Mini Pilot Reports

Big Legend in a Small Package by Budd Davisson Trying to characterize the Monocoupe in only a few words is like trying to explain icons like Jimmy Stewart, George Patton or the P-51 Mustang in twenty-five words or less. In its time, the Monocoupe stood tall as the first truly high performance airplane available to […]

by Budd Davisson Hereís an interesting question: of all the airplanes still being flown regularly by the U.S. Armed forces, which is the oldest? There are still a few Phantoms out there. They arrived on the scene around 1959. Of course the old ìBuffî, the B-52 first spread its mighty wings an unbelievable 52 years […]

Aviation’s Pick-up Truck by Budd Davisson Personally, Iíve always been a sucker for blue-collar airplanesó those birds that work for a living and always look as if they have grease under their fingernails. And that pretty well describes the Cessna 180 . In 1952, when Cessna decided they needed to pump some testostrone into their 145 […]

by Budd Davisson In Formula One racing there are fast airplanes, there are really fast airplanes, and then there is (was) Nemesis. Itís now resting in the Smithsonian, buyt not a racing pilot on the planet doubts that should pilot/designer Jon Sharp decide to pull his now-dusty racer out of the display case to challenge […]