Excellent points on the automation. I no longer change lanes for myself on the highway and since buying the new car I have had zero of those pulse-quickening moments where I was hoping to change lanes and someone zoomed up into the lane or somehow managed to evade my blindspot checking.

I agree. My first real flight in a DA40 demo plane I dropped it from six feet onto the concrete at LGB.

A month later I bought that plane.

I have a three mistake rule before I take off. If I make three mistakes I scrub the flight and park. I've made it to two, but then I get real careful and it tends to be a spotless flight because I'm on high alert. It is so hard to imagine what it is like to have three controllers correcting your hea...

Chris,

The flight school DA42's had the little mirror David mentions. On each side, so I guess the instructor could also confirm gear down?

I would be extremely leery of sticking anything into the gap of a primary control surface. The very first Cirrus crash was their first test pilot and the gap between the wing and aileron was too tight and the controls jammed. He was too low for the chute. So I would have it looked at and, personally...

I bet they had it off there in a hot minute. Lots of shops right there along that side of the airport. For little planes 16L is fine.

I like seeing that little window. For some reason it feels very high-tech when I open that port and peek in. I also asked my mechanic how often they had a plane at the flight school grounded because someone spotted that level low on the pre-flight. Never. It also changed levels depending on which sp...

This is why you have two engines, right? I mean, as long as it takes off you can probably make it to the shop. (My original DA40 salesman was in a DA42 1.7 and lost one engine over KSBA. He turned around and flew back to KLGB on the other engine. When I was surprised he said, "You've been flyin...

Our 7 year old did okay with it. He didn't love it. He took it off once and fell asleep. When he woke up on the ground he complained that he had a headache and I said that was because without the oxygen hose his brain didn't get enough to stay awake and gave him a headache. He never took it off agai...

One of my Facebook friends has landed there a few times in his Piper. I would be SO nervous.