A few things are guaranteed to get your attention on an airfield; one of them is the sound of a Cessna 185 at full throttle about to launch. That distinctive snarl is legendary, and while it can only go on for 5 minutes before the pilot must reduce manifold pressure, it’s the sound of raw […]

In 1953, Cessna ads leaned heavily on the 50th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight to proudly introduce their new offering to the market: the Cessna 180. Sleek, robust, and with roots that clearly traced back to the company’s commercially successful Cessna 170. It would not be wrong to characterize the original 180 as

Introduction The Gulfstream G650 family has two models: the G650 and the G650ER, which ER version offer increased range. Gulfstream began planning this family in 2005 and made it public in March 2008. The first prototype was released on September 29, 2009, and it is manufactured in Gulfstream’s plant in Georgia, USA. The FAA issued

Introduction The genesis of the Piper Saratoga resulted from a hurricane in 1972, whose flooding wiped out much of the Piper plant at Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. Also destroyed was the tooling for the then-popular single and twin Piper Comanche. Given Comanche’s were labor-intensive to build, Piper chose to design a new retractable gear aircraft based

The Piper J3 Cub was Piper’s most produced aircraft, with 20,000 built between 1938 and 1947. Unusually for Piper, which generally produced low wing airplanes, it was a high wing aircraft. It was a two-seater and designed primarily as a trainer and general aviation aircraft.  And like most aircraft of that period, it was a

Introduction There was a time in aviation history when aircraft manufacturers were falling over themselves to serve a seemingly insatiable demand for executive-level light twin-engined aircraft. Reaching fever pitch in the 1980s, Cessna had positioned itself well for the demand, offering light twins for almost every conceivable subsection of the market. The design of the

When 9,490 aircrafts of a specific model sell in a 14-year production window, you know the designers have got it right. In 1950, the Tri-Pacer leveraged off the success of its much-loved sibling, the Piper Pa 20 Pacer, and went on to become a legend. Until that time, most aircraft produced had a conventional undercarriage

Introduction Classics die hard, and few aircraft prove this as much as the Learjet 60. Produced until 2012, this iconic aircraft was the very last of the Learjet series which was still based on the 1960s Learjet 23 designed by Bill Lear based on the Swiss FFA P-16 fighter prototype. All Learjet aircraft have been