We need to take care of these aviation treasures—their kind will not be seen again. They were developed during America’s post-war boom by designers and marketers who gave pilots what they wanted at a price point within reach of a large percentage of the flying population. In their day, competition encouraged innovation, even while design compromises between performance, cost, and quality provided a variety of choices in the marketplace.

Because of these vast numbers of airplanes placed into service 50 or so years ago, we still have a relatively large pool of legacy equipment available. How long we can keep them flying is anyone’s guess, but the cost of maintaining, equipping, and flying these old birds is much higher than their original builders could ever have envisioned. And yet, they can do the job for a fraction of an equivalent airplane built today—if one even exists.

Attrition is inevitable since some of this elderly fleet disappears from the active register each year. Losses from accidents, neglect, impractical upkeep, and aging structures will eventually take their toll. To preserve what’s left, we must be ready to place increased resources into their preservation and encourage production of parts for overhauling and maintaining continuing airworthiness. And we must be ever more careful in how we operate and store them. This aging fleet is too precious to ignore.

Where Did They All Come From?

The answer is: It depends.

In 1960, a total of 7,588 general aviation aircraft were produced; in 1970, an anomalously similar number, 7,508, were built. An astounding 98,407 airplanes went out the door between those years. After another 10 years, the industry had added another 150,220 aircraft to the fleet. Then, the bubble burst in the ’80s, with only 30,908 airplanes built in that decade. The ’90s saw just 17,665 airplanes produced. The nearly 250,000 general aviation airplanes built in the ’60s and ’70s, therefore, were the origins of our still-existing legacy fleet.

During nearly 65 years of industry observation, I was fortunate to have been around at the birth of many of these legacy airplanes. I remember walking around one of the first Cessna 210s parked at our field in 1960, trying to figure out where the gear went. When a Piper dealer came by to show us a brand-new ’62 Cherokee, we could scarcely believe it was a sibling to our Tri-Pacers. And, compared to the twin Beechcraft Bonanzas on the field, I thought the ’60 Beech Queen Air was the most beautiful mini-airliner I had ever seen when I climbed aboard one of the first, not realizing that in four more years its sister ship would become the turboprop King Air.

A Cessna 336 Skymaster showed up at an airport opening I attended in 1964, attracting all sorts of attention since it was unlike any Cessna we had seen before. By then, Brand C had added the 185, 206, and 320 models, and the cabin-class 411 was coming. Piper’s new 1963 Twin Comanche struck us as cute, compared with the pudgy Apache and Aztec, while the Pawnee was our first look at a purpose-built ag plane. In the mid-’60s, new aircraft models were popping up everywhere. One of my friends bought a brand-new Citabria in 1964, which we thought was a vast improvement over the old Aeronca Champion.

As the years passed, I became associated with airplane dealerships, and then started covering a beat as an industry journalist. I saw Cessna’s abortive attempt to enter the helicopter business with the CH-1 Skyhook in the early ’60s, and later in 1967 we picked up one of the first Cessna Cardinals at the factory. In 1973, I attended Beech’s November sales meeting in Wichita, Kansas, featuring the introduction of the big Super King Air 200. About the same time, Cessna was dropping into our airport with the new Citation jet. Back in 1961, I had seen a mock-up of a civilian version of Cessna’s T-37 jet trainer, perhaps a response to Beech’s short partnership with the Morane-Saulnier Paris jet. The Citation 500’s fanjet engines made all the difference.

All through the ’70s and early ’80s, we news hounds were kept busy attending rollouts and first flights of new models. Airplane companies were in full production and eager to expand their market, trying out every novelty and adding improvements. Mooney stretched and muscled up its M20 series, Maule constantly reworked its Rocket models, Rockwell added more Commander types, and Grumman gave us “cats” of every size, Lynx to Cougar.

It All Started in the Late 1950s

In my earliest flying years at the end of the 1950s, Piper was producing only the Apache, Comanche, Tri-Pacer and Super Cub models. Cessna had the 310, 182, and 172, and was just adding the 175 and 150. Beech built the Model 18 Twin Beech, V-tail and twin Bonanzas, and a new Travel Air light twin. Mooney basically sold one model, as did Bellanca, and Aero Commander competed solely in the twin market. As the industry and I matured during the ’60s, dozens of new designs and variations appeared in the marketplace.

This era’s fertile incubator brought forth steady innovations. Piper adopted touches from the Comanche, such as the swept tailfin and stabilator pitch control, for its Aztec and Cherokee models introduced in the early ’60s. Cessna not only swept the tail on most models in 1960, it copied Detroit automotive marketing by introducing “deluxe” versions loaded with standard options—all-over paint instead of partially bare aluminum, gyros and radios in the panel, landing gear fairings, and showy interiors. Beech, on the other hand, expanded its line downward, first with a Debonair economy version of the Bonanza and later the entry-level Musketeer singles with (gasp!) fixed landing gear. The Baron was introduced in 1961 for buyers needing something smaller than the hulking twin Bonanza but more capable than the Travel Air.

The secret sauce enlivening this banquet of expansion in the ’60s and ’70s was the involvement of ownership and management dedicated to personal aviation. William T. Piper and his sons, Bill Jr., Thomas (“Tony”), and Howard (“Pug”), made the decisions at Piper Aircraft. Mrs. O.A. Beech and her nephew Frank Hedrick held the reins at Beech Aircraft. Dwane Wallace, Clyde Cessna’s nephew, would walk the factory floor at Cessna. Rather than being subject to a corporate board of bean counters and legal advisers, these leaders had grown their companies with a vision of what little airplanes could do and took risks based on the love of the game.

Amazing products resulted, not from committee decisions but because of a guiding hand at the top who was likely a pilot and aircraft enthusiast. At the industry press conferences and sales meetings back then, one could sense the devotion and dreams in the presentations. All of this changed in the last quarter of the 20th century, as the old general aviation firms were sold and wrapped under conglomerate, non-aviation management. This brought cautious decision-making and design compromise by consensus, with legal, sales, engineering, and bookkeeping departments making sure all interests were represented. Lockheed engineer Kelly Johnson once said, “From now on, there will be no more great airplanes, just adequate ones.”

The Sizzling ’70s

The 1960s had seen heady expansion of product lines. By 1970, Piper had largely made the switch from building fabric-covered airplanes at its old plant in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, to all-metal designs streaming from a bright new complex in Florida. Labor problems and a disastrous flood in 1972 ended the Lock Haven era and the Comanche line, although the Aztec and Navajo twins continued. However, there were plenty of other options in the product line. The Piper Cherokee, also known as the PA-28 platform, had been expanded to at least eight variants, being added to six twins and the Pawnee ag planes. Cessna was building half of the world’s GA airplanes in its Kansas facilities, offering no less than a dozen singles, eight twins, and a new bizjet on the horizon. Beech, meanwhile, now had 12 single-engine models, seven twins, and three turboprops in its fleet. And the 1970s were just starting.

Vertical integration seemed to be important, in that each major manufacturer wanted to offer a two-seat trainer, four-seat family airplane, higher-powered business cruiser, and complex retract. Twins were similarly ranked—as light, medium, and cabin class—with pressurization and turbine engines being the ultimate goal. Piper took the Cherokee Six heavy-single into a Seneca twin in ’72, followed by the Lance retractable in ’76. Tapered wings and stretched fuselages improved the smaller Cherokees, and a true two-seater, the Tomahawk, came along in ’78, followed by the Seminole light twin. At the top, the Navajo cabin twin became stretched, pressurized, and turbine-ized.

Over at Cessna, a plethora of preferences had been promulgated by 1970. Tubular landing gear legs replaced older flat springs, manual flaps were changed to electric, the 210 Centurion’s wing struts had been removed, and by the mid-1960s stylish back windows had been installed in nearly all models. Engine turbochargers became an option, starting in ’62 with the 320 twin, then in ’66 for the 206 and 210. Cessna joined Piper in the ag plane business that year, and in ’69 the 206 was stretched into the 207. By the end of 1970s, there were three models of the 210—normal, turbo, and pressurized—the Skylane RG joined the fixed-gear 182, and even the Skyhawk went retractable with the Cutlass RG. On the twin side, the “push-pull” centerline-thrust Skymaster was available in three performance categories, the 310/340 was similarly outfitted, and the 400-series twins offered models with utility, executive, and pressurized cabins. It took until the late 1970s for Cessna to move into the turboprop business since it was occupied with the Citation jets earlier in that decade.

Beech was busy introducing the stretched King Air 100 in 1970 and the flagship Super King Air 200 for ’74, adding the longer Baron 58 in ’70, a pressurized Baron 58P, in ’76 and the Duchess light twin in ’78, while continuing to build piston-engine Queen Airs and Dukes. Still, Beech found time to put retractable gear on the Musketeer and add an extra cabin door to the light airplanes, and to develop the two-place Skipper trainer at the end of the decade.

By no means was all the action in the ’70s limited to the “Big Three” airplane manufacturers. Mooney was innovating like crazy in that time frame, with the introduction of the cleaned-up 201 and the turbo 231. Other short-line manufacturers like Bellanca/Champion, Maule, and Grumman American enlarged their offerings, and Rockwell jumped into its own single-engine Commander business after first trying to acquire smaller companies in the 1960s. The ’70s were full of enthusiasm for aviation, despite an oil embargo setback in 1973-74 and a disrupting air traffic controller strike in 1981. By the mid-’80s, it was all over.

Did CAR 3 Play a Role?

What may have made all these developments of new airplane types possible was the continuing use of Civil Air Regulation Part 3 certification, a holdover from the Civil Aeronautics Authority, predecessor to the Federal Aviation Administration’s creation in 1958. With the changeover to the FAA’s Federal Air Regulations, FAR Part 23 became the new certification basis for light aircraft, gradually evolving into a fresh start with some new requirements added to the old CAR 3 rules. As this regulatory meshing took some time to accomplish, established airplane companies rushed to certify as many new models as possible under CAR 3, filing applications that could grandfather them into existing rules while product development continued into the ’60s.

Using these old CAR 3 certifications as basis, most of our legacy fleet was built using amendments to the original type certificate, even though the airplanes were marketed as “new” models. Hence, the 1968-introduced Beech Bonanza 36 was certified as an addition to the CAR 3-basis TC #3A15, which was originally issued for the Bonanza H35 of 1957. Cessna’s Bonanza competitors, beginning with the model 210 certified on April 20, 1959, were also certified under CAR 3 except for the pressurized P210 because its original application was dated August 13, 1956. Even the ’64 Cessna 206 was certified as a CAR Part 3 airplane, as the original application was dated November 9, 1962, continuing right up through the end of legacy 206 production in ’86.

For its part, Piper introduced the PA-28 Cherokee in ’61 under CAR 3 certification basis from an application dated February 14, 1958. Even the PA-32 Cherokee Six was born as a CAR 3 airplane in ’65 with an application dated ’64. Similar modifications to original CAR 3 certifications took place at Mooney, Champion, Rockwell Commander, Lake, and Maule. To be fair, subsequent model changes through the ’70s frequently complied with FAR Part 23 amendments applicable to their dates of certification, even though they were built as CAR 3-certified airplanes. On the other hand, the four-seat Grumman AA-5 airplanes were certified under FAR Part 23 with an original application dated July 2, 1970.

As is typical of the mission creep inherent in any administrative law, FAR Part 23 certification grew in complexity from the boilerplate inherited from CAR 3. Much of this was inevitable as new construction methods and materials were developed, and equipment unanticipated in CAR 3 was placed on airplanes. However, grandfathering in earlier type certification, rather than pursuing entirely new FAR 23 approval, meant less time and money was required to produce a new aircraft.

Are FAA Part 23-certified airplanes any better? It depends on which level of amendments they complied with. Certification under Part 23 in the ’60s was quite similar to the CAR 3 certification of a decade earlier, but Part 23 amendments of the ’80s had evolved to a greater degree. When it comes to engineering small unpressurized general aviation aircraft, however, structures are typically overbuilt simply for durability and manufacturing ease. The basic criteria for CAR Part 3 and FAR Part 23 remain much the same. CAR 3’s stipulation that stall speed for single-engine airplanes shall not exceed
70 mph is simply restated in FAR 23 as “61 knots.” However, as mentioned, there have been multitudinous minutia added in FAR 23, often in response to newer materials and devices never contemplated in CAR 3 days. Each of these must be given consideration when developing entirely new designs, taking up engineering time and documentation.

Most significantly, this prodigious adaptation and modification of basic CAR 3 aircraft designs, along with introduction of entirely new FAR 23 ones, continued through the ’60s and ’70s. Each of the major manufacturers wanted to make sure customers were able to remain loyal as they upgraded into higher-performance airplanes. They accomplished this by increasing the number of types offered and seeing that any small opening into an unserved need was met with a new model.
And so it was that fixed-gear models received retractable landing gear. The fuselage stretched to accommodate extra seats. Four-cylinder engines became six-cylinder powerplants. Turbocharged models complemented normally aspirated offerings. Even twin engines were grafted onto single-engine airframes. Pressurization, turbine engines, tip tanks, cargo pods: if you wanted it, engineering and marketing departments made sure you could get it.

Market saturation eventually brought down the number of aircraft types, and production rates plummeted in the ’80s to match the lack of buyers. Contributing to the collapse of the ’80s was a lingering economic malaise from double-digit interest rates and inflation, and the increasing cost of product liability insurance against the growth industry of tort suits, divided by the fewer and fewer units sold.

Why can’t we just make new old ones?

Challenges on several fronts make reviving old type-certificated aircraft difficult. Small production rates mean handcrafting what was once mass-produced, so each unit costs more. Rebuilding the market requires making enough people want what you have to offer. The numbers of active pilots and qualified, motivated buyers are down compared to the bustling days, and consumer expectations are much higher now, requiring airframes to be bloated with quality accessories. Back in the day, comfort and ease of use took a back seat to the thrill of flight. We didn’t expect to have air conditioning in our airplane because it weighed half as much as a passenger and it wasn’t needed aloft. Plush seating, Wi-Fi, sound deadening, single-lever power control, and wall-to-wall glass instrument panels weren’t a priority or even dreamed about 50 years ago. We were just glad to have an engine, wings, and freedom to fly. Legacy airplanes today need considerable upgrading to bring them up to speed with current buyer desires.

Airports were social communities during the last third of the 1900s. Security was almost nonexistent, perceived threats being remote, so coming and going was less restricted and hurried. Pilots spent time at the airport. Airport lounges were often untidy but welcoming places that encouraged hanging out, not polished palaces to pass through. If you parked outside with your new 1970 Mooney, someone would come out to admire it, not shepherd it away to piston-engine row. Today’s aircraft owners are far different. Many are users of airplanes, not flyers for the sake of flying. They are more satisfied to possess their flying machines—less so to be companions with them.

That said, the great fleet of general aviation aircraft built in the two decades of the mid-’60s to mid-’80s still represents a wonderful opportunity for acquisition and preservation. We must not underestimate the continuing rise in maintenance and operation costs. But these remarkable old birds serve their purpose as well as they ever did, if we’ll just take care of them.
Let us rise to the challenge. 

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of Plane & Pilot. 

The post Sustaining Our Fleet appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

We need to take care of these aviation treasures—their kind will not be seen again. They were developed during America’s post-war boom by designers and marketers who gave pilots what they wanted at a price point within reach of a large percentage of the flying population. In their day, competition encouraged innovation, even while design compromises between performance, cost, and quality provided a variety of choices in the marketplace.

Because of these vast numbers of airplanes placed into service 50 or so years ago, we still have a relatively large pool of legacy equipment available. How long we can keep them flying is anyone’s guess, but the cost of maintaining, equipping, and flying these old birds is much higher than their original builders could ever have envisioned. And yet, they can do the job for a fraction of an equivalent airplane built today—if one even exists.

Attrition is inevitable since some of this elderly fleet disappears from the active register each year. Losses from accidents, neglect, impractical upkeep, and aging structures will eventually take their toll. To preserve what’s left, we must be ready to place increased resources into their preservation and encourage production of parts for overhauling and maintaining continuing airworthiness. And we must be ever more careful in how we operate and store them. This aging fleet is too precious to ignore.

Where Did They All Come From?

The answer is: It depends.

In 1960, a total of 7,588 general aviation aircraft were produced; in 1970, an anomalously similar number, 7,508, were built. An astounding 98,407 airplanes went out the door between those years. After another 10 years, the industry had added another 150,220 aircraft to the fleet. Then, the bubble burst in the ’80s, with only 30,908 airplanes built in that decade. The ’90s saw just 17,665 airplanes produced. The nearly 250,000 general aviation airplanes built in the ’60s and ’70s, therefore, were the origins of our still-existing legacy fleet.

During nearly 65 years of industry observation, I was fortunate to have been around at the birth of many of these legacy airplanes. I remember walking around one of the first Cessna 210s parked at our field in 1960, trying to figure out where the gear went. When a Piper dealer came by to show us a brand-new ’62 Cherokee, we could scarcely believe it was a sibling to our Tri-Pacers. And, compared to the twin Beechcraft Bonanzas on the field, I thought the ’60 Beech Queen Air was the most beautiful mini-airliner I had ever seen when I climbed aboard one of the first, not realizing that in four more years its sister ship would become the turboprop King Air.

A Cessna 336 Skymaster showed up at an airport opening I attended in 1964, attracting all sorts of attention since it was unlike any Cessna we had seen before. By then, Brand C had added the 185, 206, and 320 models, and the cabin-class 411 was coming. Piper’s new 1963 Twin Comanche struck us as cute, compared with the pudgy Apache and Aztec, while the Pawnee was our first look at a purpose-built ag plane. In the mid-’60s, new aircraft models were popping up everywhere. One of my friends bought a brand-new Citabria in 1964, which we thought was a vast improvement over the old Aeronca Champion.

As the years passed, I became associated with airplane dealerships, and then started covering a beat as an industry journalist. I saw Cessna’s abortive attempt to enter the helicopter business with the CH-1 Skyhook in the early ’60s, and later in 1967 we picked up one of the first Cessna Cardinals at the factory. In 1973, I attended Beech’s November sales meeting in Wichita, Kansas, featuring the introduction of the big Super King Air 200. About the same time, Cessna was dropping into our airport with the new Citation jet. Back in 1961, I had seen a mock-up of a civilian version of Cessna’s T-37 jet trainer, perhaps a response to Beech’s short partnership with the Morane-Saulnier Paris jet. The Citation 500’s fanjet engines made all the difference.

All through the ’70s and early ’80s, we news hounds were kept busy attending rollouts and first flights of new models. Airplane companies were in full production and eager to expand their market, trying out every novelty and adding improvements. Mooney stretched and muscled up its M20 series, Maule constantly reworked its Rocket models, Rockwell added more Commander types, and Grumman gave us “cats” of every size, Lynx to Cougar.

It All Started in the Late 1950s

In my earliest flying years at the end of the 1950s, Piper was producing only the Apache, Comanche, Tri-Pacer and Super Cub models. Cessna had the 310, 182, and 172, and was just adding the 175 and 150. Beech built the Model 18 Twin Beech, V-tail and twin Bonanzas, and a new Travel Air light twin. Mooney basically sold one model, as did Bellanca, and Aero Commander competed solely in the twin market. As the industry and I matured during the ’60s, dozens of new designs and variations appeared in the marketplace.

This era’s fertile incubator brought forth steady innovations. Piper adopted touches from the Comanche, such as the swept tailfin and stabilator pitch control, for its Aztec and Cherokee models introduced in the early ’60s. Cessna not only swept the tail on most models in 1960, it copied Detroit automotive marketing by introducing “deluxe” versions loaded with standard options—all-over paint instead of partially bare aluminum, gyros and radios in the panel, landing gear fairings, and showy interiors. Beech, on the other hand, expanded its line downward, first with a Debonair economy version of the Bonanza and later the entry-level Musketeer singles with (gasp!) fixed landing gear. The Baron was introduced in 1961 for buyers needing something smaller than the hulking twin Bonanza but more capable than the Travel Air.

The secret sauce enlivening this banquet of expansion in the ’60s and ’70s was the involvement of ownership and management dedicated to personal aviation. William T. Piper and his sons, Bill Jr., Thomas (“Tony”), and Howard (“Pug”), made the decisions at Piper Aircraft. Mrs. O.A. Beech and her nephew Frank Hedrick held the reins at Beech Aircraft. Dwane Wallace, Clyde Cessna’s nephew, would walk the factory floor at Cessna. Rather than being subject to a corporate board of bean counters and legal advisers, these leaders had grown their companies with a vision of what little airplanes could do and took risks based on the love of the game.

Amazing products resulted, not from committee decisions but because of a guiding hand at the top who was likely a pilot and aircraft enthusiast. At the industry press conferences and sales meetings back then, one could sense the devotion and dreams in the presentations. All of this changed in the last quarter of the 20th century, as the old general aviation firms were sold and wrapped under conglomerate, non-aviation management. This brought cautious decision-making and design compromise by consensus, with legal, sales, engineering, and bookkeeping departments making sure all interests were represented. Lockheed engineer Kelly Johnson once said, “From now on, there will be no more great airplanes, just adequate ones.”

The Sizzling ’70s

The 1960s had seen heady expansion of product lines. By 1970, Piper had largely made the switch from building fabric-covered airplanes at its old plant in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, to all-metal designs streaming from a bright new complex in Florida. Labor problems and a disastrous flood in 1972 ended the Lock Haven era and the Comanche line, although the Aztec and Navajo twins continued. However, there were plenty of other options in the product line. The Piper Cherokee, also known as the PA-28 platform, had been expanded to at least eight variants, being added to six twins and the Pawnee ag planes. Cessna was building half of the world’s GA airplanes in its Kansas facilities, offering no less than a dozen singles, eight twins, and a new bizjet on the horizon. Beech, meanwhile, now had 12 single-engine models, seven twins, and three turboprops in its fleet. And the 1970s were just starting.

Vertical integration seemed to be important, in that each major manufacturer wanted to offer a two-seat trainer, four-seat family airplane, higher-powered business cruiser, and complex retract. Twins were similarly ranked—as light, medium, and cabin class—with pressurization and turbine engines being the ultimate goal. Piper took the Cherokee Six heavy-single into a Seneca twin in ’72, followed by the Lance retractable in ’76. Tapered wings and stretched fuselages improved the smaller Cherokees, and a true two-seater, the Tomahawk, came along in ’78, followed by the Seminole light twin. At the top, the Navajo cabin twin became stretched, pressurized, and turbine-ized.

Over at Cessna, a plethora of preferences had been promulgated by 1970. Tubular landing gear legs replaced older flat springs, manual flaps were changed to electric, the 210 Centurion’s wing struts had been removed, and by the mid-1960s stylish back windows had been installed in nearly all models. Engine turbochargers became an option, starting in ’62 with the 320 twin, then in ’66 for the 206 and 210. Cessna joined Piper in the ag plane business that year, and in ’69 the 206 was stretched into the 207. By the end of 1970s, there were three models of the 210—normal, turbo, and pressurized—the Skylane RG joined the fixed-gear 182, and even the Skyhawk went retractable with the Cutlass RG. On the twin side, the “push-pull” centerline-thrust Skymaster was available in three performance categories, the 310/340 was similarly outfitted, and the 400-series twins offered models with utility, executive, and pressurized cabins. It took until the late 1970s for Cessna to move into the turboprop business since it was occupied with the Citation jets earlier in that decade.

Beech was busy introducing the stretched King Air 100 in 1970 and the flagship Super King Air 200 for ’74, adding the longer Baron 58 in ’70, a pressurized Baron 58P, in ’76 and the Duchess light twin in ’78, while continuing to build piston-engine Queen Airs and Dukes. Still, Beech found time to put retractable gear on the Musketeer and add an extra cabin door to the light airplanes, and to develop the two-place Skipper trainer at the end of the decade.

By no means was all the action in the ’70s limited to the “Big Three” airplane manufacturers. Mooney was innovating like crazy in that time frame, with the introduction of the cleaned-up 201 and the turbo 231. Other short-line manufacturers like Bellanca/Champion, Maule, and Grumman American enlarged their offerings, and Rockwell jumped into its own single-engine Commander business after first trying to acquire smaller companies in the 1960s. The ’70s were full of enthusiasm for aviation, despite an oil embargo setback in 1973-74 and a disrupting air traffic controller strike in 1981. By the mid-’80s, it was all over.

Did CAR 3 Play a Role?

What may have made all these developments of new airplane types possible was the continuing use of Civil Air Regulation Part 3 certification, a holdover from the Civil Aeronautics Authority, predecessor to the Federal Aviation Administration’s creation in 1958. With the changeover to the FAA’s Federal Air Regulations, FAR Part 23 became the new certification basis for light aircraft, gradually evolving into a fresh start with some new requirements added to the old CAR 3 rules. As this regulatory meshing took some time to accomplish, established airplane companies rushed to certify as many new models as possible under CAR 3, filing applications that could grandfather them into existing rules while product development continued into the ’60s.

Using these old CAR 3 certifications as basis, most of our legacy fleet was built using amendments to the original type certificate, even though the airplanes were marketed as “new” models. Hence, the 1968-introduced Beech Bonanza 36 was certified as an addition to the CAR 3-basis TC #3A15, which was originally issued for the Bonanza H35 of 1957. Cessna’s Bonanza competitors, beginning with the model 210 certified on April 20, 1959, were also certified under CAR 3 except for the pressurized P210 because its original application was dated August 13, 1956. Even the ’64 Cessna 206 was certified as a CAR Part 3 airplane, as the original application was dated November 9, 1962, continuing right up through the end of legacy 206 production in ’86.

For its part, Piper introduced the PA-28 Cherokee in ’61 under CAR 3 certification basis from an application dated February 14, 1958. Even the PA-32 Cherokee Six was born as a CAR 3 airplane in ’65 with an application dated ’64. Similar modifications to original CAR 3 certifications took place at Mooney, Champion, Rockwell Commander, Lake, and Maule. To be fair, subsequent model changes through the ’70s frequently complied with FAR Part 23 amendments applicable to their dates of certification, even though they were built as CAR 3-certified airplanes. On the other hand, the four-seat Grumman AA-5 airplanes were certified under FAR Part 23 with an original application dated July 2, 1970.

As is typical of the mission creep inherent in any administrative law, FAR Part 23 certification grew in complexity from the boilerplate inherited from CAR 3. Much of this was inevitable as new construction methods and materials were developed, and equipment unanticipated in CAR 3 was placed on airplanes. However, grandfathering in earlier type certification, rather than pursuing entirely new FAR 23 approval, meant less time and money was required to produce a new aircraft.

Are FAA Part 23-certified airplanes any better? It depends on which level of amendments they complied with. Certification under Part 23 in the ’60s was quite similar to the CAR 3 certification of a decade earlier, but Part 23 amendments of the ’80s had evolved to a greater degree. When it comes to engineering small unpressurized general aviation aircraft, however, structures are typically overbuilt simply for durability and manufacturing ease. The basic criteria for CAR Part 3 and FAR Part 23 remain much the same. CAR 3’s stipulation that stall speed for single-engine airplanes shall not exceed
70 mph is simply restated in FAR 23 as “61 knots.” However, as mentioned, there have been multitudinous minutia added in FAR 23, often in response to newer materials and devices never contemplated in CAR 3 days. Each of these must be given consideration when developing entirely new designs, taking up engineering time and documentation.

Most significantly, this prodigious adaptation and modification of basic CAR 3 aircraft designs, along with introduction of entirely new FAR 23 ones, continued through the ’60s and ’70s. Each of the major manufacturers wanted to make sure customers were able to remain loyal as they upgraded into higher-performance airplanes. They accomplished this by increasing the number of types offered and seeing that any small opening into an unserved need was met with a new model.
And so it was that fixed-gear models received retractable landing gear. The fuselage stretched to accommodate extra seats. Four-cylinder engines became six-cylinder powerplants. Turbocharged models complemented normally aspirated offerings. Even twin engines were grafted onto single-engine airframes. Pressurization, turbine engines, tip tanks, cargo pods: if you wanted it, engineering and marketing departments made sure you could get it.

Market saturation eventually brought down the number of aircraft types, and production rates plummeted in the ’80s to match the lack of buyers. Contributing to the collapse of the ’80s was a lingering economic malaise from double-digit interest rates and inflation, and the increasing cost of product liability insurance against the growth industry of tort suits, divided by the fewer and fewer units sold.

Why can’t we just make new old ones?

Challenges on several fronts make reviving old type-certificated aircraft difficult. Small production rates mean handcrafting what was once mass-produced, so each unit costs more. Rebuilding the market requires making enough people want what you have to offer. The numbers of active pilots and qualified, motivated buyers are down compared to the bustling days, and consumer expectations are much higher now, requiring airframes to be bloated with quality accessories. Back in the day, comfort and ease of use took a back seat to the thrill of flight. We didn’t expect to have air conditioning in our airplane because it weighed half as much as a passenger and it wasn’t needed aloft. Plush seating, Wi-Fi, sound deadening, single-lever power control, and wall-to-wall glass instrument panels weren’t a priority or even dreamed about 50 years ago. We were just glad to have an engine, wings, and freedom to fly. Legacy airplanes today need considerable upgrading to bring them up to speed with current buyer desires.

Airports were social communities during the last third of the 1900s. Security was almost nonexistent, perceived threats being remote, so coming and going was less restricted and hurried. Pilots spent time at the airport. Airport lounges were often untidy but welcoming places that encouraged hanging out, not polished palaces to pass through. If you parked outside with your new 1970 Mooney, someone would come out to admire it, not shepherd it away to piston-engine row. Today’s aircraft owners are far different. Many are users of airplanes, not flyers for the sake of flying. They are more satisfied to possess their flying machines—less so to be companions with them.

That said, the great fleet of general aviation aircraft built in the two decades of the mid-’60s to mid-’80s still represents a wonderful opportunity for acquisition and preservation. We must not underestimate the continuing rise in maintenance and operation costs. But these remarkable old birds serve their purpose as well as they ever did, if we’ll just take care of them.
Let us rise to the challenge.

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of Plane & Pilot.

The post Sustaining Our Fleet appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

Aspiring pilots now have an opportunity to pursue their dreams with the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals’ (OBAP) American Airlines Lt. Col. Luke Weathers Flight Academy Impact Scholarship for Pilot Training. Applications are now being accepted, offering a chance for aviation enthusiasts to secure the funding needed to advance their training.

The Impact Scholarship targets individuals who have already earned their private pilot certificate. It is exclusively available to those with an active OBAP membership. 

To be considered, applicants must meet the following requirements:

• Active OBAP membership at the time of submission
• Successful completion of private pilot training and a current FAA private pilot certificate
• Actively pursuing instrument, commercial single-engine, certified flight instructor (CFI and/or CFII), or commercial multiengine flight ratings
• Strong demonstration of commitment to aviation education and career development

Applicants should submit a comprehensive form through the OBAP LWFA portal, along with two letters of recommendation, ideally with one from an OBAP member, although this is not mandatory. The application and recommendations must be submitted by November 15.

Successful applicants meeting the criteria will be contacted by the scholarship team for further interviews.

For those who do not meet the eligibility requirements, the application periods for spring and summer 2024 are on the horizon:

Spring review: Tentatively set for April/May 2024.

Summer review: Tentatively scheduled for August/September 2024.

It is important to note that all OBAP scholarships require active organization membership before applying. Applicants should check individual scholarship descriptions for eligibility criteria. The OBAP prides itself on diversity and inclusivity among all scholarship applicants.

To help aspiring aviators understand the financial aspect of their journey, OBAP provides insights into the costs associated with full-time flight training programs. These costs typically range from $80,000 to $100,000, depending on the specific program, whether it falls under Part 61 or Part 141. There is also the flexibility to apply for multiple scholarships, increasing the chances of securing financial support for training.

This year, OBAP plans to award more than $135,000 in scholarships across various categories, each with a minimum award amount. As more awards become available, the organization intends to keep updating its offerings.

The post Impact Scholarship Applications Open for 2024 appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

Everybody has memories of the original Microsoft Flight Simulator software versions. Then not too many years later, computer programmer Austin Meyer developed his Archer II simulator which morphed into the famous X-Plane simulation program we fans have grown to know and love. Today, when talking of PC civilian sims, most of us immediately think of just two. MSFS2020 and X-Plane 12 dominate the market. However, others exist for military and civilian fans and won’t be neglected in future articles.

But I want to focus on how both X-Plane and MSFS can benefit newly certificated pilots and students alike, so I will look at a few scenarios the fairly new pilot would benefit from flying virtually in a snapshot of both sims, both pros and cons.

Slow Flight, MCA, Stalls, and Spins

For this scenario, I started by using X-Plane 12, basing the simulation at Alpine Airport (46U) in Wyoming, for a somewhat high-altitude challenge (airport elevation is 5,600 feet msl), along with variable weather conditions. After starting up the Cessna 172XP in a realistic manner—partially leaned for takeoff and using live weather—I climbed up over the local area to roughly 2,000 feet agl to practice slow flight and minimum controllable airspeed (MCA). I noticed the X-Plane 12 Cessna handled all this quite realistically from what I remember years ago as a CFII: full flaps, with speeds in the 50- to 60-knot range. Then I flew some MCA with the stall horn beeping and mushing controls, watching the vertical speed indicator stay at zero with power but not too much back pressure to induce a stall—just an aerial dance of working feet, pitch, and throttle.

Slow flight and MCA were extremely realistic and accurate in XP12 as if the aircraft was alive and reacting to the world as it should.

Soon I decided to go all the way into some stalls at a fairly unsafe altitude. At only about 1,500 to 2,000 agl, I started with power-off and power-on stalls, both in turns and straight ahead. Then it was time to see if the airplane spins as I remember from CFI training days. The feeling of the flight model during this was very high and precise.

Power to idle, then back pressure into a squealing stall horn and a turn rolled me rapidly into a left-hand spin—shockingly real and startling.
Sure enough, the back pressure in a turn did the trick, with a fully breaking stall—horn screaming—and bam, the rapid roll into a spin was shockingly real. The recovery inputs felt natural and realistic—slightly sloppy but well modeled—and I recovered at about 300 agl after probably two rotations. It’s certainly not the way we teach in the real world, but having poor risk management skills is the norm on a PC. The fluidity of X-Plane 12 aerodynamics is on full tilt here.

I tried the MSFS2020 Cessna 172XP, at the same airport for the same tests, and the same live weather, only this time as MSFS interprets it.

MSFS never used to model spins nor have a really high-fidelity flight model, but in this test the modeled airplane produced a realistic spin. This was prompted by a power-on stall that resulted in a rapidly winding spin. Sounds of the stall and spin were pretty much on par with X-Plane 12, with the exception being the stall horn X-Plane 12 sounded more realistic and dynamic.

Once airborne in the MSFS 172, I tested slow flight, MCA, and spins in the same manner. Where the MSFS franchise was never known for realistic flight modeling in the past, it is clear this newest version represents a breakthrough. It felt very similar to X-Plane 12’s reactions, with still a wee bit of the “flying-on-rails” feeling we know from previous MSFS versions—but a massive improvement overall in flight modeling for this scenario. I was impressed it spun—and spun well. Recovery was realistic and responsive.

Failure and Emergency Training Scenario

No pilot training would be complete without failure and emergency options, and this is where X-Plane has always smashed the competition, with hundreds of possible failures and emergencies you can either precisely set to occur or randomize each and every option for a nerve-wracking experience.

In this example, I set up a bird strike to occur at exactly 200 feet agl. Despite this setup, I was still startled when it happened. The results were unknown until the engine oil pressure and temperatures started trending to the bad side. I cheated by looking outside and was shocked to see fire and smoke trails.

The scenery is compelling, but the overall lack of failure scenarios and a slightly less fluid flight model makes the emergency practice slightly less beneficial and startling. It’s too predictable since you must pretend a failure or emergency is unfolding. But the visual beauty and accuracy of the world around you are awesome. You’ll gain knowledge, crisis handling, and emergency off-airport planning in either sim.

The birds came out of nowhere fast in the simulation. I had nowhere to go and was coping with a big startle factor at that. You could cope in real life far better by having had the ability to experience that sudden event in simulation.

This engine had really taken a hit. Time to secure and shut down or choose to delay your response to see what might happen next.
I aimed for a road along the shore with some scrubby areas that could provide a safe landing site, although there were houses and bigger trees at the far end of the view.

With a comparable setup in MSFS2020 but without failure modeling, I cut the engine at a similar location and altitude. The scenery is more realistic as it’s based on true Earth images that load by default as you fly. Subscribing to Ortho scenery photorealistic terrain is possible on X-Plane 12 as an option.

I made a safe touchdown in MSFS in a grassy area, dodging road traffic. This is where MSFS takes the cake, “off-roading” with very photorealistic scenery by default. X-Plane will provide similar scenes via downloads and simple installations but by default isn’t as sharp as MSFS.

Convective Dangers and Weather Modeling

Simulating thunderstorms is a thrill, especially when the danger and risks involved can be simulated realistically. Fortunately, both simulations do this quite well now—a new breakthrough for MSFS and an old tried-and-true risk/danger model for X-Plane reworked and improved for X-Plane 12. I manually set up thunderstorms to begin developing, with a trend toward deteriorating weather, so storms would slowly increase in coverage and intensity, making for some cloud shots as well as danger. I know X-Plane has an advantage here.

I looked toward the bad weather and compared it to what I saw on ForeFlight. It’s easy hooking up any X-Plane session to ForeFlight to get the exact thing you’d see in real life. ForeFlight can be added to X-Plane 12 readily.

The depiction on radar, based on my area, was pretty realistic, I must say. What I really wanted to test was the weather over time, and a particularly fun exercise in X-Plane 12 is to park somewhere, use the outside view, and watch and wait. You’ll see and hear the weather forming around you and moving in.

MSFS does something similar, yet I felt the special effects, especially the audio world of these storms approaching, in X-Plane 12 was a bit more dramatic. The things that really caught my attention were the violent wind and rain noises. The rain sounds in X-Plane 12 are loud, especially in flight. Hitting rain at twice highway car speed is dramatic; at 500 knots in a jet it is mind-blowing. I recall once icing up so severely during an X-Plane 12 session that I had to set it down in the bush, with smoke billowing about. I waited, listened, and heard severe wind, rain, and hail lash the cockpit. The water was pouring over my view outside my broken world. The view out the window was scary, and I was trapped and needed rescue.

Iced-over windows as thunderstorms in high altitudes can quickly turn rain into snow and hail as happened to me in this manually set scenario.

What is this?! I had left for lunch while “tied down” as storms were approaching only to return to my horror to see the severe weather had dropped the temperatures from 20 degrees Celsius to about 5 degrees with snow or hail covering the ground. The windows actually had some ice clearly on them. The airplane had been blown far off the ramp into the grass. What amazing realism, danger, variability, and great fun this was. I wish I had stuck around to watch. On second thought, another advantage in X-Plane 12 is replay mode.

Convection building in MSFS2020 is okay. There are great skies and graphics for sure—just slightly less exciting and it just quite doesn’t have that feeling of danger I got with X-Plane 12.

Both sims have amazing weather. The realism of storms in X-Plane 12 wins in my opinion. The turbulence and dangers are genuine, with consequences. The daytime chop, thermals, and under-cumulous base roughness are all better modeled in MSFS2020, which recently had a massive weather engine redo. The cloudscapes and textures looked almost photorealistic in MSFS currently and are beautiful, but thunderheads in X-Plane 12 form, tower up, and stand more realistically than MSFS.
In X-Plane 12, using live weather was far too smooth in thermals, or sunshine versus shade. I felt that a few jumps, jarring, and/or nauseating motion was needed in X-Plane 12 when flying on a sunny day down low. All this can be tweaked by manually setting conditions.

Our two front-runner civilian sims undergo frequent enhancements and refinements. By using either sim or both, as many of us do, any level from beginner to airline pilot can find something to enjoy and use as a tool of proficiency, exploration, and adventure.

There’s never been a better time in the past 40 years to enjoy this hobby since almost daily there’s something new to discover.

The hottest links to visit often for X-Plane and MSFS include www.x-plane.to, www.x-plane.org, and www.flightsim.to. Don’t forget to grab the Honeycomb Starter set from our friends at Sportys as well to launch your sim into the next level of realism and precision.

Finally, I am a huge advocate of both XPRealistic and FSRealistic add-ons, as both sims need that extra sound, vibration, head action, and motion thrown in. 

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the August 2023 issue of Plane & Pilot magazine. 

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It’s a pecking order thing, I suppose, a natural human response, but I dislike when one aviator puts down another. Is a hang glider pilot somehow less than a power pilot? Is a LSA pilot doing a lesser job flying than a GA pilot? Indeed, is the humble prop pilot somehow less than a jet pilot? Are pilots who like rotary or seaplanes oddballs? I think not, but such opinions are too commonly heard.

Similarly, why are pilots so ill-informed about Part 103? Most pilots have heard of the category, yet most of them know next to nothing about the aircraft type. Contrarily, I can say this: the ones who learn about Aerolite 103 know this is a right-proper light aircraft, and they want more for less.

As a single point, price is important to nearly all consumers. Even in 2023, Aerolite 103 is available for around $25,000. That price comes after three years of high inflation, after the upset of Covid and its effect on supply chains, quadrupled shipping costs, and the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. Despite an overload of upsetting, price-increasing actions, Aerolite 103 remains a terrific bargain by almost any measure.

Most of that success at keeping Aerolite 103 affordable is due to just two men.

Dynamic Duo

In the video below, nearly a half million viewers have heard inventor Terry Raber describe his Aerolite 103. Raber built and delivered several hundred of these, it is reported. But many years ago he chose to exit aircraft manufacturing to pursue other interests. He connected with former Challenger build shop operator, Dennis Carley, who has breathed new life into the enterprise.

Carley moved Aerolite to Deland, Florida, and began to set up manufacturing. Prior to Aerolite, he won awards for his craftsmanship. He built more than 100 ultralight and experimental aircraft over a 20 year period, experience that proved valuable when he began manufacturing Aerolite 103.

After moving all of Raber’s inventory and tooling to Florida in January 2013, he reported 20 sales in his first full year of business: a worthy achievement for a re-startup.

Carley’s pace has never stopped. Over the decade he has operated U-Fly-It, the company increased to present capacity of 50–60 Aerolite 103 aircraft per year. I’ve seen him maintain this pace for several years. Over a decade he has likely doubled the fleet that is approaching 1,000 aircraft (based on Raber’s reported “400 or so” during his 15 years of operation, plus steady production by U-Fly-It.)

Raber may have departed from the aviation scene but he did a wonderful job of invention. A former CGS Hawk kit builder and Quicksilver MX assembler, he fused a vision for a simply-constructed aircraft that could stay within Part 103 while offering features other ultralights of the day were not providing.

From the start, Aerolite boasted features others lacked, including:

• A control yoke — most others used joysticks
• Full, conventional three-axis control — common now but wasn’t then
• Electric flaps — few Part 103 ultralight offer flaps, and rarely electric
• Discreet (separate surface) ailerons; not full-span flaperons
• Partial enclosure with a nose cowl and windscreen — open cockpit designs were common
• Tricycle gear — many used standard or taildragger types to save weight
• Hydraulic brakes — brakes were not common on Part 103 ultralights due to the weight constraints of Part 103 plus slow landing speeds
• An aluminum fuel tank, not a plastic one that discolors in time
• Sewn Dacron wing, tail, and surface coverings were common but they save the weight of paint

I love the Aerolite 103. I flew one on several occasions and found it a friendly flying machine with no evil qualities that will fly exactly as you’d expect.

What Aerolite won’t do: You don’t buy an airplane like this to fly long cross country flights. Obviously, you can’t carry passengers. Staying within Part 103 means you are limited to 63 miles per hour and five gallons of gas, good for an hour or two of flying depending on how much up-and-down fun you are having. Some pilots call all these points limitations. Others know the joy such for-fun-only aircraft can deliver.

Aerolite 103 is a full-featured Part 103 ultralight that requires no pilot license of any kind, no N-numbers, and no medical, for less than the average selling price of a new car in the U.S. in 2023. I can attest to its fine flying qualities and long proven design.

Aerolite 103 Price & Value

A complete airframe kit sells for $16,950 including a fully-anodized tube-and-gusset aluminum structure with your choice of sail colors, nose fairing and windscreen, electric flaps, shock-absorbing main gear, steerable nose wheel with suspension, four-point restraint system, 5-gallon aluminum fuel tank, visual fuel quantity gauge, Dacron wing, tail and surface covering that needs no painting, aluminum wheels, tubeless 13 x 5 x 6 Carlisle 4-ply tires, and hydraulic brakes.

Add a fuel engine from Hirth or MZ for 28 to 50 horsepower for a cost of $6,500 to $13,500. You can also choose an electric option that runs from $10-14,000.

A fully-assembled Aerolite 103 runs from $27K–$35K depending primarily on engine selection.

A kit is available with approximately a one-year delay and a fully-built Aerolite 103 will take a bit longer. Like a few other producers I know, Carley has operated U-Fly-It wisely, growing to a workable size but without gambling money on bigger facilities and a larger payroll to build aircraft faster when the market can be unpredictable. U-Fly-It has stable employees that know their tasks well and the business appears to operate with a minimum of friction.

I’ve questioned Carley if he can genuinely run a profitable business at these modest prices. He says yes, and his endurance in the business gives proof to his response.

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