by Mike Busch | Mar 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
FAA’s Engine & Propeller Directorate meets with GA to improve how ADs are dealt with. Early last December, I had the privilege of attending a two-day meeting at the offices of the FAA’s Engine & Propeller Directorate (EPD) in Burlington, Mass., about 30...
by Mike Busch | Feb 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Maintenance decisions need to be fact- and evidence-based. The current owner of the vintage J-model Bonanza emailed me for advice. He’d purchased the airplane just four months earlier with a fresh annual inspection, and was already stressing out about what to do about...
by Mike Busch | Jan 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
When requesting maintenance, the words you use can be very important. The voice on the phone identified himself as a Cessna 182 owner—let’s call him Jim—who said he was considering overhauling his O-470-R engine and could use some advice. I asked Jim why he was...
by Mike Busch | Dec 1, 2015 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
When repairs are covered by insurance, it’s the owner’s job to keep things under control. By the time he contacted me, the aircraft owner—let’s call him Fred—was boiling mad. Fred had bought an airplane last year, and the pre-buy and subsequent annual inspection gave...
by Mike Busch | Nov 1, 2015 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
When pilots screw up, plaintiff lawyers always seem to sue equipment manufacturers. In June 2014, I posted an item to the AOPA Opinion Leaders Blog titled “The Dark Side of Maintenance.” It talked about what I refer to as “maintenance-induced failures” (or “MIFs” for...
