As we all know, “test driving” an aircraft is not the same as test driving a vehicle. You don’t pop down to your local dealership and take out the latest model for 30 mins, to see how it handles and how it feels.

I am very fortunate to have had many opportunities to fly different aircraft. Often this is because of the distance between the buyer and seller and is done as a service to assist in the movement of the plane to the buyer.

After the review of thousands of logbook pages, and years of reviewing entries in my own aircraft, I have discovered something. As owners, we do a terrible job of ensuring our logbooks are kept in great shape. I am not pointing fingers, unless you consider the one I am pointing at myself, as I am a culprit of this as much as anyone else.

We say a sad goodbye to Kathy Wrobel, who has written many excellent articles with valuable advice on purchasing and selling aircraft, as well as aircraft ownership in general.

Insurance is fundamentally about providing financial stability, so it is extremely important to have and to understand. This is especially true for those of us in aviation because of our industry’s high severity of losses, and even occasional fatalities.

I had sold an aircraft to Europe that was to be shipped in a container, so the other day I went up to a small airport with a small crew to pick up the aircraft, as well as its floats and some other accessories that were to go with it.

Aircraft have been stranded, folks struggling to get to where they are going. Some are having close calls, but thankfully so far no incidents.

Coast Dog Aviation, a well-known western Canadian maintenance organization, recently announced that a Transport Canada supplemental type certificate (ST) had been issued for the installation of a Cessna 206 cargo door modification, which provides a significant increase in safety.

The TransCanada Highway crossed below me as I glanced at the Cav's airspeed read out. We eased up through 80 mph with the RPM good and the plane climbing strongly. I smiled to myself and thought for the tenth time that evening how much I love my airplane.

Aviation lore abounds with stories of pilots summarily losing their flight privileges after running afoul of seemingly arbitrary, mysterious medical requirements. And yet, in my opinion, this usually wasn’t really the case.

What do we see from above? What do pilots see that no one else does?

"When I think about my first article of 2020, where the year seemed so full of hope and great expectations, it seems like a blink of an eye ago and a million years ago all in the same feeling."