A true story of smart maintenance management. When aircraft owner Mark received an oil analysis showing elevated iron levels, he feared the worst. His maintenance shop recommended an engine teardown to inspect the camshaft and lifters—work that could have cost...
In the early 1940s as World War II was raging, the distinguished British biologist ConradHal (C.H.) Waddington Ph.D. had his academic career temporarily interrupted when he became involved in operations research for the Royal Air Force Coastal Command. The...
I got my first car when I was 17 years old. It was a green 1947 Plymouth sedan, a hand-me-down from my parents that they used as an excuse to buy a brand new 1961 Chrysler.I remember back then that the gasoline was heavily leaded, the engine oils were refined from...
In my column in the June 2025 issue of AOPA Pilot (“Borescope Initiative”), I reported on the initiative we launched on January 1, 2024 to promote and improve the use of borescopes as the gold standard for assessing cylinder condition for piston aircraft...
I last wrote about Project GADfly in the November 2022 issue of AOPA Pilot (“When Data Doesn’t Look Right”). This was a first peek at an R&D effort here at Savvy Aviation to harness artificial intelligence to analyze the 10,000 flights of digital engine...
In this video, we break down why fixed TBOs are based on assumptions that don’t match real-world data, and why, counterintuitively, overhauling at TBO can actually increase engine failure risk rather than reduce it.
