look skyward, yearning to share the perspective of height. People will always want to fly, and once having tasted the freedom of personal wings, it is difficult to give it up. It behooves us to share flight with as many of our friends and acquaintances as possible, building a coalition to preserve what we’ve been given. 

A love of flying, like all passions, has to be given away if it is to be continuously circulated back to the conferrer.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: The State of U.S. General Aviation appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Imagine being past the hard part and turning your nearly finished airplane over to McCormick and his well-trained staff to put the cherry red on your sundae. Finally, it’s time to fly—and turn some heads.

What started as a desire to offer more elaborate schemes has since become Evoke Aviation and Evoke Aircraft Design, the graphic design portion of the business. Evoke’s portfolio includes more than 50 EAA AirVenture award-winning homebuilts, such as Steve Thorne’s (“Flight Chops” on YouTube) Van’s RV-14.

“I would say our customers are people who want to be able to show off a little bit of their personality,” McCormick said.

• READ MORE: Why Are So Many Airplanes Painted White?

When meeting the Evoke team at AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I was greeted by youthful faces and tattooed limbs. These folks looked like me, and I was excited to learn about additional career opportunities in aviation. There are more obvious routes, such as becoming a mechanic or delving into engineering or marketing, but graphic design was something I’d never really thought about, let alone aircraft painting.

“It’s very cool to be able to not only design the airplane, but work in a facility on-site where that design is then put on the airplane, and you can have input as it’s all being created and basically coming to life,” McCormick said. “I think it’s a very cool niche for the designers to get into.”

The Prep

McCormick was able to establish the foundation for what would become his own design company and paint shop—located at Northeast Alabama Regional Airport (KGAD)—by aiming to fill a need and taking every necessary step to do so. He’s always been entrepreneurial. He started a DJ business in high school that he worked all throughout college, where he studied auto collision repair. He knew that focus would be a gateway to custom painting.

After graduating with a technical certificate, he landed a job at International Jets, an aircraft paint facility in Gadsden. He fell in love with airplanes and worked to fine-tune his skill during a time when paint schemes weren’t all that exciting.

“I always knew that I could do better,” he said. “I was always so frustrated by what I was painting, and I just knew I could create better designs. And so that’s where the idea started.”

Around 2011, work sent McCormick to Nigeria for a year to manage a project. During his downtime he created a business plan for his own design company, Plane Schemer, which was rebranded to Evoke Aircraft Design in 2021 to better align with his paint shop, Evoke Aviation. Upon his return, he launched a website and put together enough money for a booth at the Sun ’n Fun Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Florida. He didn’t have a lot of designs to show, but was able to persuade a few people to work with him. Shortly after, he was able to quit his day job of painting airplanes and focus on building his own brand.

• READ MORE: Giving Your Airplane a Face-Lift and Tummy Tuck

A few years later, International Jets went out of business, and McCormick acquired its hangar, allowing him to offer not only schemes but paint jobs as well. Now with complete control over the quality of the finished product, he could focus on taking Evoke paint jobs to the next level by using the highest quality materials and procedures.

“The majority of our labor hours goes into the body work and the prep and getting it ready for paint, and actually the paint is one of the easiest parts,” he said. “So 65 percent of the budget goes into the actual prepping of the airplane, and then the rest of it goes into the paint and the finish work and the reassembly.”

The Primer

McCormick manages 20 employees across both businesses—five designers and the rest paint-and-body-work technicians. He said he hires people who take pride in their work and want to do better for themselves. That positive company culture has attracted capable employees who produce quality work, and McCormick feels this is what has allowed his business to grow so quickly.

As with every aviation business, hiring and retention has proven difficult at times, so Evoke does a lot of recruiting to combat those challenges. This is the main reason its employee average age is low. Additionally, McCormick believes it’s easier to hire and train from scratch, rather than try to retrain experienced designers and technicians.

“We can teach exactly the way we want everything done from the very beginning, and there’s no bad habits to get rid of,” he said.

Sammy Davis, one of McCormick’s first employees, now serves as Evoke’s senior designer. Davis set out to study graphic design in college but switched her major from art to business after her first year.

She was originally hired to help from a business standpoint as she not only majored in it but had interned at a software and systems engineering company, where she absorbed a lot of valuable information that would help make Evoke scalable for the future. Davis went to Sun ’n Fun with McCormick for his big debut and got to ride in an Aero L-39 Albatros.

“That was my first-ever plane ride, and I was like, ‘OK, I would like to be a part of this, please,’” said Davis, noting the Lakeland trip served as her introduction to aviation and she is now the only pilot on the Evoke staff.

Due to an increase in sales and McCormick being pulled in different directions, Davis decided to learn scheme design. She said she watched McCormick and asked a lot of questions.

“You have to be patient and a little bit hardheaded,” she said.

Davis pointed out that repetition was key, and eventually she got the green light to start working with clients. She’s been at it for seven years, but said a lot has changed in that time.

“Schemes back then were not as elaborate as they are now for the most part because the trend hadn’t quite kicked off yet,” she said. “So back then it was just like, OK, well here’s a really simple prompt, maybe a two-tone. Someone wants a white base and like a red bottom with a stripe in the middle. OK, well that’s easy enough. You do that and then you send it off to them, you do your edits, and then you try a top view. OK, well now you try the wings, and you would think something shaped as a rectangle wouldn’t be as challenging as it is, but there’s a lot of curves and 3D forms to think about.”

Customers initiate the design process by filling out a survey that covers preferred styles, colors, and paint finishes. They are also asked to send in reference photos of what they like. In addition, it’s helpful if designers know at what stage their customer is at in their build and what their mission is—do they want to win an award, or are they looking for something more practical? The designers work with their clients, whether it be over the phone, through Zoom calls, or in person, to finalize the scheme. This can take weeks, months, or years, and sometimes upward of 50 renderings to complete.

At any given time, designers can host a Zoom meeting with their client to talk through design changes. Both Davis and McCormick called this a fun activity because clients are impressed by how quickly Evoke’s designers can make changes—since they know all the shortcuts—and it’s exciting for the customer to see them carve out their airplane’s final form. Customers can also invite friends and family to join. Screen sharing also saves Evoke a lot of phone calls.

“You can cut down so much time,” Davis said. “You can cut down weeks of back-and-forth by doing a Zoom session, honestly. Because they can see their ideas in real time, and they can visualize it, and they can also ask technical questions that they might not think of when they’re dialing a response back.”

Evoke also reduced the number of checkup phone calls it receives by developing an online portal for customers to track lead times.

“Once you initiate a design with us, you get on the paint schedule, you get a Signature Series number assigned to you, and then as the airplanes are completed, we have an online portal that you sign into,” McCormick said. “It has your number, where you’re at in line, what your current wait time and estimated drop-off date is, and then you can also see the planes that are in progress, and you see the planes as they’re being finished. So it’s like this interactive system that you have access to once you get on the schedule.”

The Paint

Dakota Jennings, another one of McCormick’s first hires, works as a paint technician, having gotten his start studying auto collision repair, just like McCormick. Jennings was able to perfect his craft under McCormick’s tutelage, working through unfamiliar tasks diligently until he got it right.

“He showed me how he does it, and then he let me do it,” Jennings said. “He never wanted to do it for me. And once I get it, I’ve always got it,”

Jennings enjoys everything about his job, from hand-striping lines to creating his own colors for fades. Like many of the other team members, he fell in love with aviation and was excited to tell his college peers he works on airplanes.

“It was like my calling to be in the aviation industry,” he said. “I really could be doing something else, but I really enjoy being here and being…I guess you could call it an artist.”

When asked what makes a good aircraft painter, McCormick said it’s all about a strong skill set rather than just having the right tools.

“I believe that to paint to the quality that we’re doing is a 100 percent skill,” he said. “At Oshkosh I do a seminar and I tell exactly how we do every single step of our paint process. There’s no secrets. There’s nothing proprietary about the way we do things. We just do everything to a degree and with the skill set that is almost impossible to replicate without having the team of people we’ve been able to build and put together here.”

The Finished Product

Your airplane is painted. Now how do you maintain it?

Evoke has created a line of cleaning products, called the Signature Shine Series, that allows customers to take a little bit of luxury with them when they leave the facility. McCormick worked with one of his clients who owns a company that specializes in product development, manufacturing, and packaging to create the line of supplies for Evoke.

“It’s not meant to be a really big sector of our business, but it is very cool when we’re finished with an airplane to be able to continue our involvement in their paint job,” he said.

At AirVenture, Evoke brings a team to detail airplanes all week, so if your homebuilt was painted by Evoke and you fly it to Oshkosh, you’ll get the royal treatment.

Now that McCormick has built his empire, he works seven days a week to maintain it.

“Not to micromanage, but just to manage to a degree where we’re never compromising our quality,” he said. “That quality, attention to detail, and pride in what we do is the biggest reason our product has grown to become so popular.”

He’s proud to be quite involved in every aspect of the company. So how does he continue to improve?

“I think I’m intuitive, but I also try to learn from people who have done it before,” McCormick said. “It never hurts to pick up a book about business management and [study] how to communicate more effectively as a leader. It’s worth going through books, even if there’s one sentence or phrase in that entire book that becomes valuable, and it’s something you can implement in your day to day, and just stacking those skills and learning to communicate better and to be a more effective leader.”

For more information on Evoke Aviation, call 256-490-1541 or visit www.evokeaviation.com and www.evokeaircraftdesign.com.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Specializing in Works of Art appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

“You’ve got the coolest job in the world,” a customer would exclaim.

I’d smile.

To quote Ernest Hemingway, “What a pretty thought.”

“I don’t know how you do it. I’d last two weeks.” I heard that too, accompanied by sympathetic eyes.

What was my job? What “it” did I do?

I provided airframe and engine assembly, operation, and maintenance support to aircraft homebuilders, pilots, owners, and mechanics via phone and email. I supported those who claimed to have never tightened a bolt and actual rocket scientists, those who loved every moment of their project and those who seemed to endure under duress from the first. Those who ran their engine without a prop while making carburetor adjustments to try to lower cylinder head temperatures, and engineers prone to overthinking.

Sometimes they were one and the same. Subsets in each category included those with a can-do spirit, those with a can’t-do spirit, those wanting to learn, those wanting to complain, those who embraced challenges, and those who shouldn’t be in aviation at all.

There were those who abused me and those who brought me a cold six-pack from various Californian microbrews every EAA AirVenture. They all called me “Tech Guy.” Except one, who called me an “ass—-” and demanded I be fired.

Monday Morning, the Phone Rings…

Caller: “I sent you an email three days ago. I still don’t have an answer.”

Me: “I see it arrived Friday at 4:37 p.m.. That was 45 work minutes ago. How can I help you?”

Caller: “I have N12345.”

Me: “I don’t know what that is.”

Caller: “It’s the green Onyx.”

Me: (Ah, the green one.) “OK, how can I help you?”

Caller: “The Piston Banger engine makes a…”

Me: “I’m sorry, we don’t support Piston Banger engines. You’ll need to contact them.”

Caller: “But that’s what’s on the Onyx I just bought.”

Me: “That may be—by the way, it’s pronounced One-X—but we can’t help with that. Piston Banger probably can.”

Caller: “Do you have a phone number or anything for them?”

Me: “Hang on, let me Google that for you.” (I emphasize Google.)

The call winds down with, “How are things there?”

“Great! I have to let you go, I have another call to take.”

The coolest job in the world, indeed.

After a call like that, it’s hard to imagine why I’d want to do anything else. I stare at the phone. “Please,” I think, “let the next one be about low oil pressure.” But it’s not.

After a lengthy monologue on how hard I am to get a hold of, it’s mostly about the weather until the caller gets sidetracked and queries me on a bolt substitution. I dispense the local weather conditions—both current and forecast—and address their question.

While doing so I think of a friend, a professional musician who plies his trade in Nashville, Tennessee, recording studios and on stages around the world and my heart sinks. Thank goodness I never had guitar lessons or I might be slogging through life like him. The call ends with, “How are things there?”

“They’re great. I need to let you go. Someone else is calling.”

The third call begins, “You’re hard to get a hold of…” On the way to their question, they ask how the weather is and regale me with stories of flying cargo over the Himalayan Mountains.

Where Do Tech Guys Come From?

Support personnel in a field as unique as homebuilding don’t come from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and aren’t found through local staffing agencies.

Hands-on experience with a specific airframe and a lack of other employment options is the primary career path. That, and the belief working for a kit aircraft company is the coolest job in the world.

We come from garages, basements, unused bedrooms, and leaky T-hangars. We build our résumés one part at a time, one mistake at a time. Our graduation is our first fight. Our internship is flying off the flight test hours and successfully sorting the bugs.

From that pool of candidates, a company needs a person interested in both the job and moving to the factory’s location (have you seen where some kit companies are located?). A person capable of troubleshooting (without touching) and communicating the corrective action—maybe to someone who doesn’t know how to pronounce the name of the aircraft they’re building. A person capable of dealing with…people. Angry people. Worried people. People whose dream, financial investment, and literal life may hinge on what is said and how it is said.

They must do this while building and guarding a company’s reputation and, sometimes, advocating for a customer by arguing against a company’s policy.

But, no pressure.

Supporting the Product or the Customer?

Strictly speaking, my job was less about supporting customers than it was supporting products.

To support a customer is to open the door to infinite questions. It’s a door I’d step through, though seldom farther than the threshold.

“What kind of paint is on the factory airplanes?” I could answer that. “What kind of paint should I use?” I couldn’t answer that. “How do I wire the AeroVee?”  I could answer that—it’s a Sonex product. “How do I wire the intercom to my radio?” It wasn’t my place to say. I didn’t support third-party products and hoped other companies weren’t advising Sonex builders on aileron rigging.

It may surprise you, after a two-decade career, how little of my knowledge would transfer to another kit company. The expertise to effectively support a particular product comes from knowing the product. I could look at the plans of any airplane kit and see where slot A engaged tab B, but so can every builder, if only they would. I could advise on bolt length substitutions, removing bad rivets, bending parts and CG calculations, but you shouldn’t need factory support for that—that’s general homebuilding knowledge.

What Is a Company’s Support Obligation?

A kit company expects customers will bring a level of mechanical ability, resourcefulness, and desire to learn to their project.

For some, knowledge and skills acquisition begin when the kit is delivered. For others, it has been accumulating since childhood, as they absorbed the pages of KITPLANES and other homebuilding magazines, and their personal copy of the Aviation Maintenance Technician Handbook. (Please tell me I wasn’t the only eighth-grader with a tattered copy of that classic.)

What support should you expect? If pressed, I’d say a company owes you support to assemble and use the parts and products it provided in the manner it intended. If a hole needs to be drilled, it owes you the location of the hole and its size. The company does not owe you an explanation on why that hole is there or how to drill it. It doesn’t owe you an electrical schematic if it provides nothing that needs wiring. It doesn’t owe you advice on fitting alternate brakes, supplemental fuel, or increasing the size of the panel. And it certainly doesn’t owe you a way to salvage parts you’ve damaged beyond airworthiness.

The role of Tech Guy gets muddled when a project becomes a flying airplane. The factory didn’t deliver a finished airplane. Thousands of individual decisions go into turning a pallet of parts into an airplane, each unknown to the factory.

Here’s one example: Sonex recommends a specific Sensenich propeller for each airframe/engine combination it supports. Propellers from other manufacturers may share the same pitch and diameter specification, but in execution it varies.

One customer, who fitted a propeller from an alternate manufacturer, couldn’t get their airplane out of ground effect. In time, I persuaded them to borrow the recommended prop from another Sonex. That solved the problem. If I hadn’t pursued that, or if the builder had ignored my advice, they would have remained ground bound, chasing the wrong fixes, and Sonex could have taken heat within the builder community for the poor performance. “Those AeroVee engines are crap.” “Toss the AeroInjector and fit a Brand-X carb.” “You need a Rotax.” I saw it more often than I can count.

In the end, it’s your airplane and your problem. That’s blunt, and more than a bit true. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a phrase to be tossed about by Tech Guy so they can go to lunch early, but the help you seek may not be help they can provide.

Imagine taking a British sports car that someone stuffed with a Ford 302 to a Ford dealer when it doesn’t start. The dealer would turn you away faster than you can yank the positive battery cable off  to stop an electrical fire. (My personal best is 3.2 seconds.) The car’s factory-provided manual was rendered useless by someone with a vision and the desire to tinker. Maybe the modifications were documented, but probably not. You’ll have to trace wires—all of them white, none of them labeled.

I just described homebuilt airplanes. Tech Guy may try to help—I did, if I could—by providing common sense diagnostics: “Did you hit the starter with a hammer? That worked on my girlfriend’s Pinto.”

Supporting a product that is delivered as a collection of parts—or only as plans—to be interpreted into an airplane by a cross section of the general population is different from supporting a GA aircraft that is factory-assembled and maintained in strict compliance with its type certificate. When you embrace homebuilding, you have to embrace that you have a one-of-kind airplane whose problems, ultimately, are yours. Even small modifications can render factory support of kit aircraft difficult.

As a Tech Guy, when things didn’t add up, I had to coax modifications into the light. “Is it wired exactly per the schematic,” I’d both ask and emphasize.

“Yes, but…”

You’d be surprised how many shades of meaning “exactly” has.

Support By Committee

A customer’s email to me: “I try and help [on the builder forum] but rarely do any good. They come looking for help and then argue and tell you you’re full of crap. I’ve got to hand it to you guys. You do a darned good job of doing the almost impossible.”

As a product matures, the population of builders with opinions does as well. More builder modifications—“improvements,” in builder-speak—creep in. In time the number of people giving advice grows into a chorus of individuals singing different songs and singing them loudly. I increasingly received questions prefaced by “so-and-so says…”

Multiply that by thousands of builders and you see where the need to support the product, as designed, becomes critical. I saw dangerous modifications implemented and copied. When I’d point them out, it was common to be told, “That’s why it’s called experimental.”

Fair enough, but the outcome of some experiments can be foretold. Many builders put blind trust in the often-anonymous posts on builder forums. Think about this: The same ignorance and knee-jerk answers you see in online groups for topics you know very well (for instance, split-window Corvettes or how to bake cinnamon bread) exist in the online communities for topics you may know little about, including homebuilt airplane groups. While you may not have the knowledge to recognize them, Tech Guy does.

‘I Know You Have to Watch What You Say’

That whispered statement was sometimes invoked to solicit the “honest” answer to a question. My answers were informed by the engineering and testing that had proven the product, by my firsthand experience, and by the knowledge I accumulated from others’ experiences. They were never influenced by attorneys (the only attorney I spoke to was a customer. That’s who called me an “ass—-” and demanded I be fired) or the need to toe a company line. They were in a builder’s best interest, and sometimes not in the company’s financial interest, whether a builder believed it or not. Builders shouldn’t want it any other way.

Even after I’d warned of a dangerous condition, some forged ahead, as was their right in the Experimental/ Amateur-Built (E-AB) category.

A few times I urged pilots to ground an airplane until a problem was resolved. Not everyone listened. At least one will never read this. It was common for the FAA or National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to contact Sonex as part of an accident investigation. It wasn’t the factory it was investigating, it was the specific airplane’s history.

Sometimes the path between a customer’s last email and the accident was direct and only days old—“My engine seems starved for fuel.”

The Support Relationship

Your relationship with Tech Guy can last years or decades. For everyone’s sake, it should be a “we’re in this together” relationship.

Treating factory support as an adversary is not in your interest. I advanced my retirement a week because one more week of employment wasn’t worth the sarcastic, blame-laden emails I was getting from one particular builder. In contrast, within weeks of retiring I embarked on a road trip that included overnight stays at the homes of four of my best friends. Each entered my life when they needed the help of Sonex Tech Guy. Today, those friendships, and many more, transcend aviation.

By the time I retired I had supported thousands of souls who got 650 airplanes flying and another 2,100 airframes underway. I supported 1,000 AeroVee engine deliveries and a host of accessories.

In November 2023 Van’s Aircraft website stated that 11,278 RVs had been completed and an average of 1.5 were hatching each day. I estimate its full-time builder support staff to be three to four folks. I put the number of Tech Guys in the kitplane industry at one per 3,700 registered E-AB aircraft, or one per 9,000 kits/plans delivered.

At the same time, there are an unlimited number of questions any builder can ask, and secondhand sales reset the counter. The farther a kit or finished aircraft travels from its original owner/builder, the less familiarity each new owner, and Tech Guy, has with what they’ve purchased.

With that lengthy preface, I offer these suggestions to streamline the support experience for all involved. Before contacting Tech Guy, run this checklist:

• Is this a question for the product’s manufacturer? I answered a lot of generic building questions and some unrelated to the products I supported. I even served as Siri from time to time: “Kerry, what is Aircraft Spruce’s phone number?” “Kerry, what is the best fire extinguisher for a Sonex?”
• Have you utilized the manufacturer’s printed and online resources? In other words, don’t be lazy. “I’m sure the answer is in the plans, but they are in my basement and I’m in my hangar.”
• Are you the person that should make the call? A friend calling on behalf of an owner often couldn’t answer my follow-up questions, and I knew my answers got muddled in their delivery.
• Have you prepared for the call? Have the construction documentation available as well as pen and paper for notes. Referencing parts with the manufacturers’ nomenclature is more precise than calling something “that bracket thing that’s riveted to a channel.”
• Are you asking the company to comment on what another builder said or did? Don’t.
• Don’t call, email. The answer you want may not be immediately at hand. I often had to dig into a problem and I preferred giving accurate answers to fast ones. Coincidentally, many times someone would have gotten an answer faster if they had emailed rather than waited for business hours to call. I routinely answered emails during nonbusiness hours.
• Would you write a letter (and include an SASE) or pay long-distance charges to ask the question if it were 1980? Email, cell phones and free long-distance calling have made it easy for some to stop thinking for themselves. Don’t burden Tech Guy with your laziness.
• Don’t argue the answer. You can take it or leave it, but don’t argue about it. You should, however, challenge an answer that doesn’t make sense. Sometimes my answers were off base because I misinterpreted a question.
• Support those who support you. A customer who purchased engine parts elsewhere, to save money, called when they didn’t fit to compare the manufacturer’s numbers on his box to what we sold. He went on to complain that people used to get a price from him and then order online, for less. (You can’t make this stuff up.) If you value or use factory support, order your parts from them.
• Use an app to get the factory’s weather conditions, and assume things are going well for them.

One final thought: My job was to support a person’s hobby. I stood in an odd crossroad—under observation by those who paid me and often wanted me to do other things, things that looked more like making money, while those I supported wanted to share their experiences with me. I enjoyed hangar flying—it was relationship building—but Tech Guys only have time for a touch-and-go or two.

I Was You. Few Were Me.

Before I was Tech Guy, I was a guy building an airplane in a garage. I knew what it was like to want an answer when it seemed I may have ruined critical parts.

As a Tech Guy I was acutely aware of my impact on a customer’s success. When the workday ended, unresolved issues went home with me. They ran with me, showered with me, ate with me, watched TV with me, vacationed with me, and celebrated holidays with me. Many slept with me.

I knew someone’s lifetime dream could hinge on my answer. I knew the company’s reputation was earned, confirmed, or diminished with each answer I gave. For better or worse—and years of nightly aviation nightmares, which subsided after I retired, would indicate for worse—I took on a builder’s problems as if they were my own. Tech Guy was my world. It is a world few in homebuilt aviation occupy. It’s a world few would want to occupy.

“You’ve got the coolest job in the world.”

What a pretty thought.

Help Yourself

Many of the questions I was asked and answered never needed to be asked of me or anyone in a tech support role. Homebuilding encompasses a wide range of skills and knowledge that each builder must acquire on their own.

To use an analogy, paint manufacturers aren’t expected to teach their customers how to scrape paint, hold a paintbrush, or climb a ladder.

The good news is learning the basic knowledge, often framed as “best practices,” pays dividends in speeding your project along and building your confidence. A kit’s manufacturer, however, should always be your first stop for design-specific questions.

Here are a few tried-and-true resources builders should avail themselves to:

• AC 43.13-1B, Acceptable Methods, Techniques and Practices—Aircraft Inspection and Repair
• FAA-H-8083-30A, Aviation Maintenance Technician Handbook
• Aviation Mechanic Handbook
• Homebuilding publications, such as KITPLANES magazine
• The FAA, for licensing and registration questions
• Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and its vast homebuilder resources, including local chapters and technical counselors.
• The four-volume collection of Tony Bingelis’ homebuilder reference manuals
• Fellow homebuilders
• Skill-building classes at local schools
• Aircraft-specific builder workshops
• Skill-building seminars offered at fly-ins or through EAA

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

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It’s no secret that pilots of complex and high-end aircraft have been dealing with the trend of higher rates and even non renewed policies, especially older pilots and those with limited experience in type. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to sunset your flying career once you reach 70—the point in life where underwriters consider you a “senior” pilot. Moreover, with a savvy approach, some compromises and hard training requirements, insurance can be available for younger and green pilots stepping into tailwheels and turbines.

Plus, insurance pros unanimously say to find an insurer you’re happy with and stick with them for the long term because loyalty matters. At the same time, show the underwriter you’re doing everything possible in the name of safety, and that includes sourcing quality flight training and on a regular basis.

Here’s a general insurance guide, with tips and advice from those who write the policies and pay out the claims.

Old Plane, Older Pilot

Making matters worse is that companies are putting limits on insured value. Just because you have $350,000-plus invested in your refurbished piston single typically valued at $125,000 doesn’t always mean you’ll be able to insure it for its full upgraded value without solid proof it has all the upgrades. These days, with avionics, paint, and engine upgrades, it’s easy to get upside down from an insurance standpoint.

Marci Veronie from Avemco Aviation Insurance said the company writes policies based on what it calls “stated” proof of equipage.

“If you can prove to me you have it in what you want covered, and we can agree, that’s what we’ll write the policy for,” said Veronie, noting that clients send photos, videos, and equipment specs that are cross-checked against the company’s reference guides.

• READ MORE: Aircraft Insurance Market Has Stabilized—Somewhat

Essentially, do your best to prove what you think the aircraft is worth. If you sold the aircraft tomorrow, what would you get for it?

The other issue is maintainability. The parts availability issues for some older airplanes are trickling down to the insurance market, which means you’ll be paying more out of pocket for repairs.

In the insurance world this is called a component parts schedule, which means insurers will only pay out a percent of the loss of a flap or wing or tail section, as some examples. It’s a snag for uncommon experimentals and certified aging aircraft alike.

Scott Smith from Iowa-based Scott “Sky” Smith Insurance said that these days it’s not just the age of the pilot but the age of the aircraft that concerns insurers.  Some companies have stopped insuring Cessna piston twins older than 30 years—a major chunk of the fleet. Others have walked away from turbine conversions.

There are a few underwriters who say claims can sit in limbo for many months because of parts shortages. For others, where it’s impossible to source parts, the aircraft becomes a loss, the insurer pays it out and unloads it to the highest salvage bidder. Part of the reason for rate increases is the increasing cost of replacement parts. Think about that before buying something rare, exotic, or classic.

It has taken a while for the underwriting world to sync up with the huge jump in value of used aircraft, though prices do seem to be stabilizing. Still, while an older Skyhawk might sell for big money, that doesn’t mean an insurer will write a policy with limits that match the value. Good insurers will routinely ask what improvements were made to the aircraft, including the big ones like avionics upgrades. Plan on providing proof of equipage (make sure all equipment is registered with the manufacturer) and keep tight engine logs.

Speaking of engine time, one FAA inspector advises that insurers deny claims if the aircraft’s engine is beyond TBO and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report cites engine failure as a probable cause of the crash. We call that nonsense. Engine TBO is not a requirement in Part 91 ops, but instead a suggestion from the manufacturer.

Who Is This Guy?

Part of the problem that’s frustrating for aging pilots is the stereotype. Not all senior pilots are hobbling around with a cane and short of breath, because in general, aviators tend to keep themselves in reasonably decent shape.

Insurance pros agree that for an underwriter sitting at a desk in Big City USA, it is difficult to evaluate an aging pilot’s risk. As one insurer put it: “How do you know if you are writing [for] the 60-year-old 80-year-old, or the 80-year-old 60-year-old?” The companies really don’t because people age at different rates. Some lag behind their chronological age, and some are way ahead of it. Some are fit enough to compete in endurance events, while others can’t walk a mile without falling over.

Some also argue that with age comes more sound aeronautical judgment, and for career aviators, lots of real-world experience. That may be true, but is it canceled out with declining situational awareness and reaction time? The low-hanging fruit is accident history. Almost every company did tell us that they experienced a slightly higher accident rate among the senior pilot customers. As a result, a 77-year-old pilot with two gear-up landings in the last three years, or who ran one tank dry and made an off-field landing with 40 gallons in the other tank, is probably not a good bet when it comes to risk.

• READ MORE: Airplane Insurance Trend Could Be Bad for Us All

Two areas of human thinking that researchers say suffer the most and the soonest from aging are working memory and reaction time. Working memory is defined in different ways, but we use it here to mean the part of transient memory used to temporarily store and manipulate information, such as reading back an approach clearance or running a checklist from memory. Underwriters have relied upon medical certification to give them some reassurance about the physical fitness of their clients and in some cases require additional FAA medical exams because it’s more data that they can put in the pilot’s files. The annual FAA medical including electrocardiogram (EKG) has been a favorite for years.

Another clue that underwriters look at is how much time a pilot has in the same type of airplane in which they are looking to be insured. Some aging pilots can easily tackle the challenge of a different airplane with lots of new features and complex systems, but many cannot. One underwriter said that while his company insures many older pilots, it tends to avoid older pilots who were making transitions, especially large ones—such as from a piston to a turbine. The required learning of new systems may be a challenge—and insurers know it.

What Scares Them?

Insurance underwriters consistently tell us that assessing the risk factor is easy simply because they have years of data, proving that pilots continue to bend aircraft the same way they always have, despite huge leaps in tech with layers of automated backstop.

We concur. Over at sister publication The Aviation Consumer magazine, we’ve been studying monthly NTSB accident reports for more than 50 years and come up with the same stats, again and again. Whether it’s runway loss of control (RLOC), continued VFR into IMC, loss of control in IMC, botched instrument approaches, low/reckless flying—the list is long—crash patterns are predictable, especially for taildraggers.

For prospective tailwheel owners and current owners 70 or older, the hard market means doing some homework before applying for insurance or renewing an existing policy.

Mike Pratt, an aviation insurance broker with Foundation Risk Partners, a large brokerage with offices in 14 states (he’s been a tailwheel owner and pilot for years) had some good advice. According to Pratt, a high number of claims because of careless prangs and the lack of pilot training are what is driving the insurance market for tailwheel airplanes above and beyond the hard market. There are only about a dozen insurance companies that write for aviation and not all will insure tailwheel airplanes, so it’s up to the owner to put their best foot forward when seeking insurance.

What are red flags to underwriters? In the tailwheel world, it’s little airplanes with very high hull values. That means that if you haven’t yet obtained a tailwheel endorsement, don’t buy a brand-new Husky, Scout, Maule, or XCub, to name a few, and expect to get insurance with one simple phone call. If you can get it at all, it could cost at least $15,000 for the first year.

Moreover, get time in the type of airplane you intend to buy—even if it’s only five hours—before you apply for insurance. Putting down a zero in the time type box in the insurance application means that some of the companies will not even look at you. Also, plan on completing as much dual instruction as the insurer requires in your new airplane before you fly it solo. It’s amazing that some owners don’t want to part with a couple thousand dollars for training after spending a couple hundred thousand for the airplane.

Pratt said he sees pilots become cheap about training way too often and believes it’s one of the most foolish things they can do. Truth is insurance companies have had their financial faces rubbed in the value of training for years. They know it keeps claims down. Plus, do you want to deal with having to repair your new bird when quality training might have avoided it altogether?

If you are 70 or older and have been able to get insurance for your tailwheel airplane, don’t rock the boat. Do not change insurers. Don’t get huffy in response to a big premium increase—the odds are that no one else will insure you, and the insurance company that has been loyal to you may drop you. We hear from senior pilots on a regular basis faced with nonrenewals, regardless of their claim histories. The bottom line with taildraggers is get an insurance quote before making a deal on one, while accepting that at some age, if you want insurance, you’ll have to switch to a nosewheel airplane.

Underwriters also look at what kind of airplane their older customer is flying and the amount of liability coverage they carry. Bear in mind that the insurer has in effect promised to pay for the airplane, and the limit of liability, if things go really badly—as it certainly sometimes does. Underwriters treat this as very real money. So, the older pilot in a Cessna 172 insured for $90,000 who carries $1 million of liability coverage limited to $100,000 per passenger causes an underwriter much less concern than the older pilot flying a Piper M600, as one example, worth $4 million and toting liability limits of $5 million.

Last, senior pilots flying retracts and twins seem to be attention-getting for many underwriters, even though the available evidence is confusing and even contradictory. Many of the studies based on accident analysis include only NTSB-reportable occurrences, which are only a fraction of all aircraft insurance claims. And how do we tell whether a gear-up landing is just an “oops’’ or was caused by age-related factors? Plenty of youngsters have committed the $60,000 slide, and plenty of younger pilots do some pretty stupid things.

Training, Currency, Medical Certification

This includes earning a new rating or two, which underwriters see as a good thing. So is the client who goes out for additional recurrent training on their own. Currency can be a good gauge for risk because the pilot who is flying 100 hours a year, getting periodic training and proficiency checks, plus maybe doing an FAA WINGS phase, should look good to an underwriter concerned about that aging pilot keeping his head in the game.

On the other hand, insurers have said that the mere issuance of a medical certificate does not provide the underwriter with much information about either gradual deterioration of a pilot’s skills, nor does it provide much ability to predict sudden medical incapacitation—as rare as it may actually be. So it’s easy to wonder how belt-and-suspender safety backstops (including Garmin’s Emergency Autoland and other autopilot-based equipment) will affect the insurance underwriting landscape. From what we can tell, it helps sell airplanes to aging pilots.

Avemco offers sizable discounts for pilots who go the extra mile in the knowledge- and skill-building department.

Seaplanes, Turbines, Experimentals

Unanimously, insurance pros admit that rates for these aircraft can be extremely high, and some might not be insurable at any cost. Avemco said it can help ease the pain if the floats are taken off and wheels installed during the offseason, if you operate in northern climates. Yes, skis are the same as wheels in the eyes of Avemco and most insurance companies, so they won’t alter the cost.

Got a fresh seaplane rating in your wallet? Resist going out and buying a high-performance model like a Cessna 206 or big-engine Maule on amphibs. Instead, consider something you can insure yourself for any physical damage. Maybe something pretty simple, such as a Luscombe or even a Cub on floats, until you get some time in your logbook.

Building an airplane from a kit? The advice is to stick with ones with large fleet sizes. Almost every underwriter recognizes models from Van’s, Sonex, and Zenith as being good choices. Replacement parts are a big concern for underwriters, and so is complexity, so it might be best to build a fixed-gear airplane (with a tricycle configuration) and avoid rare or one-off kits. Unless you have serious amounts of turbine time in your logbook, an experimental turbine will have your underwriter laughing.

Speaking of turbines, they’re certainly doable, but be realistic. As one underwriter put it, “the owner-flown jet and turboprop market is where all the hand-to-hand fighting is. Liability limits are being cut in half, premiums are doubling, and it’s sort of a failure of the insurance business to get this far behind the curve that we can’t provide the product at a reasonable price.” Another made a good point: “High-performance aircraft, including turbines, may be the big-buck business insurance companies want, but they may not want the pilot that goes along with the policy.”

Stepping into the world of an owner-flown turbine means you’ll need to spend quality time with your insurance broker to find out whether you can get a policy that covers you in the airplane and limits of liability that you need to protect yourself, as well as the conditions and its cost. Accept that your age and experience are the two drivers that determine your insurability when stepping up to turbine machines.

It may be that you will be unable to buy insurance to fly a dream airplane single pilot at any price. We’ll say it right here: If you are over 65, the current market means there’s little likelihood that you can get insurance for a first-time step-up to a turbine.

Wrapping It Up

Who knows when we’ll see another soft insurance market, but for now the best thing anyone—old or young—can do to stay insured for the long haul is simply don’t crash. That could mean piling on extra layers of training, being realistic with yourself on your skill set, and for aging pilots staring down age 70, accepting that downgrading to a simpler aircraft is the simplest way to keep flying. No matter what you fly, show your insurer that you’re serious about training and proficiency with a well-kept training log.

And simply prepare for the payout. By that we mean keeping all of the aircraft’s maintenance paperwork in order, including sign-offs for annual inspections and airworthiness directive (AD) compliance. While insurers will police it before writing a new policy, you don’t want to be scrambling to get the paperwork in order after an accident.

Last, if you’ve been a longtime customer to one company, keep it that way. Now is not the time for aging pilots to jump carriers, because in a hardened insurance market, loyalty matters.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

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From the Experimental/Amateur-Built category’s emergence in 1947 through the founding of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in 1953, the classification grew slowly—in part because building on your own meant doing everything: welding, working with fabric, painting, upholstering, wiring, and plumbing. Once you’d found all the raw materials you needed, of course.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the idea of “kit” airplanes became a serious thing. Frank Christensen is often credited for kick-starting the industry as we know it, providing builders of his Christen Eagle virtually everything they needed to build the airframe. All carefully packaged. All accounted for and tested to work with his airplane. No more cut-and-try, no more scrounging for a set of brakes that might work—or only work with serious modification. For a large part of that project, the parts fit together, turning what had often been a lot of hand fabrication into much more of an assembly process. Then came Burt Rutan and his moldless-fiberglass machines, first the VariEze and then the Long-EZ—to be followed by dozens of similar airplanes that promised greatly reduced build times alongside their impressive performance credentials.

• READ MORE: Ultimate Issue: Are You the One for That First Flight?

By the 1980s, the speed race was on, with Glasair and Lancair battling it out to make the fastest sport airplanes available. They hewed to a simple idea: Put as much horsepower into as small an airframe as you could get away with. Impressive top speeds came, but the real impact was actually behind the scenes. As the designs got faster, they had to become much stronger. Early homebuilts pulled from a rich tapestry of Piper Cub-like airplanes (along with the Cub itself, naturally), where speeds were necessarily low, aerodynamics comparatively forgiving, and the horsepower count was mostly what you could afford.

When the engineering requirements increased for the “average” homebuilt, so did expectations of what the kit would encompass. Early designs anticipated that you’d be able to weld your own fuselage tubes, engine mount, and exhaust system, for example.

From the late 1970s and into the next two decades, builder expectations changed radically. Every new kit was designed to be easier to build, either because the design itself was simpler, or because more of the tedious work had been done at the factory. In time, every flight-critical component would come to be built by professionals, either at the factory proper or by trusted subcontractors. They, as pros, used the right tooling and had the expertise to ensure that the parts were accurately built, typically to a much higher standard than the typical builder could muster.

• READ MORE: Latest CubCrafters Design Looks Back and Ahead

Which brings us to the opening question: Why aren’t there new kit companies popping up left and right, like we had in the latter part of the ’70s and through the ’80s? It’s a simple question with a multipart answer.

Let’s start with builder expectations. For the last three decades, experimental aviation has been in its maturity phase. The best-run and -funded companies chose to incrementally develop their products while working to build better factories. Investment in new tooling technologies, including CNC (computer numerically controlled) machining and, especially, punch-press machines, helped drive almost unseen development. If you look at, say, an early Van’s RV-6 and then consider a recent-build RV-7, you might conclude they’re very similar airplanes.

They’re not. The early RV-6 required a lot more fabrication by the builder and had, by modern standards, fewer semi-finished components. Meaning, the builder was responsible for a great deal of both assembly and alignment because of the need to locate parts relative to one another and drill holes in exactly the right place. Moving on to the current version, which uses something called matched-hole construction, the job gets significantly easier because the parts become self-aligning. Each mating part has the rivet holes placed in such a way that they only go together one way. You’re either way off or right on.

Even with that, though, the earlier versions required the builder to partially assemble large parts of the airplane, drill those locating holes to final size, then disassemble to remove burrs from the drilling process, primer between skins, and commit a few other steps before the parts could be reassembled and then riveted. Today’s technology involves the factory making those holes to final size, meaning that no further drilling operations are required. Assemble the pieces, make sure the surfaces align properly and there are no burrs or defects with the holes, then begin riveting. Removing builder steps helps cut the assembly time and reduces the chances of a mistake. And while it’s true the factory can make mistakes, it’s far more likely any “oops” will come from the builder’s hand.

These time-saving steps cost money for the builder but especially for the company. And they’re really not optional in today’s kit world. Builders expect a high level of completion and that every effort be made to reduce  both build time and the chances for builder error.

I asked this question of a handful of kit companies: Let’s say a tornado came through on a weekend and leveled your plant, what would it take to start again? The answer: between $5 million and $15 million. And that’s assuming you have your design and other intellectual properties already in place. Start the whole effort from zero? Perhaps double, according to my sources.

There’s more keeping this industry in the mature phase than pure economics. In the early days, there was a lot more tolerance for building one-offs and taking risks with startup companies. But those heady days were punctuated by a few marginal companies taking deposits and going under before all the kits or aircraft components were delivered. Some of these companies, trying to elbow their way to the front, found themselves unable to commit the kind of arduous, expensive development process all really good airplanes require. Not that they were dangerous, necessarily, but in many cases the last few clicks of refinement didn’t happen, at least not right away.

As a result, builders became more conservative over time, favoring the established companies that seemed to perform the development work and proved to have the financial grounding to continue producing kit components in a reasonable amount of time. They were also trending toward being followers rather than pioneers, in the sense that choosing a popular make and model gave them a built-in support group at the airport. That’s how the most popular brands became the default choice, making it harder for new entrants to gain a foothold.

• READ MORE: Van’s Aircraft Announces Recovery Plan

Cost is also a factor. Established companies have the advantage of amortizing the cost of the factory, which puts less of a burden on today’s kit prices. In fact, most kits have gone up in price mainly due to increases in the cost of raw materials. And that’s before you look at powerplant and avionics price increases. The kit market has always been price sensitive, so a company that has a stable product line with moderate costs, plenty of happy builders, support groups, and numerous flying examples has an unfair advantage over the newcomers.

But change is coming with the expansion of 3D printing and other new manufacturing techniques. Not that airplanes will, in the near future, be 3D-printed appliances, but that the technology allows for faster prototyping and the possibility of better, more accurate, more easily changeable molds for composite aircraft. (Traditional molds are intensely time consuming to create, which is why companies try to get the most out of them by not changing or updating models any more often than they have to.) And we’re not even considering the possibility of electric aircraft or other powerplant alternatives.

We may look back on this period of homebuilt aircraft as a decades-long time of stability and conventionality, but it’s not for a lack of imagination or wonder. Today’s Experimentals are the product of mature, relatively conservative companies providing the market precisely what it wants.

Tomorrow? Good question.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

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