![[Credit: AdobeStock]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/AdobeStock_51865118.jpg?w=534&h=462&crop=1 "FAA MOSAIC Rule Fully Implemented")
![My 36 year old clipboard from when I started at Boeing. Engineering ruler and fastener/fastener hole cheat sheets. [Credit: Andrew Robinson]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Liaison_clipboard.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "What Is a Liaison Engineer?")
![At Sun ‘n Fun 2026, Viking Aircraft Engines surprised the crowd with its first complete kit — the V-42, a high-wing twin powered by two Honda-based engines. Here’s an early look. [Credit: Andrew Robinson]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/P1020293.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Viking V-42 Twin")
![A STOL CH 750 [Credit: Mike Davenport]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/STOL-CH-750.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Why Are So Many Airplanes Yellow?")
![A Zenith STOL CH701 on Zenair amphibious floats rests on a sandbar on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. [Credit: Zenith Aircraft]](https://www.kitplanes.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/zenair-floats-STOL_CH_701a-Topaz-Gigapixel-2x-scale-Topaz-Gigapixel-2x-scale.jpg?w=265&h=198&crop=1 "Zenith STOL CH 701 at 40: The Iconic ‘Sky Jeep’ Design Audit"){kind=tracking}
Inserting Bolts, Installing Nuts
I never set out to write a hardware trilogy, yet here we are. A little ditty on washer usage begat a column on bolt-length...
Staying Late
In magazine land—a parallel universe to the real world—I’m writing this between Oshkosh and Reno. The time between these two big events is a...
One Marvelous Community
This month’s column is inspired by the most recent AirVenture, which has left me reflecting on how it really isn’t the aircraft that draw...
Out of This World
I returned from AirVenture with a few story ideas and a horrible illness that prevented me from doing much of anything. “Might as well...
How Fast Is a Speed Nut?
A “speed nut” is a somewhat generic term that is occasionally used for a one-piece spring steel fastener that we can use in our...
In Case You Missed It
RANS S-19
When new aircraft from two very different designers, in this case Randy Schlitter and Richard VanGrunsven, surface with considerable similarities, consensus about basic design tenets must be blowing in the wind. Certainly Light Sport regs do constrain performance considerations, but human factors are more up for grabs, and that’s where one or another design can truly shine; by Marc Cook.
Ray Stits Remembered
Designer of 15 Experimentals, inventor of the Poly-Fiber covering system, and founder of EAA Chapter 1, he was an aviation ambassador for all. By Amy Laboda.