by Joe Godfrey | Feb 16, 2021 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
Part of the job of engine data analysis is separating relevant, useful information from red herrings. I always wondered why there were two definitions for red herrings; the first is a smoked fish and the second was something meant to distract from the main issue in an...
by Mike Busch | Feb 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Preventing and dealing with magneto-ignition system failure. Both the FARs and their predecessor CARs require that certificated spark-ignition recip-rocating aircraft engines—the kind most of us fly behind—have fully redundant dual ignition systems: PART...
by Joe Godfrey | Jan 9, 2021 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
This is part two of an article about sticky valves. Part one is here. The cliffhanger was a Cessna 182 with a wobbly trace in EGT 4 for the first 14 mins of ground ops. Your homework was to decide if it was a sticky valve or something else. Here’s the whole...
by Mike Busch | Jan 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
The spark plugs in most piston aircraft engines are still powered by 120-year-old technology. My airplane’s piston engines utilize a magneto ignition system. If you’re flying a certificated airplane, chances are good that yours does, too. The fact that we’re still...
