August 2020
On the cover: Paul Dye pilots Valkyrie, his RV-8, near Hilltop Lakes, Texas. Photographed from the back seat of Danny King’s RV-8, Beautiful Doll,...
July 2020
On the cover: six kits for under $25,000. (Clockwise from upper left) Hummel H5, Van’s RV-4, Fisher Dakota Hawk, Aeromarine Merlin, Zenith CH 650...
June 2020
On the cover: John McBean, president of Kitfox Aircraft, enjoys a flight in an S7 Super Sport on a near-perfect Idaho day. Photographed by...
May 2020
On the cover: Erik Johnston photographed Ray Waton’s Murphy Bull Moose in Eastern Washington state. Its V-8 installation looks almost like a turbine!
Table of...
April 2020
On the cover: Scott McDaniels pilots his RV-6A near the Van’s Aircraft factory in
Oregon. Scott—who works at Van’s in the company’s prototype shop—carefully
rebuilt the airplane, which he acquired after it had been damaged. Photographed by Ed Hicks near Portland, Oregon.
March 2020
On the cover: Paul Dye and Nick Otterback enjoy an early morning flight in the Arion Lightning 340. Photographed by Richard VanderMeulen near Oshkosh,...
February 2020
On the cover: Joe Flood flies Big Toot, Tommy Meyer’s Lindy Award winning, tandem biplane. Photographed near Oshkosh, Wisconsin, by Richard VanderMeulen.
January 2020
On the cover: Dave Ammenti puts his Glasair GlaStar through its paces on a perfect CAVU day. Photographed near Palo Alto, California, by Richard...
November 2019
On the cover: Paul Dye flies his SubSonex personal jet over Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada. Photographed by Richard VanderMeulen.
In Case You Missed It
Down to Earth
When it came to choosing a kit aircraft to build, columnist Amy Laboda and her husband opted for a metal design, in part because it would be resistant to destruction by lightning strike and also because fatigue is easier to detect in metal than it is in a composite plane. However, new nanotube technology, if integrated into composite construction material, could not only help identify wear problems, but also potentially heal them.
Flight Testing
Personnel roles, emergency contingencies, communications-there are many moving parts involved in the first flight of a homebuilt. Paul Dye catalogs them and offers a sample flight plan that worked for him.