There was quite a bit of fuss earlier this summer over the insolvency (bankruptcy) of TAE (Thielert)...the manufacturer of the diesel engines for Diamond Aircraft's DA-42 Twin Star. The economy offered by the Twin Star's great design and its super-efficient engines revolutionized twin piston training and stood to influence the entire piston aircraft market.

Diamond, being a proactive company announced that it would deal with the problems by "simply" producing their own diesel engines, something they'd been working on for a while. I hadn't heard anything in a while, so I snooped around and was turned on to the following by an Aviation.ca article.

The staff here at AviationBull would like to congratulate one of our writers on the recent addition to his family!!! Jon just became the proud parent of an Aeronca Champ. Picture of the bouncing baby blue airplane are included below for your ogling pleasure.

Jon's Airplane

Jon, we wish you many happy landings!!!

Would you like to take three friends and cruise at 147 knots in a piston single burning 12.8 GPH? If so, would you be even more interested if you could do that in an amphibian aircraft? If you're still saying yes, then you'll be happy to hear that the Seawind 300C is back on track toward production!

Mac McClellan with Flying Magazine has written a great article chronicling what he see as an Airplane price bubble in used aircraft in the last 30 years.

I was looking through some of my old issues of AOPA magazine when I found an article that has become nearer and dearer to our pocketbooks since the recent rise in fuel prices. In the December 2005 issue, Chip Wright wrote an article entitled "Fill 'er up?" about how general aviation has a tendency to always take off with a full tank of fuel, even when our planned flight doesn't require all the fuel on board. Wright's article gave extensive reasons why the airlines don't carry full fuel on every flight but came up short in explaining why general aviation should carry full fuel on every flight.

With the troubles at Thielert slowly coming to a head, current engine owners are banding together to take action. At the center of this is the THielert ENgine Owners Group (THENOG), where engine owners are getting together to mount some sort of action. Their approach is to establish the cumulative value of their combined engine warranties, earning them a spot on the german insolvency board as a creditor. This would give them some clout in recouping their engines lost value.

Fly Rod... Check, Hip Waders... Check, Remote Fishing Hole... Check, Piper Super Cub... Check.

If you navigate directly to the Cirrus Website, you'll be shown a short video about the newest version of the SR-22, the Perspective. With the same engine and airframe as before, it's the Garmin avionics that make this version special.

Yes, you read it correctly. Garmin avionics in a Cirrus aircraft.