californiaflightschool.com Blog

We wrote about this a while back, here is our quote:
“Imprimis of Bangkok and Singapore just bought Piper Aircraft from what we were told.

How long do you think until the new owner closes many of the under-performing product lines? Get out of Vero Beach in a hurry? Start making planes in China?

Stay tuned.”

We now read a story about Piper potentially moving (”opening”) manufacturing in Asia.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/02/02/337902/singapore-2010-piper-open-to-manufacturing-in-asia.html

So then, here is our next bet: how long until most of the US based jobs are shipped overseas?
We are guessing that Piper USA will not see the end of this decade, in it’s current form and staff levels.
They are probably going to cash in some of Obama’s incentive money first, and then….. gone.

We have recently seen increased problems with Lamar starters on our fleet of Cessna 172SP aircraft.

This is (was) a known manufacturer’s issue, and has been over quite a few years already, although we thought it had been brought under control by the manufacturer.
We have had a very good track record for the last two years but suddenly (over the last four weeks) we have several aircraft affected.

In once case the aircraft has received several exchange new and overhaul units, with the very same results.
This is a very frustrating and hard to track issue and we are hoping that the manufacturer will get this under control again quickly.

MAGUIRE AVIATION IS HOSTING

     “THE VNY HISTORIC AIRCRAFT DISPLAY DAY!”

   This is our first display for 2010 tax exemption!

    Display Days will be held on the 3^rd Saturday

             of each month at Van Nuys Airport

            NEXT DISPLAY DAY is Saturday Jan 16, 2010  

   Location: SKYTRAILS NORTH (previous B-25 hangar)

                                              Street entrance @ 7535 Valjean Ave (old Blue Skies)

                       Public viewing: 10AM – 2 PM

                                            Display aircraft parking will start at 9:00am (display 10:00 -2:00)

     FUEL DISCOUNT ($0.27/gal) FOR DISPLAY AIRCRAFT

If you have a private non-commercial aircraft over 35 years old, you could be exempt from the

Los Angeles County Property Tax assessed on your aircraft.

(For more information go to: http://assessor.lacounty.gov/extranet/guides/aircraft.aspx)

Check VNY PROP web site @ http://www.vnyprop.org/ to confirm VNY display location.

If you are looking to get information from the FAA FAR online, make sure that you are on the official site:
Federal Aviation Regulations

Remember that there are many sites displaying FAR’s online, but these may be from a CD or database that is years old!
Please do NOT rely on anything from a website other than the FAA official site and the publications that are current and
available through commercial vendors.

We just recently had a vivid discussion on a FAR topic with a flight instructor that kept referring to a website that had a copy of the FAR’s
that was many years outdated.

A particularly frequent topic is the medical certificate duration for pilots.
Remember the medical certificate expiration of 60 calendar months from date of issue only applies for airmen that have not reached their 40th birthday,
and then only for activities requiring only a third class medical.

If you are more “matured” than 40, your third class certificate is only valid for 24 calendar months.