by Mike Busch | Oct 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
A&Ps are trained to find things wrong with your aircraft. But there’s a time and place for that, and it comes once a year. It was the week before AirVenture 2016. Normally, I would never perform any maintenance on my trusty Cessna 310 immediately before departing...
by Mike Busch | Sep 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Fixing is usually the easiest part of aircraft maintenance. Figuring out what’s wrong is usually the hardest part. By Mike Busch | A&P/IA A funny thing happened on my way to Milwaukee… It was 2013 and I was flying my trusty 1979 Cessna T310R to speak at the...
by Mike Busch | Aug 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Before following expert advice, choose your expert with care. We aviators are of necessity a trusting lot. We constantly trust other people with our lives, our safety, and our financial wellbeing. We trust nameless and faceless air traffic controllers to keep us from...
by Mike Busch | Jul 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
The definition of this ubiquitous term depends on the context. A bit over two years ago, a fellow I’ll call “Bob” bought a 10-year-old Cirrus SR22 from another fellow I’ll call “Sam.” Prior to the purchase, Bob had a very thorough pre-buy performed by an independent...
by Mike Busch | Jun 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Aircraft parts are expensive, so we really should be repairing rather than replacing them whenever possible. When the co-owner of a 1976 Cessna 172M emailed me, she had just come from talking to her mechanic and was clearly in a state of sticker shock: “Where can I...
