You need an airplane to fly! These Flight Guides will help you understand small aircraft, then find, buy, share, build, and/or maintain your own airplane. You’ll be in the air soon!
If your own a small general aviation aircraft you know that ownership, maintenance and repairs can be expensive. Fortunately, many smart aviators have learned how to reduce the costs of owner-flown aircraft. So can you! …
Preventive maintenance on aircraft involves simply replacing some components with exact replacement parts and doing some lubrication. Here are a few of the things a pilot can do on a noncommercial aircraft: Remove, repair, and …
Once you’ve narrowed the field to a handful of planes, you’ll want to make an inspection, then take a test flight to be sure the plane is what you think it is. No surprises, please. …
How can you choose the right plans or kit for your custom-built or experimental aircraft? Many new flyers spend years researching the models and features they want. You don’t have to take that long. Using …
If your car has a problem you can, if you wish, fix it yourself. That’s not the case with most general aviation aircraft. For the protection of yourself, passengers, future owners of your plane, and …
You can run out and buy or lease the first airplane that has the right paint job, but you might soon become dissatisfied with your wings — which means you won’t fly it as much …
Before you decide whether you want to buy a sport aircraft, let’s take a closer look at how and why to do it. Then you’ll learn some of the jargon of buying a plane. The …
The controversy of sole ownership versus partnership began more than 100 years ago when Wilbur and Orville Wright flipped a coin to see who would fly their shared airplane at Kitty Hawk. It’s still a …
Homebuilt or experimental aircraft have been around for more than a century. The Wright brothers built the first airworthy plane as “experimental” in their shop. Today, there are thousands of experimental aircraft at varying stages …
Airplanes built by their owners are called by a variety of names: amateur built, home built, experimental, and others. I and many other people prefer “custom-built” because you’re building the plane yourself, for yourself. Within …
Engineering has evolved tremendously over the past 100 years, and standards for metal, construction, and machinery have stood the tests of time. One of the organizations that has standardized much of this engineering is ASTM …
There are three types of general aviation aircraft: certified, consensus, and experimental. Those built under the The FAA (and, prior, the Civil Aviation Authority [CAA]) are built under Certified Standards, following stringent rules and regulations. …
You might be surprised to learn that not every pilot owns his or her aircraft. In fact, renting and other non-ownership options for aircraft are approximately the same as those in the housing market — …