by Mike Busch | May 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
What do you do if a mechanic working on your airplane tells you, “I can’t sign it off”? Dick is the maintenance officer of an 80-member flying club in northern New Jersey. The club operates several aircraft including a 2011 Cessna Skyhawk SP powered by a Lycoming...
by Mike Busch | Apr 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
The new crop of factory-built LSAs are impressive and exciting, but the maintenance regulations for them are…ah…different I recently returned from the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida, the foremost aviation event devoted to light sport, homebuilt, and...
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...
