Come out to Redbird Skyport at the San Marcos Municipal Airport on Saturday, May 30th for the Bluebonnet Fly-In. Hank Gibson from Texas Top Aviation will be giving a safety presentation at 2pm in the large conference room entitled “Is The Approach Activate? Flying Garmin Approaches.”
Join Texas Top Aviation and Redbird Skyport as we open the summer together at the Bluebonnet Fly-In.
To Register for the Safety Seminar, please click here.
I get asked some version of the same question almost every day right now: “Hank, what’s going on with the airplane market?” Owners are nervous. The market has definitely slowed down, and the second quarter has been especially quiet. So let me give you a straight read on what’s actually happening, why, and what it means for your airplane.
Here’s the short version: don’t panic. A slow market is not a market crash. It’s a market that rewards sellers who price realistically and buyers who are ready to pull the trigger. Patience is the name of the game right now.
Used airplane values shot up through the COVID years, peaked somewhere around 2022, and have been softening ever since — really since about 2023. That’s carried into 2026. But in most piston airplanes, it looks a whole lot more like a slow, steady give-back than a crash.
Now, here’s where I’d rather look than at asking prices. An asking price is just what a seller is hoping — or dreaming — to get; it isn’t what the airplane is worth. What an airplane is actually worth is what VREF tracks. And when I pull the VREF values on the single-engine pistons I’ve been appraising lately, a clear pattern shows up:
Call it roughly 5% on average across the segment. That’s more than the under-1% you’d guess from asking prices alone — but it’s still less than 15% down over the last year, not a crash. The rule of thumb: the older and less expensive the aircraft, the better the values are holding; the newer and more expensive the aircraft, the more the value has dropped over the last year.
What a Crash Actually Looks Like
Worth being precise about what I mean. A real crash — like 2008–09 — is sudden and disorderly: values plunge almost overnight, financing dries up, buyers walk away from their deposits, and airplanes sit because there’s no one to buy them at any price. New business-jet deliveries fell nearly 34% in a single year, and it took years to climb back. What we have now is the opposite on every count — value drops of 15% or less, financing that’s tighter but still available, and airplanes that are still changing hands. That’s a soft, orderly market, not a crash.
A handful of things piled up at the same time. None of them is a disaster on its own, but together they explain why the phone has been ringing less.
Rates didn’t come down the way everybody expected. Oil shot past $110 a barrel after the conflict with Iran, inflation came roaring back, and the Fed stopped dropping rates — so financing an airplane still costs more, and that takes the urgency out of buyers. Financing also got tighter; the days of 100% loans with no money down are basically over, and lenders want bigger down payments.
The tax rush already happened, too: when the One Big Beautiful Bill brought back 100% bonus depreciation, it set off a mad dash to close before year-end, and a lot of the folks who’d have been shopping this spring already bought last winter. Plus, there are simply more airplanes to choose from now, which hands buyers options and pulls pricing power away from sellers.
It depends on which side of the deal you’re on.
If you’re selling, price to today’s market — not the 2022 peak, and, unfortunately, not what you paid for the airplane. Realistically priced airplanes are still selling; the ones that sit are the ones chasing a number the market left behind. Keep your logs complete, stay current on inspections (don’t forget those 24-month IFR inspections!) and ADs, and present the airplane well. Have a thorough annual done before putting it on the market. Keep it clean and do whatever cosmetic or avionics fixes or upgrades you’ve been neglecting — you want it to show as well as possible, because there’s a lot of competition out there.
Re-dyeing the leather seats is a cost-effective way to spruce up the interior without replacing the seats. A good wash will certainly help the exterior. Glass in the panel always shows better than steam gauges, so even something simple like an Aspen upgrade, two Garmin GI 275s or G5s, or a 7-inch Garmin G3X will bring value to your airplane and make it show better — any of those are less than $10,000. If you do still have a Garmin 530W or 430W, consider changing them out for a newer Garmin or Avidyne IFD unit; Garmin won’t support the 530W/430W anymore. And Avidyne is quietly ending support for the Entegra system this fall — but the good news is the Avidyne Vantage panels are finally certified.
And if you can wait, give it some thought — the back half of the year is shaping up stronger. The fourth quarter is traditionally the best stretch for used sales, and now that bonus depreciation is permanent, that year-end push resets every fall.
If you’re buying, this is your window. Higher rates have thinned out the competition, there are more airplanes to pick from than there have been in years, and sellers are more willing to deal. If you’ve got cash ready or financing lined up, you’ve got leverage you didn’t have eighteen months ago. Be picky — buy the clean one with good records.
If you’re just holding, relax. There’s no reason to panic-sell. Most piston values are easing off slowly, not collapsing. Patience wins here.
The right move always comes down to your specific airplane, your timeline, and what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’d like a current valuation — or just an honest read on where your airplane sits in today’s market — give me a call. That’s what we’re here for.
A Cirrus is an electric airplane. There are no vacuum pumps and therefore no vacuum driven instruments. The Klapmeier brothers did this on purpose, trying to make it a modern airplane. No vacuum systems means no vacuum pump failures, hence there is a lower likelihood of instrument failures in IMC.
What Cirrus did instead was put a lot of electricity producing and storing devices in the airplane. All SR20 and SR22s are equipped with 2 engine driven alternators and 2 backup batteries. Alternator 1 is a 28 volt alternator (the amperage varies based on whether or not you have an air conditioner) while Alternator 2 is a 28.5 volt alternator. There are 2 24 volt backup batteries, as well. Battery 1 is also used for starting.
In traditional airplanes that have 1 alternator, an alternator failure can affect a lot of things. Depending on how many electronics are in the airplane, the battery can get depleted quite quickly.
The Cirrus electrical system is quite ingenious. It’s a little bit different based on whether you have an Avidyne Cirrus or a Garmin Perspective Cirrus. I will discuss that further below.
The main goal of this article is to talk through what happens in the event of a #1 Cirrus Alternator Failure (an Alternator 2 failure actually isn’t a big deal at all, though Alt 2 is required for IFR flight), the procedure for trying to fix it, and a technique I have developed that makes the pilot’s job easier. First, let’s go through the #1 Cirrus Alternator Failure procedure.
In either avionics configuration, the Cirrus Alternator Failure procedure is the same.
The Avidyne Entegra has 2 busses, the Main Bus and the Essential Bus. Alternator 2 isn’t set to come on until the engine RPM reaches 1700. While on the ground, Alternator 1 runs both the Main and Essential Buses. In the air, Alternator 1 runs the Main Bus and Alternator 2 runs the Essential Bus. Since Alt 2 is 28.5 volts, the higher voltage won’t allow the power from Alt 1 to cross over and run the Essential Bus. There are also 2 one-way directional diodes that prevent the voltage from Alt 2 to cross over and run the Main Bus.
Having said all that, when Alternator 1 fails, Battery 1 is now running the items on the Main Bus. There are a significant number of items on the Main Bus which causes the 24 volt battery to quickly lose it’s charge. This precipitates the need for shedding load. Items like GPS 2, the air conditioner and aircraft lights can all be turned off.
In the above scenario, Alternator 2 is running the Essential Bus still that has all the Essential items on it. Those include:
Note 2 important items that are not on the Essential Bus: the flaps and the landing light (which is very handy at night). Those two are only on the Main Bus, which Battery 1 is now powering.
Let’s further enhance our scenario. You are flying over Nevada (quite remote and not a lot of airports) at night, 30 minutes from the nearest airport when your Alt 1 fails. When you get to the airport you are planning on landing at, you want to have your flaps and your landing light, but we don’t know how long Battery 1 will last.
The solution (this is where my technique comes in): Turn off the Battery 1 master switch. This is an easy solution to ensuring you have battery power to use your flaps and landing light. Instead of going through and shedding load, simply turn off the source. You’ll still have all the above items on the Essential Bus, which is all you need to keep safely flying. Then, when you get to your landing airport, turn Battery 1 back on to utilize your flaps and landing light.
Cirrus wired the Garmin Perspective plane a little bit differently. There are now 2 Main Buses along with the Essential Bus. Alternator 1 runs Main Bus 1, while Alternator 2 runs Main Bus 2 and the Essential Bus. Both Alternators are running all the time. The Alternator 1 Failure procedure remains the same.
The cool thing that comes along with the second Main Bus in the Perspective is the amount of items you still have available to you in the event of an Alternator 1 failure. The only items you lose will be:
Everything else is powered off of Alternator 2. That’s not much. The only item you really want on the above list is the landing light if you are going to be landing at night.
Follow the Alternator 1 Failure procedure, then do my technique again. Turn off Battery 1 to save the battery power in order to use the landing light when needed.
Cirrus did a great job creating an all electric airplane with plenty of backups in case something fails. I focused mainly on the Alternator 1 failure here. If Alternator 2 fails, the system is wired for Alternator 1 to run everything while still charging Battery 1 and 2. No big deal.
In my experience, turning off Battery 1 to conserve battery power is just a simpler solution when shedding load in the event of a Cirrus Alternator Failure.
Type Clubs Lead By Example with Standard Operating Practices
Imagine a year when there are no fatal accidents in general aviation. Does that seem impossible? The airlines achieved that many years ago, and so can we if we focus on the right things in our safety pro- grams. In fact, the overall trend in GA accident rates over the last few years is very encouraging. AOPA’s Air Safety Institute published its annual GA Accident Scorecard recently (see www.EAA.org/ extras), revealing fatal accidents from 2008 to 2017 are down more than 30 percent. Nevertheless, there were 185 fatal accidents in 2017, so we still have a long way to go. But, there are many developments in safety programs across GA that can keep the trend going.
One such development that I’ve advocated through a couple of type clubs is establishing standard operating practices (SOP). When I flew for both the U.S. Air Force and NASA, we had what we called standard operating procedures. They were the law for our flying. That is, we had to follow them procedurally because the folks that paid our salaries said so. The objective was to ensure we all used the same playbook, minimizing the risk that one of us might develop a bad in-flight habit that increased risk to the organization.
One way to think about SOPs is to recognize the difference between procedure and technique. For example, you have to follow the manufacturer’s pilot’s operating handbook (procedure)where it says to lower the landing gear before landing. If you don’t, you are in for a bad day. However, it does not tell you exactly when to lower the gear; that’s left to technique.
In the middle, between procedure and technique, is a best practice. In this example, lowering the gear just before the final approach fix is a “standard practice.” It is the generally accepted “best” place to lower the gear. In GA, however, aircraft owners don’t generally answer to a boss, so I prefer the term practices instead of procedures.
However, whether or not someone is paying us to fly, following best practices just makes sense. If you have a good set of practices, they enable you to do things the same way every time, leaving lots of brain cells to manage the unusual, the things that might go wrong. The safest approach to accomplishing a flight task is one that leverages consistency. On the other hand, if you are inconsistent, doing flight tasks differently each time, you’ll always be struggling to keep up. So, in my involvement with the safety committees for both the Malibu Mirage Owners and Pilots Association and the Citation Jet Pilots Association, there has been broad acceptance of recently developed standard operating practices.
The good news in this development is that a culture of safety is growing broadly across most sectors of GA through these type club initiatives. Perhaps more importantly, there is much to learn from each other about the effectiveness of these various initiatives. EAA has seen a four-year drop of 47 percent in fatal accidents among homebuilts! So, there must be something right going on there — a major focus on appropriate transition training before flying a new homebuilt (as a standard operating practice) is paying off.
So, what is covered in the SOPs these type clubs have developed? The following outlines the kinds of standard practices other type clubs have set up and represent SOPs you could establish for yourself regardless of the type of aircraft you fly. You just have to fill in the blanks for your particular type and commit to sticking to them in your flying. These are notional and are practices (not mandatory procedures). They don’t tell you how to fly your aircraft; they give you things to think about when you do. If you take a bit of time to set your own SOPs and then stick with them, you’ll be a far safer pilot. Here are some ideas:
Duty Day
Set the maximum number of hours of flight time during a calendar day and rest hours off between flying days. One example is a maximum of eight hours in the air and a minimum of 10 hours off until flying again.
Cargo
Establish best practices for what you will carry as cargo. One example is no lithium batteries in the baggage compartment.
Flight Planning and Preparation
What are your limitations for the types of flight you’ll take on? Consider SOPs such as designating a suitable alternate airport for all flights. Another might be for first flights after significant maintenance, such as no flight at night or in IMC until a day-VMC functional check flight has been done.
Runway Field Length Guidelines
Establish an appropriate minimum field length for your aircraft and commit to not going into shorter fields. Consider sea level operations and high-altitude airports as well.
Surface Operations
What should be your maximum wind conditions for taxi, takeoff, or landing? Maximum acceptable crosswinds on landing? Set them in your SOP and stick to them.
En Route
Consider establishing practices like no non-operationally necessary conversation below 10,000 feet MSL, during any segment of an approach procedure, or during the last 1,000 feet before leveloff during climb or descent. Also consider declaring “minimum fuel” when the fuel state becomes less than fuel to destination plus 45 minutes at current burn, even if flying day VFR.
Approach and Landing
Consider establishing personal minimums in your SOPs for things like visual approaches. Perhaps use a 1,500-foot ceiling and 3 miles’ visibility for day and 5 miles for night, even though these exceed the FAA’s requirements.
Pilot Limitations, Training, & Currency
FAR Part 91 rules allow us to fly with pretty marginal levels of currency. Consider setting your own SOP to something more appropriate for the kind of aircraft you fly and the kind of flying you do in it. For example, consider these ideas as SOPs:
Maneuver Standards
Wherever there are “techniques” associated with things like takeoffs and climbs, cruise, use of autopilot, power settings, and approaches and landings, you can write down your preferred technique as your own SOP. Describe each maneuver in enough detail (speeds, altitudes, power settings, configurations, etc.) to define a routine you will use each time. This ensures you fly consistently each flight and leverage the power of the standard operating practice, that is, to give you the bandwidth you need should you encounter an unexpected event or an emergency.
SOPs are among the exciting concepts underway to make safety programs work for us. Hats off to type clubs like MMOPA and CJP and many others that are taking the initiative. But even if you’re not in this kind of group, you can still set up your own SOPs. Let’s all look forward to our first year in GA without a fatal accident — and let’s make it soon!
Fly safe!
Charlie Precourt is a former NASA chief astronaut, space shuttle commander, and Air Force test pilot. He built a VariEze, owns a Piper JetPROP, and is a member of the EAA board of directors.
There is truth in the old adage that 99% of flying is routine while the remaining 1% holds the potential for events that cause those who fly to hold themselves above mere ground-bound mortals. My 37 years of military flying might have distorted that ratio a fair bit given the complexity of high-energy fighter aircraft and the uncertainties of combat, but rest assured we all earn our right to be proud of our wings every time we fly.
The requirement that a single-seat fighter pilot be able to handle rapidly evolving emergency situations and complex systems diagnosis sets a high bar for any who join that group. However, the lessons we learned and techniques we developed for making fighter aviation significantly safer than in yesteryear have direct applicability to general aviation.
Prioritization and compartmentalization are two important skills that every pilot should have. These skills amount to the ability to look at a complex problem, quickly determine the most critical elements, and mentally set aside those things that can wait so as to deal with highest priorities first. While this does not sound like rocket science, the art is in the doing!
The technique for dealing with the immediate onslaught of information, such as when that caution tone or caution light presents and different gauges or displays go haywire, provided the title for this piece.
All flight training will, at some point, involve what is called situational emergency procedures training, know to military aviators as SEPT. We do this type of training in a simulated cockpit that has all the dials and switches for our particular aircraft. None of the switches and dials do anything, some are just decals on a wooden dashboard, but the presentation allows the SEPT victim to reach for the appropriate switch or lever, while telling the instructor what and why they are doing so.
One of the most common mistakes new trainees make is that of trying to act too fast, before they have fully and correctly analyzed the situation at hand. Herein lies the titled technique. After blurting out a quick and incorrect answer, the instructor would admonish with: “rather than try to react instantly, maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, then take appropriate action. The best thing you can do is to reach up and wind the clock. This will give your nervous energy some place to channel itself, while your brain takes in the full situation.”
Winding the clock might seem like an archaic notion, but, amazingly enough, even our most modern aircraft have the same clock we flew with as far back as the 1960s. The Waltham A-13A aircraft clock and timer is a wind-up device that only uses power to light up at night. Unless your emergency involved some type of catastrophic impact to the instrument panel, you could count on at least your clock to be functioning normally. Thus, reaching out and winding it was unlikely to cause any worsening of your evolving emergency and would distract your brain from the need to take some poorly-thought-out action, too quickly.
Now, in most aircraft there are a few emergencies that will require immediate, reactive actions. In fighters, we call these Boldface Emergencies. For each type of fighter, we memorize, to the letter, the few key actions that have to be instinctive, to prevent disaster. For all other emergencies, there is time to reach out and wind the clock while assessing all instruments and lights to fully understand your situation.
For your aircraft, know those Boldface or Critical Action Procedures, but for all other emergencies, take the time to maintain aircraft control, “wind the clock” while you analyze the situation, then take appropriate action.
Mike Hostage is a retired USAF pilot with 37 years of experience, flying a wide variety of aircraft. An instructor pilot for more than half of his 4800 flight hours, Mike is currently qualified in a Cirrus SR-22T and regularly flys his two homebuilt sailplanes.
My first chief flight instructor had an addage he would impart to his flight instructors when we began working at that flight school. “Pitch + Power = Performance” he would tell us. Then he’d glare at us and follow up with, “nobody teaches that right, so make sure your students know it.”
Now, having been a CFI for seven years, I would tend to agree with him. I have moved on from doing mostly primary training to transition training. Transition training is taking someone who is already a pilot and teaching them how to fly a different type of airplane. In jets, you get a type rating. In piston engine airplanes, there is no FAA requirement to go through any type of extra training as long as you are rated in category and class (eg. single engine piston). But, insurance companies know that Mr. Fresh Private Pilot can’t just hop from a Cessna 172 into a Cirrus SR22 or a Bonanza, so they require transition training before insuring those pilots.
What did my chief instructor mean when he imparted his wisdom? He was speaking about a particular phase of flight, the final approach phase, regardless of whether it’s a VFR approach or an IFR approach. The pitch of the airplane and the power setting of the airplane have to be utilized together to achieve the proper speed and descent rate (performance).
On the final approach leg of a VFR pattern, most piston engine aircraft are configured with landing gear down and flaps down in the landing position. This puts the airplane on the back side of the power curve in the region of reverse command. In the region of positive command, in cruise, for example, the more power you add, the faster you are going to go and, if you pitch up, you will go up and you pitch down, you will go down. But, they work together (if you point the nose down, you will accelerate unless you reduce the power); remember, Pitch + Power = Performance.
In the region of reverse command, the pitch controls the airspeed and the power controls your rate of descent, but, again, they work together. Let’s say the airplane is 5 knots above it’s approach speed on final. Initially, the pilot will need to pitch up slightly to bleed off that airspeed. The airplane will want to climb, so as he is pitching up, he’ll need to make a slight power reduction to stay on glide slope.
Alternatively, let’s say the airplane is high, but is on speed. The pilot will make a power reduction to descend to the glide path, but he’ll also need to pitch down to maintain the proper airspeed.
What you don’t want to do is this: if the airplane is high on final, don’t push the nose down to try and get down. This does cause the airplane to lose altitude quickly, but the airspeed increases quickly. With a higher airspeed, the airplane has a lot more energy to dissipate when it gets to the runway, meaning you’ll float longer which can lead to forcing the airplane down or using up too much runway and not being able to get the airplane stopped in time.
On an instrument approach, you are on the front side of the power curve. When trying to stay on glide slope, the power is controlling the speed of the airplane and the pitch is keeping the airplane on glide slope. This can be a little bit confusing for VFR pilots transitioning to instrument approaches as they are not used to being on the front side of the power curve.
Keeping in mind that Pitch + Power = Performance, let’s put the airplane above the glide slope on an ILS approach. In order to get down to the glide slope, the pitch needs to be lowered as much as needed (it’s always better to pick a pitch attitude to fly and see if it is working to bring the glide slope back to center. If it doesn’t work, pick a new one. Don’t just push the nose down until the glide slope moves) and the power needs to be reduced to maintain airspeed (again, pick a specific power setting). Once the glide slope centers, then the pitch will be raised slightly and the power will need to be increased to hold glide slope and speed respectively.
