ABOUT THE PODCAST

A Deep Dive Into the People and Stories Behind GA’s Progress

Aviation Masters is a long-form conversation series hosted by Mike Busch that brings you inside the rooms where general aviation’s most important decisions were made.

Each episode takes you into the hangar, the engineering lab, and the minds of those shaping general aviation’s future. You’ll hear the real stories: the breakthroughs, the setbacks, the arguments, the turning-point moments, and the innovations redefining reliability, safety, and smart maintenance.

Discover where their ideas came from. What worked — and what didn’t. What they wish more pilots understood. And how their decisions changed the trajectory of general aviation.

From maintenance pioneers to designers and industry disruptors, these are the conversations that remind us why we fell in love with aviation… and what it took to build the world we fly in.

ABOUT THE HOST

Mike Busch, founder and CEO of Savvy Aviation, is one of general aviation’s most respected A&P/IA mechanics—a teacher, writer, and lifelong advocate for smarter, data-driven aircraft maintenance.

Mike became a pilot in 1965. He holds instrument, commercial, glider, seaplane, CFI, CFII, and CFIME ratings, and has owned and maintained his Cessna Turbo 310 since 1968. After beginning his involvement in GA maintenance in the late 1980s as a technical representative and instructor for the Cessna Pilots Association, Mike earned his A&P certificate the hands-on way, by maintaining his own Cessna 310 and several other aircraft over a decade, and added his IA three years later. In 2008, the FAA recognized his contributions to aviation by naming him National Aviation Maintenance Technician of the Year.

Since founding Savvy Aviation that same year, Mike has led the company as its CEO and chief evangelist, pioneering data analysis and maintenance management programs that have transformed how aircraft owners approach reliability and cost control.

He is the author of four books and hundreds of articles and videos on aircraft maintenance and currently writes the monthly Savvy Maintenance column for AOPA Pilot magazine. Mike also presents monthly maintenance webinars sponsored by EAA and co-hosts the popular Ask the A&Ps podcast.

Mike earned a degree in mathematics from Dartmouth College, pursued graduate work at Princeton and Columbia, and spent years as a senior computer scientist and software entrepreneur before turning his longtime aviation avocation into his new vocation. He co-founded AVweb and served as its editor-in-chief for nearly a decade before its acquisition by Belvoir Publications.

Today, through Aviation Masters, Mike brings his technical expertise and lifelong curiosity to a new format—in-depth, human conversations with the people shaping the future of general aviation.