by Mike Busch | Apr 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Not preheating a cold engine is a effective way to damage it Preheating is important. A single cold start without proper preheating can produce more wear on your engine in less than a minute than 500 hours of normal cruise operation I’m often asked how cold it...
by Mike Busch | Mar 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Reviving an engine that has been inactive for months or years Piston aircraft engines hate to sit unflown. During lengthy periods of disuse, the protective oil film strips off critical surfaces like cylinder walls, cam lobes and tappet faces, exposing them to risk of...
by Mike Busch | Feb 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
When mechanics get interrupted, bad things can happen I was recently contacted by the owner of a Cessna Hawk XP (R172K)—I’ll call him “Sam”—who seemed rather shaken by a recent series of events. He told me he was a student pilot with solo flight privileges and ready...
by Mike Busch | Jan 1, 2019 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Taking the complexity out of cylinder break-in From time to time, every piston aircraft owner faces the question of how best to break-in new cylinders. Sometimes this involves just one or two newly-replaced cylinders, other times all cylinders have been replaced...
by Mike Busch | Dec 1, 2018 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Mechanics should never make repairs without owner approval The co-owner of a Beechcraft Bonanza emailed me that his airplane had been inspected and maintained by a trusted mechanic at his home field in California until this year, when the mechanic retired. Forced to...
