Best Single Piston Aircraft - When you and your bank account finally decide it's time to buy a new plane, your choices vary widely in terms of price, features, and mission. Each make and model has mission-specific capabilities that offer the pilot-owner the most effective return on investment, and where you decide on the "mission" question ultimately determines the price you pay and the feature set required.

The choice of single-engine or multi-engine piston aircraft ranges from affordable small two-seater models for pure pleasure flying to top-of-the-range luxury models, at a reasonable price. Let's take a look at some of the makes and models currently available.

Best Single Piston Aircraft

Best Single Piston Aircraft

A great first aircraft for many budgets is the new Texas Aircraft Colt. With a manufacturer's base price of $167,000, it's an affordable light-sport choice that guzzles fuel while having fun in the sky. With a choice of Dynon SkyView HDX or Garmin G3X and GTN 650 avionics, all-aluminum construction and robust chassis, the Colt is also suitable for flight training.

Cessna 310r: Building The Perfect Twin

Pilots who have been in aviation for a while will be drawn to Textron Aviation's new Cessna Skyhawk, Skylane and Turbo Stationair HD. All three models offer a lineup derived from decades of reliable aircraft production, and while the Skyhawk, Skylane, and Stationair may look like your grandfather's Cessna 172, 182, or 206 from afar, these new models are remarkably sophisticated. Today's Skyhawk flies a powerful Garmin G1000 NXi glass panel with an interior that looks much better than the popular 172 you may have trained with in the past. The Turbo Stationair is similarly built with a similar avionics suite to the G1000 NXi and will carry the formidable cargo that has always drawn Pilot owners to the Legacy 206. Room for six on the upgraded seats and the model's signature dual rear doors make loading all those people and cargo easy. With four seats and considerable flexibility in both cargo and performance, the Skylane 182T hits the sweet spot in the middle as far as mission goes. You'll pay a premium for today's Cessna models from decades ago, but enjoy the same legendary performance, ease of maintenance and reliability.

If your desired mission is backcountry flying, the CubCrafters XCub or the Aviat Husky A-1C-200 will be suitable for that mission. The XCub is designed for exceptional STOL performance and although it is designed to be robust, several passenger amenities have been added. With the panel centered on Garmin's 10.6-inch G3X Flight Display, pilots will be able to safely navigate canyons with ease.

The Aviat Husky A-1C-200 is designed to get in and out of even the smallest, roughest backcountry trails, giving the rider plenty of power from the Lycoming IO-360-A1D6 engine while sipping just 7.6 gph at 55 percent horsepower. If you want to do extreme STOL operations, this backcountry hotrod will let you do it.

For owner pilots focused on long-haul cruising, Beechcraft's G36 Bonanza should be a strong contender for your money. Like the Bonanza decades before it, the G36 is fast, comfortable and well-built. The Garmin G1000 NXi board enables serious IFR flying, making the G36 an excellent choice as a first business aircraft. Another solid cruiser is Piper's Archer LX, which draws heavily from the famous Cherokee family. With fine leather seats and the G1000 NXi panel, pilots who have flown the older Cherokee will quickly realize that this is a seriously upgraded aircraft.

The 15 Best Small Planes That You Can Buy Right Now

One model that tops many pilots' wish lists is the Diamond Aircraft DA40. The company is known for building a high level of safety into every model, and the DA40 is a super stylish and well-built aircraft for the first time owner or experienced IFR pilot. The sexy appeal of the DA40 comes as standard.

When your budget is on the higher end, the Cirrus SR22 series is the logical choice for the perfect blend of speed, safety, comfort and performance. Available in many package levels starting at $654,900, you're paying for the privilege of flying one of the most powerful single-engine aircraft available today. Garmin's Cirrus Perspective Plus avionics suite, Continental IO-550-N 310 hp engine, Cirrus Airframe parachute system and beautiful premium interior make the SR22 family suitable for personal or business flying.

Dan Pimentel is a private instrument pilot and former airplane owner who has been flying since 1996. As an aviation journalist and photographer, he has covered all aspects of the general and business aviation community for a long list of leading aviation magazines. newspapers and websites. He's never met an aircraft he didn't like, and he's been writing about his love of aviation for years on his blog, Airplanista. He hosted the popular “Oshbash” social media gatherings at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh for 10 years until 2019. The history of high-performance monoplanes is fascinating, not least because the planes themselves are masterpieces of engineering and design. Granted, they are limited masterpieces, but in aviation, the word "restriction" is hard-coded into the lexicon.

Best Single Piston Aircraft

It's not just that these airplanes are great, and they are, but they also tell the story of how airplane manufacturers viewed their customers as pilots and people, and how that perspective guided their design decisions. This is the story of how these designers worked within the limits of the current state of technology in terms of propulsion, materials and electronics to create an aircraft that met the new needs of a new generation of pilots. It's also a story about the evolution of the manufacturer's understanding of what pilots wanted, tempered as always by what aircraft manufacturers and regulators believed pilots could and should do. While the answers to these questions have changed over time, the questions themselves have not.

The Best 2 Seater Aircraft (sep)

Of the aircraft featured here are the Beech Bonanza, Piper Comanche, Cessna 210, Mooney 201, Piper Saratoga and Cirrus SR22, only the first and second were designed as-is and not converted from earlier models. This is as much a comment on the reality of aircraft manufacturing as it is a possible lack of vision. In our opinion, these Bonanza and SR22 aircraft are truly revolutionary designs. Operating as an independent cell from the company's usual approach, the designers of Beechcraft's Bonanza arrived at the Bonanza by not connecting the lines of the company's previous high-performance single, the D-17 "Staggerwing," but by imagining what could be. The D-17 and Model-35 flew from different periods of history, and it's fun to think that for two years the unlikely pair were built side by side, as if Ford were building Model As and Mustangs at the same time.

We also left some planes. Why not Ryan/North American Navion? North America/Rockwell/ Commander 114? Diamond DA-40? Meyer 200? Socata Trinidad? All are possible inclusions that we have overlooked, some reluctantly.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this list of incredible aircraft is how different they are from each other. High-wing, low-wing, small-bore, big-bore, six-seater, four-seater... not only have they taken different approaches to arriving at the place of greatness, the place where pilots then and now find the aircraft that fits their mission, but many times more their personality as well. John Lyon John Lyon John Lyon Latest John Lyon Stories Meet the driven golfer who played the top 100 courses in America in one year. I flew Gulfstream's new G500: Here's what happened. Rolls-Royce is building the fastest electric plane ever

Last month, Minnesota-based Cirrus Aircraft unveiled the G6, the sixth generation of its SR series of monoplanes. The new generation, which includes the manufacturer's SR20, SR22 and SR22T models, has been improved inside and out, with a more advanced cockpit and new wingtip lighting among the major updates.

The Best Single Seat Fighters Of 1945: European Theatre World War Ii

Developed by Garmin and based on the latest G1000 NXi platform, the new Cirrus Perspective Plus cockpit has ten times the processing speed of its predecessor, giving pilots access to a range of features normally reserved for more advanced turbine engine cockpits, such as e.g. visual approach capabilities, payload management and animated data link weather. These new cockpit features, along with numerous user interface improvements, lighten the pilot's workload and increase safety, always a top concern for the company perhaps best known for equipping its aircraft with a parachute system.

Touted to "enhance apron presence" (ie, make other pilots jealous), the Cirrus G6's new Spectra wingtip lighting system has made a big impact in the luxury car world, reflected in its sleek styling and aggressiveness. The high-performance LED lights are twice as bright as previous generation lights, ensuring that the new aircraft has maximum visibility at all times.

The most extensive update of the sixth generation belongs to the G6 SR20, which, in addition to the previously mentioned updates, got a completely new engine. Now powered by a 215 hp Lycoming IO-390 four-cylinder engine, the SR20 boasts more power

Best Single Piston Aircraft

Single piston aircraft, single piston aircraft for sale, fastest single engine aircraft piston, best single engine piston aircraft, single engine piston aircraft for sale, fastest piston single aircraft, largest single engine piston aircraft, piston aircraft, best piston aircraft, biggest single engine piston aircraft, single engine piston aircraft, used single piston aircraft for sale