![[Credit: LeRoy Cook]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/IMG_2791.jpg?w=534&h=462&crop=1 "The Safety Triangle: Balancing Skill, Knowledge, and Judgment in Flying")
![A SubSonex personal jet in aerobatic flight. Thea design will expand with a two-place model kit in the months ahead. [Credit: Sonex Aircraft]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/SubSonex_Acro.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Sonex Reopens")
![A CubCrafter’s Carbon Cub headed to Sun ‘n Fun in the time-honored tradition. [Credit: CubCrafters]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Carbon-Cub-UL.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Sun ‘n Fun 2026 Highlights: Electric RV-10, Modular Avionics, and MOSAIC")
![Ten hours of dual instruction in a tailwheel-equipped aircraft is usually required for proficiency. [Credit: AdobeStock]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/AdobeStock_354747155.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Learning How to Drag Your Tail")
![The alternative to bending down as the propeller is pulled through the compression stroke is to keep the back straight and bend the knees slightly, stepping away in a crouch. [Credit: LeRoy Cook]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/IMG_1519-scaled.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Manual Starting Methods")
Becoming a DAR
A designee is a private individual with the experience and skills necessary to do the work mandated for the FAA.
Kitfox Celebrates Forty, Too
To say that Kitfox has been successful since then is an understatement.
Air Racing: A Report
With the announcement of Roswell, New Mexico, as the new home of the National Air Races, it seems a good time to give an update on the go-fast crowd.
Eclipsing
One of the big motivators to amateur aircraft builders is simply dreaming about the adventures that their personal aircraft will allow them to accomplish.
Checklists: Live By Them
There isn’t a pilot alive who doesn’t know what a checklist is. There are, however, pilots no longer with us who failed to use one.
Four Decades Old, Look At Us Now
Publisher Dennis Shattuck took a flier on a growing segment of aviation back when magazines littered newsstands across the country and well before we...
Compromises
Never one to revel in the practical, recently I found myself expounding to a colleague on why the general aviation world moves at 2700 rpm.
Parts Is Parts
A major part of any Experimental kit will be hundreds of products that the kit supplier didn’t manufacture or fabricate but simply sourced from the open market to supply with their custom kit components.
Target Fixation Taught by Trees
I was chopping firewood under a dead ash tree, whiffing deep, ax-head-shaped divots into my lawn, when I remembered the time, once upon a takeoff, that a living oak tree nearly got the best of me.
In Case You Missed It
Wag-Aero Sport Trainer
Builder Dave Klages’ Wag-Aero Sport Trainer remains faithful in most ways to the J-3 Cub that inspired it; by Marc Cook.
Tidy Up with Adel Clamps
There is so much to learn by simply observing the handiwork of others. Some...