Paul Arakawa took the wing off my plane in 2006 when I first bought it (and had a bad fuel sensor).

I'll probably get an inexpensive Stratus or something, tied to Foreflight's AI and synth. vision display. This is what I have. I consider it a backup for my backup , which I like quite a bit. For me, having the WHOLE solution be independent of the electric system (yet the batteries are charging whi...

It would be great if that meant they were going to double support.

a gasoline-fired Janitrol heater in the nose

I looked at a Twin Bonanza with a friend and I asked about the heater, which was one of those. The owner said, "It's up there, but I don't turn it on. I lost two good friends in separate planes to those damn heaters and now I just wear an extra sweater."

(Moderators should feel free to move that to a new thread and leave a message pointing to the new thread. I got a little longer there than I intended to.)

(Bit of thread drift, but very related to the software issue.) If *I* had bought the Diamond Aircraft Industries package I would make a simple policy going forward, the formulation of which is driven by the regulatory-heavy environment which the products are sold in: Every improvement to the product...

You said the welding shop was in Canada but then you sent the parts to Florida. Which shop did you use?

That seems like a great upgrade. I'll be looking to do the same when it comes time to replace the engines.

One of my rules is "no experimental aircraft." My flight school was next to Berkut, who built a version of the LongEZ (Burt Rutan design). Pretty sure one of them had the record for the fastest piston single flight (over 300 knots). Amazing planes. Also seemed scary as hell. The writer James Gleick ...

Cowboys were able to adapt instantly to changing conditions and the most important thing to a cowboy (after survival) was getting the job done. I think "cowboy" is probably the accurate term and, most likely, fine for a lot of those guys messing around with a plane that weighs less than their vehicl...