Built between 1958 and 1962, some 2,100 examples of the Skylark were produced. This relatively high number, combined with a great deal of commonality with the popular 172, makes sourcing parts and qualified service straightforward. Additionally, a number of modifications, such as STOL kits and even tailwheel conversions, are compatible with the type.

• READ MORE: Cessna 175 Skylark

The Continental GO-300 engine produces 180 horsepower, and while it does have a slightly lower time before overhaul (TBO) than comparable engines at 1,200 hours, multiple options exist for engine upgrades. Many owners, faced with the prospect of a $35,000+ engine overhaul, opt to source a used, midtime Lycoming O-360 or Continental IO-360 as an alternative. Such a modification would make this aircraft a budget 182 in many ways.

Inside, the panel is exceptionally clean and well laid out. The vacuum system and instruments have been removed and two Garmin G5s have been installed in their place, increasing reliability and reducing weight and complexity. Unlike many aircraft of the era, the radio stack is positioned up high in the pilot’s field of view. A modern transponder with ADS-B out ensures class B and C airspace remains within reach.

• READ MORE: Bargain Buys on AircraftForSale: 1969 Cessna 172K Skyhawk

As it stands, this Skylark is a lot of airplane for the money. With an engine upgrade, a tailwheel conversion, and tundra tires, the value could easily increase to well over $100,000, making it an attractive canvas for future modifications.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Finance. For more information, email info@flyingfinance.com.

The post Bargain Buys on AircraftForSale: 1958 Cessna 175 Skylark appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

Over the decades, Luscombes have become known for two things: a simple, pure flying experience devoid of any extraneous weight or complexity and snappy, responsive controls that do precisely what the pilot commands – for better or for worse. Compared to many comparable types, the Luscombe is one you fly with your fingertips.

• READ MORE: 1946 Luscombe 8E and Mt. Rainier

This particular example is deluxe as Luscombes 8s go. It’s equipped with a peppy Continental C90 that has a new alternator and voltage regulator—a far cry from the bare-bones Luscombes that lack electrical systems entirely. In the past few years, the C90 has had the carb rebuilt and the exhaust replaced.

Elsewhere, intelligent mods abound. New inertia-reel shoulder harnesses keep you safe without restricting forward movement to peer to the right or left in turns. The brakes have been upgraded to dependable Groves, and the interior is clean and tidy

The panel offers a fantastic blend of simplicity and modern functionality. A modern Garmin radio and transponder comprise the avionics stack, and a uAvionix skyBeacon provides ADS-B out. Should the new owner wish to add a bit more functionality, the VOR receiver, mounted front and center, could be cleanly replaced with a modern, lightweight multifunction flight display such as the Garmin GI 275 to retain the vintage look.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Finance. For more information, email info@flyingfinance.com.

The post Bargain Buys on AircraftForSale: 1947 Luscombe 8E appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

Pilots interested in a unique taildragger with economical operating costs should consider this 1965 Cessna 150E, which is available for $49,400 on AircraftForSale.

Those who own and fly them report that the unswept vertical stabilizer offers better directional control than the later swept-tail 150s. Additionally, the gross weight of the D and E is 100 pounds higher than earlier, pre-1964 150s. This particular example boasts a useful load of 528 pounds. Reliable manual flaps add to the list of desirable features.

Equipped with the standard 100-horsepower Continental O-200, this 150 offers more in the way of operating economics with modest fuel burn than raw power. Nevertheless, a 337 for larger 6 x 8.50 tires enables the new owner to easily add some off-airport capability. Hooker shoulder harnesses are a smart addition.

Inside, a Garmin COM radio and panel-mounted GPS comprise the basic avionic package, while a wingtip-mounted uAvionix skyBeacon ensures you’re free of ADS-B airspace restrictions. A lack of carpet in the cabin adds to the utilitarian look and feel, but for those who prefer a more finished look, new carpet is relatively inexpensive at around $500.

You can arrange financing of the aircraft through FLYING Finance. For more information, email info@flyingfinance.com.

The post Bargain Buys on AircraftForSale: 1965 Cessna 150E appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

The service bulletin requires that planes outfitted with the target serial-numbered engines that have fewer than 200 flight hours be flown no more than five additional hours in order to bring the plane to a service center. For some reason that the company doesn’t explain, planes with more than 200 hours on their target engines “may continue normal flight operations.” This exemption, presumably, is because engines with that much time on them would most likely have failed already if their snap pins were incorrectly installed. Which is a chilling piece of information. 

The mandatory service bulletin is targeting engines manufactured between June 1, 2021, and February 7, 2023. It requires operators to get their engines inspected to ensure that the snap rings are properly seated. The inspection requires the removal of at least one cylinder and the use of a special gauge to determine if the rings are properly seated. It won’t be a quick or cheap process. 

As we reported last week, in response to Continental’s woes, Cirrus Aircraft grounded all of its company-operated aircraft with affected engines, likely all of its SR22 aircraft which are powered by Continental IO-550 and TSIO-550 series engines; many or most of its company airplanes likely were manufactured within the affected dates. Late-model SR20s are powered by Lycoming engines, which are not affected by the service bulletin. 

The issue came to light after Cirrus issued a bulletin to its customers, saying, “We have just been informed by Continental of an issue that affects the engines that power both our SR22 and SR22T. While we are still working with Continental to determine the scope of the issue and specific serial number range of affected aircraft, we are proactively making the decision—out of an abundance of caution—to pause all internal Cirrus Aircraft company flight operations on SR22s and SR22Ts manufactured and issued a Certificate of Airworthiness from June 21, 2021, through February 7, 2023.” 

The service bulletin also applies to replacement crankshaft assemblies with the same manufacturing dates. 

Why airworthiness is the biggest checkride problem.

The post Continental Details Engines Woes, and It’s Not Just Cirrus Planes appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

Here are seven engines—and one motor—that changed the game. 

READ MORE: Rotax 912

Gnome/Le Rhône Rotary

Even by the start of the 1910s, it had long been known that weight is the enemy of flight. Power, conversely, was an airplane’s best friend. So, the quest to build ever-lighter and more powerful engines was the critical pursuit as designers around the world sought to create engines to power new, truly practical aircraft. 

Liberty L-12

The Liberty L-12, which emerged toward the end of WWI as a real player, is a fork-in-the-road product, one that marks the divergence of lower-powered engines from engines that would get bigger and more powerful. The L-12 is actually a family of engines, with six- and eight-cylinder models produced, as well. But it was the L-12, a water-cooled, V-12 engine that opened people’s eyes to the potential of gas piston engines. With an engine able to produce 400 horsepower, nearly four times that of the most popular rotary engines of the day, it became clear to designers that the future of aviation power and, hence, aviation itself, was boundless.  

Wright Whirlwind

In light aviation before the era of the air-cooled opposed aero engine, the radial engine was the dominant engine type. This is in part because United States military planners voted strongly for the type, and their hunch paid off handsomely, as a number of radial engines from relatively compact to staggeringly powerful were installed in aircraft from trainers and personal travelers to the biggest bombers. If you want to understand the difference between the potential of the engine types, just picture a radial-engine-powered Beech Staggerwing of 1945 next to an opposed four-cylinder Beech Bonanza of 1945.  

The radial engine that started a flurry of development of this still-much-beloved-but-now-largely obsolete engine type, the Wright Whirlwind was a radial engine whose development dates back to the early 1920s, when the Navy forced Wright’s hand into developing this type. It started as a nine-cylinder radial, but the company soon started building lower-power, lower-weight models of five and seven cylinders, too, for lighter aircraft. 

The advantage of the radial engine was that it was air-cooled, and with the cylinders right out there in the open, they naturally got plenty of air, which eliminated a dangerous failure mode, the loss of liquid cooling, whereas air cooling had no such risk factor; as long as you were flying, the airflow was there. 

There were disadvantages, too. Radial engines have a big footprint, so they are inherently more draggy than inline or V-configuration engines, and as they got larger and more powerful, they were forced toward larger applications, too.

Radials by Pratt & Whitney (the Wasp Junior), Continental, Jacobs and Wright itself, with its Cyclone series, were all mass produced for aircraft between the wars and, at a lesser rate, beyond, being outfitted into some of the most beautiful and prized light aircraft ever built before giving way to opposed engines and a new, more modern world of light personal flying. 

Continental A40 Piper Cub Engine

The increasingly urgent need for greater speed and payload demanded that commercial and military applications go with large radial engines or, less frequently, inline or V-configuration designs. But for light aircraft, those layouts didn’t translate well, as they were relatively heavy, complex and expensive to produce. The engines that caught on were the series of four-cylinder opposed, air-cooled models built by Continental Motors and based on the Piper (nee Taylor) Cub. The 40-hp, magneto-spark engine weighed around 155 pounds, and its compact shape made it the perfect small engine to power what would be known within a few years as a groundbreaking design, C.G. Taylor’s E2 Cub, which morphed into the much-beloved Piper J-3 Cub. 

It was clear from early on that 40-hp was passable but not ideal, so the A40 grew into ever-increasingly powerful and only slightly heavier versions, the ultimate expression of which were the 90-100-hp C-90 and A-200 models, which produced an additional 50-60 horsepower for only an additional 15-25 pounds of dry weight. 

A very similar engine, the Lycoming O-145, emerged shortly thereafter, and it, like its Continental competitors, was perfectly suited for the light planes of the day, including the Piper Cub, into which the Lycoming was also fitted. It’s hard to find details on how many of these engines were produced during their heyday, but the numbers likely are far greater than 100,000, perhaps, apiece. 

Together, the two companies dominated the light plane engine marketplace for decades, and they still provide most of the engines for new-manufacture light aircraft today, all of which are based on these original designs. 

Lycoming 540/Continental 520/550-Series Engines

It might seem odd to break off the Continental and Lycoming six-cylinder engine models from the four-cylinder air-cooled opposed models they were based upon, but their impact on light aviation has been huge. The two companies’ star engines, the 550-series for Continental Aerospace Technologies and the 540-series for Lycoming, have given developers of high-performance single- and twin-engine aircraft a go-to motor for delivering reliable power for some of the most noteworthy aircraft of the modern era, including the Beech Bonanza, the Cessna 210 Centurion and the Cirrus SR22. While conventional wisdom holds that these engines have stood still as time progressed, that’s not really true. The technology behind them, including turbocharging and greatly improved manufacturing processes, have made them more reliable and powerful over the years. 

Rotax 912

One of the most revolutionary engines in light aircraft history, the Rotax 912 has gone into hundreds of different models of certificated and sport aircraft. A four-cylinder, hybrid cooling (air and liquid) engine, the first 912, introduced in 1989, boasted 80 horsepower of smooth, efficient power that helped catapult sport aviation to another level. Previously, two-stroke engines, many of them manufactured by Rotax, ruled the segment. The company has manufactured an estimated 75,000 aircraft engines, many of them derived from their popular engines for snowmobiles. 

The 912 was launched the same year, 1989, as a new, advanced two-stroke design, the 582, which is still in production. It was the pinnacle of Rotax’s line of two-stroke engines designed for ultralight and very light sport aircraft. It has been standard equipment on more than 225 different ultralight and very light aircraft. 

Producing 65 horsepower, the engine is a tidy fit for two-seat ultralights (most of which are simply small Experimental aircraft and not technically “ultralights” at all). For those who don’t want to mix oil and fuel, the 582 features optional oil injection. The liquid-cooled engine has an integral reduction drive because its normal rpm range of power—max power is delivered at 6,500 rmp—is far too fast for prop efficiency. 

The introduction of the 582 gave developers of very light aircraft a low-maintenance, more reliable and more powerful alternative to existing small engines, and in so doing, it helped launch the Light Sport Aircraft segment and regulations. 

But it was the 912 that helped deliver on the promise of sport aviation. Since 1989, the company has developed follow-on models, including more powerful naturally aspirated and turbocharged models that today with the 915 iS go up to around 150-hp. 

The 912 is around 33% more efficient than conventional gas piston engines, and it can run on auto fuel, as well as 100LL. 

Thielert Centurion 1.7

The latest update to light GA aircraft that has had much impact was the Thielert Centurion 1.7, introduced by Diamond aircraft in its DA42 (then called the Twin Star) in the early 2000s. The engine is an extensive conversion of a Mercedes automobile engine. It was the first successful diesel aero engine, though in this case, “success” is a word to be used with numerous qualifications. 

The four-cylinder, 135-hp, turbocharged, Jet-A-burning engine has numerous advantages, but its most compelling is its great fuel efficiency, in many applications up to 40% more efficient than gas piston engines of similar power rating. It also, as you just read, uses Jet-A fuel, which is widely available around the world and in many places far cheaper than avgas, not to mention that Jet-A is naturally unleaded. And because it’s turbocharged, the engine maintains its rated power to far higher altitudes than its gas piston competitors can. 

But the introduction of the engine was a disaster, with low time-before-overhaul times for critical components, poor reliability on top of that and spotty support, at least initially, from the airframe maker. Thielert itself declared insolvency, and Diamond took the extraordinary step of creating its own engine manufacturing subsidiary, Austro Engines. Thielert engines, now much improved, are produced in the United States by Continental Aerospace Technologies, though they have not had a strong uptake rate in the retrofit market, at least not yet. But given the aero diesel engine’s promise and demonstrated advantages over gas piston engines, many still believe its day will come at last. 

Electric Engines

At least to some degree, it’s not accurate to call electric propulsive devices “engines.” They are actually “motors” because, unlike engines, they don’t produce the energy that they convert into motion. Then again, the terms have become almost interchangeable, to the point that MIT’s guidance on the subject is that the two terms are, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable these days.  

The future of flight at this point looks to be electrically driven, so it would stand to reason that electric motors will be the new objects of study and fascination for pilots in the same way that Merlins and Double Wasps have been up to now. But it’s not likely to happen. Electric motors take electricity that’s stored elsewhere and translate it to a spinning prop. They are dirt-simple compared to even the most rudimentary gas piston engine. Maybe the new figureheads of aviation will be awesome new technology batteries? Yeah, that’s not likely to happen either, though it doesn’t mean we won’t be happy to have them in our lives. 

Six Modern High-Performance Piston Singles

The post Our Top 8 Game-Changing Airplane Engines appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.

It was fitting that the first thing that happened at Sun ’n Fun, opening day, 9 a.m., was an announcement from Piper Aircraft that it had done something at once sensible and spectacular. They introduced a trainer that costs less, a lot less. Piper president Simon Caldecott was straight up about the impetus for the introduction. Some schools just couldn’t afford the company’s standard trainer, the Archer, which is priced at around $360,000, a figure that not long ago prompted spontaneous expressions of disbelief but today mostly passes for, again, standard trainer pricing.

All Caldecott wanted to do was whack a hundred grand off that price. Okay.

Now for context, the Archer is a pretty conventional airplane by 2019 standards, and Piper’s been building planes in Vero Beach for around 60 years now and they’re really good at it. I’ve toured the factory on a couple of occasions. It’s an impressive operation. But while Piper builds the airframes, there are a lot of added components that Piper doesn’t build and that, well, no airplane maker does. Not Textron, not Mooney, not Boeing, not Airbus. They use vendors to supply those components, which include things most pilots want on their planes, like tires and wheels and brakes and radios and propellers and wiring!.stuff we’ve all grown accustomed to. I hate landing without tires!

A few of those components, the avionics, engine and propeller, add the lion’s share of the cost to the manufacture of a light plane. Nobody gets charged retail on the business side of things, and nobody shares what they really pay for components, but it’s a fair guess that a third to half of the cost of a small plane are things the manufacturer has to buy from someone else.

And there’s no way of getting those costs down. Or is there?

It’s got an advanced integrated suite of computerized, networked navigation, flight control, communications, dependent surveillance, traffic avoidance, envelope protection, systems monitoring and control and in-flight communications. Yes, that’s what the Garmin G1000 NXi does for you, and I’m probably forgetting a few things.

G1000 NXi is the top avionics solution for light planes, by a lot, too, but Garmin recently introduced a budget alternative, the G3X Touch Certified, which is a direct development of its G3X Touch for Experimentals. That system cost Garmin less to develop and it costs less to build than its G1000 NXi conventionally certificated system, and the same is true for the company’s new autopilot the GFC 500, and its two new WAAS multifunction navigators, as well.

What Piper did was partner with Garmin to put this new, lower cost avionics system in its new planes. It also worked with Continental, in an even bigger switch by some standards, to put the Continental IO-370 Prime engine in the plane, which is essentially a PA-28 Cherokee. The words “Cherokee” and “Lycoming” have been synonymous for the past 60 years now, so Piper’s move to Lycoming’s archrival is an eye opener. As you might know, Lycoming is a Textron corporation, and Textron owns Cessna, which builds the 172 Skyhawk, the direct competitor to the Piper trainer. How that calculus worked is unknown, but clearly Piper is getting a great deal on an engine that is directly comparable to the engine in the Archer, the Lycoming O-360, also a four-cylinder, fuel-injected, opposed engine. Where Continental has been innovating for the past many years is in its manufacturing processes, and the new factory it’s building in its historic home of Mobile, Alabama, is likely going to give it additional resources toward innovating even more.

You can be sure of a couple of things. Piper won’t be alone in getting cost out of its entry-level products. And Piper’s new trainers are only the point of the arrow.

Caldecott knows that. He said at the press event, though I haven’t seen anyone else comment on it, that Piper would be looking into new ways to get cost out of the manufacturing process, including the use of 3D printed parts—the process is known as “additive manufacturing” for its airplanes.

The new Part 23 would allow that. All we need are industry-generated standards on how to do that and how to make sure they’re as good as the old parts. Those are two big jobs, but jobs that have been done before with the creation of Light Sport Aircraft, the category that has opened the door to a whole new word of certification and manufacturing, the fruits of which we are finally starting to see.

This article was sponsored by Piper and Continental

The post Going Direct: The Disruption Begins appeared first on Plane & Pilot Magazine.