When I was having my Diamond XLS custom built at the factory, I wanted a one off unique stripping different than other Diamond DA 40's. So I hade Scheme Designers come up with five different designs and I picked this one. The only change that was made is we reduced the size of stripes on the wheel p...

That seems awfully low for the work involved. I'm fairly certain they've quoted replacing the canopy gas strut, not the canopy *latch* strut. I checked the IPC and this seems to be the case. I also accidentally had this replaced when I intended to have the latch strut replaced. So just make sure th...

Thanks to all who have posted here. My gas strut is also getting weak and the canopy latch wants to go to the opening position during taxi, take off and landings. After reading all these post and what a PIA it is to replace, I contacted Angel Cities Maintenance in Long Beach, CA as this is a job I d...

over the past years, I have purchased 4 brand new DA 40's and did not receive the survey either.

Yep, we pay an annual personal property tax on our the plane, our boat, and even on the dingy for the larger boat. Then we pay property tax for our rented hangar, our rented boat slip at the marina, etc, etc, etc. Now, our state governor is aligning himself and getting ducks in row to run for U.S. p...

This is tragic. Got to wonder what the PIC was thinking. I had an incident 7 or 8 years ago that literally scared the hell out of me. We had just turned down the aisle at transient parking at El Monte Airport, EMT, looking for a parking spot. I then noticed a young family with two toddlers looking a...

One thing to add and I though was kind off unique when we were doing the photo shoots. Since during the first part of the pandemic, the city had a strict lock down policy, so there was nearly zero vehicles on the roads and most everyone was inside. When the first photos were presented to the library...

During the pandemic, when we had no where to fly to, I was asked by a friend at our local library district if we could document the coastline of the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the South Bay area of SoCal for their archives. During this time, my wife and I took hundreds of photos. My wife flew the pl...

Having owned four factory new Stars, the biggest improved change we noticed was the difference between the KAP 140 and the GFC700 AP's. The servo motors for the GFC700 are much faster and can keep up with moderate to high turbulence where as our KAP 140's would disconnect in turbulence where the ser...

Not sure why so many Diamonds have a corked nose wheel issues. I do keep my wheel pants on. Maybe I am lucky as I have had only 3 or 4 occasions with a corked nose wheel in the past 10 years. This only has happened when taking off in a strong crosswind. In each case, I would immediate ask the tower ...