Nelson Ezell’s rebuild of White Lightnin’ is one of the most beautiful warbird restorations ever
“A few minutes from the airport, I was just sitting there thinking, ‘It just doesn’t get any better than this,’ when the left engine started backfiring and popping violently. I pulled the power back, and the cockpit went completely black with smoke. I started coughing and suffocating, feeling helpless right away. I was probably between 1,000 and 1,500 feet, just trying to make sure I kept the green stuff on the bottom side. I didn’t want this thing upside down [and hitting] the dirt at 300 miles an hour.
I popped the canopy, and immediately it was clear again. I looked out the left-hand side and there was a hole about the size of a saucer with a very intense fire, like a miniature afterburner, poking out the top of that cowling. I literally watched the scoop on top of the engine melt down. I immediately cut the fuel off; shutting the engine down, hoping the fire would go down. It did not.
At this point, I had the right engine firewalled trying to find the airport. I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere fast, the fire wasn’t going out, and the hydraulics were zero. I didn’t trust the standby hydraulic system enough to make the choice to manually pump the gear down. I’ve seen a couple other airplanes where you try to pump the gear down and you can’t get them all down and locked.
Even if I found the airport, I wanted to belly-land in the grass. Dad always told me, ‘If you ever have to belly this thing in for whatever reason, don’t do it on the pavement because there are six fuel sources [for draining fuel] right under your seat on the bottom of the gondola that would spark on the runway.’ I wasn’t about to put this thing up on the pavement. So the best choice was a cotton field immediately below me. The entire time, I’m wondering if I’m going to survive. I hit the ground hard, sliding along with a bunch of dirt being thrown in my face, mouth and eyes. It wasn’t long before it stopped. The fire was on my left, and I jumped over the right window and ran, wondering if it was going to explode. At that point, I’d survived and wanted the airplane to survive, too! Thankfully, the dirt had snuffed out the fire.”—Ladd Gardner, “An Interview With Ladd Gardner,” interviewed by Wayne Sagar, All Aviation Flightline Online, April 20, 2003.
Roy LoPresti was one of those people who should have been allowed to live forever. I was proud to call Roy a friend and mentor, the smartest man I ever met on the subject of little airplanes. 
The LoPresti Fury was dedicated to the premise that personal airplanes can be pure fun, not just intended for transportation. When it premiered at Sun ’n Fun in 1989, the LoPrestis took 131 orders (with deposits) in one week, and eventually, the order backlog rose to more than 500. 
If you’re a Luscombe lover (and most any pilot who’s flown the type is), the new/old Luscombe 8F must strike a resonant tone. These days, in fact, the old Luscombe design has taken on a new persona, that of an LSA. 
If you want to start a lively debate with a group of pilots, take a side on the high-wing/low-wing debate, and then stand back. You’re almost guaranteed to hear passionate arguments from both sides of the issue. 
Back in the last century, when I lived in Alaska, I used to hear stories of pilots who could fly Maules out of places where other airplanes would fear to roll a tread. I didn’t have a chance to fly one in those days, but I always wondered if the stories were true. 
Though I never sold airplanes, I delivered a wide variety of Piper, Cessna, Beech, Mooney, Commander, Grumman American, Bellanca and other aircraft, plus probably a dozen or so new Maules from the factory in Moultrie, Ga., to Geiger’s West Coast dealership. The Maules certainly weren’t the fastest, but they were among the most fun, and they always garnered more than their fair share of attention. Flying cross-country, spanning the Lower 48, I was asked to demonstrate the jump takeoff trick over and over at practically every fuel stop along the route. In one instance, I spent most of a day at Geiger’s Hayward, Calif., office demonstrating the procedure to everyone from employees and salesmen to rampers and prospects. 
I had heard stories of pilots operating from the mountainous bush country of Alaska who could fly what was referred to as the “box canyon departure.” As the name implied, this was a procedure sometimes employed in a tight canyon where the only departure possible was a steep climbing turn. It demanded the jump takeoff described above followed by a high-angle, slow-speed, steep turn, arcing uphill while prescribing a narrow funnel in the sky. The primary risk was of stalling the airplane in the worst possible attitude, a steep, climbing, departure turn. The good news was that the Maule airfoil was so forgiving, it was easy to predict the exact moment when the wing would stop flying and begin falling. 
What draws a person to an airplane? For some it’s raw performance—
Takeoff was a breeze. Once upstairs, with no flaps and 65 knots indicated, I saw climb rates of 1,000 fpm and more, though the spec is for 700 fpm with full load. We were full-up with two 175-pound people on board and plenty of fuel (“useable” load is 520 pounds). Only five minutes into the flight, I’d answered the first question I always ask an airplane I’ve just met: How does it feel? It felt right. The J230 handles easily, with excellent feedback. It’s smooth, easy to fly and feels...solid. 
Approximately two years after unveiling its much-anticipated PiperJet, Piper Aircraft recently gave members of the media, Piper dealers and prospective owners a firsthand look at the jet. Piper’s unveiling consisted of both a ground viewing and aerial demonstration over the Vero Beach, Fla., factory. With more than 200 visitors on hand, Piper provided many new details on the jet’s performance, design and certification status.
The mission was an intriguing one: I would fly the brand-new Liberty Aerospace XL2 Vanguard Edition for a pilot report along California’s Malibu coast. The demo pilot and I would head back to Santa Monica Airport and rendezvous with a Cessna 172 camera ship for an aerial photo session above Catalina Island’s emerald waters. The beautiful afternoon promised nothing but high cirrus clouds and great flying. 
If you’re coming down that canyon thinking, “I can do this three out of five times,” you’re going to be scared to death. Because you don’t know if this is one of the three—or one of the two.—Todd Peterson
Yet Todd and Jo Peterson’s Cessna 182-on-steroids is about to touch down, one way or another, from a dramatically unusual approach. Near the end of a base leg flown just eight feet above ground, he banks left now at almost 30 degrees into a ridiculously short final, straight toward me. 
This is the beating heart of the Katmai: You can hold a steep bank and watch the wingtip just skim above the brush with complete confidence.
An LSA that was 10 years in the making may aptly be called a “mature design” within this nascent sector of piston aircraft. A few others share a similarly “ripe, old” heritage, but most are far newer than the trusty GA models in which many of us learned the art of flying.
The day was a dappled gray when I arrived at Long Beach Airport in California for my chance to fly the brand-new Diamond DA40 XLS. Rain had been forecast for the afternoon, but the thin overcast had given way to broken clouds with a deep blue sky peering from behind them. Morning rain had washed the air clean, and the light winds made it a perfect day to fly.
From the beginning, Diamond has been a pioneer and innovator in areas like composite construction and safety testing; it served as the launch platform for Garmin’s G1000 glass panel. The new DA40 XLS is part of a family of ingenious airplanes that includes the DA20, the DA42 twin-engine aircraft (with choice of diesel or Lycoming engines), the FADEC-controlled, five-seat, pressurized DA50 and the much-anticipated D-JET. 
There are few aircraft type organizations in general aviation more enthusiastic than the Short Wing Piper Club. That’s, perhaps, ironic in view of the inexpensive prices of most short-wing Pipers. The compact, little two- to four-seaters are among the cheapest entry-level airplanes available. Many sell for less than $25,000, especially the minimalist Vagabond, Clipper and Colt. As the last of the non-Cub Piper taildraggers, the Pacer enjoys a similar price advantage. Even the last of the Pacers, the 1954 model, sells today (in stock configuration) for well under $20,000. The PA20 was introduced in 1950 as a follow-on to the Piper Clipper after Pan American World Airways claimed it owned the name “Clipper” (apparently ignoring the fact that hundreds of sailing ships in the 19th century were called “clippers”).
The truly wonderful thing about events like the recent Sebring U.S. Sport Aviation Expo is that you have the fun, and the scheduling challenges, of flying many different types of aircraft at one sitting. “Sitting” is a key word. I came to regard it as an aviation smorgasbord—for my tush. Of course, such an avian feast feeds other visceral, spiritual and intellectual appetites too, but sitting comfort in an airplane is also important, yes? You betcha.
A couple of LSA I had previously flown at the show left me wishing for thicker seat padding, while Eaglet’s seat proved manifest: firm but pliant, supportive without over-cushiness. In a word, reassuring.
In a sky filled with high-performance pistons, turboprops and jets that speed to their destination, there’s still something undeniably irresistible about a little yellow Cub. Puttering around low and slow, the humble two-seater makes lazy circles over emerald fields as its pilot smiles down on Earth, senses ignited by a soft breeze and the scent of grass airstrips that waft through the open window. The classic Cub doesn’t care about horsepower or tailwinds; it’s on a flight plan to nowhere, without a worry in the world. “What’s the rush?” the gentle old machine asks. “I will show you what flying is about: fun, passion and simplicity.” But what if you wanted to have your cake and eat it too? Then CubCrafters is your answer.
Is it just me, or does the Cessna Skyhawk seem younger than 53? After all, take away the panel, paint and interior, and you might mistake a 2009 for a 1964 model if both airplanes were parked side by side on the ramp in bare aluminum livery. But while the current model’s configuration is physically very similar to that of the older models, the 2009 172S is a very different machine from that early version. 
When I flew my first homebuilt in 1973, a VariViggen with designer Burt Rutan in the second seat, the whole point of homebuilt airplanes was innovation with economy. In those days, the apogee of GA four-seaters was the F33A Bonanza, a luxurious single that sold for $60,000. You could build a VariViggen for less than a tenth of that. 
Ride in the back of Brian Linehan’s new Grand Caravan, and you’d hardly know you were traveling in a $2 million single-engine turboprop rather than in a $6 to $8 million corporate twin jet. 
I was glad my editor couldn’t see the little jig I danced after reading her e-mail asking if I was interested in flying a new taildragger from Luscombe called the Phantom II. Any pilot in love with tailwheel aircraft need only see the words “fly” and “Luscombe” before his or her salivary glands start working overtime. I typed “yes!” so fast that it looked like “yeti” and I was sure she’d think I had lost my mind.
The first Luscombe airplane was the Model 1, more commonly known as the Phantom. The airplane wasn’t a big financial success, so, in 1936, Don and his team followed it up with the Model 4, essentially an improved Phantom that kept the 90 hp Warner radial engine and all-metal construction (except for fabric wings). By 1938, Luscombe had created the now-famous Model 8, which sported a horizontally opposed engine—a new idea in the late ’30s. It became the most popular Luscombe ever built. In 1950, Luscombe Aircraft folded due to financial problems. The tooling and licensing rights changed hands several times, and the Model 8 continues to be built today. Sadly, the Model 4—with its rounded cowling and classy art-deco styling—faded into obscurity. 