Owner-Produced Parts

If your certificated aircraft needs a replacement part that’s ridiculously expensive or downright unobtainable, the FAA will allow you to produce one yourself.  The 1960s and 1970s were the biggest years for production of piston GA airplanes. By the peak production...

About Batteries

Sensitive and fragile compared to their automotive brethren, aircraft batteries need TLC if you don’t want to be left stranded. Aircraft batteries are the Rodney Dangerfields of general aviation. They get no respect. We let them sit unflown for weeks at a time,...

Making Metal?

How to ensure that nothing is coming apart inside your crankcase.  I’d been working with a Bonanza owner in Memphis for several weeks helping him chase down a problem with his Lycoming engine. Yes, Lycoming—the aircraft was an A36 with a Machen conversion to a...