Magazine Articles

Using AI and deep learning to detect anomalous engine monitor data Nowadays more than half of the piston GA fleet is equipped with some sort of recording digital engine monitor. Older ones tend to be fairly primitive and record just EGTs and CHTs and not much else. Modern ones have myriad sensors and capture numerous […]

Dealing with mechanicals away from home base. Every aircraft owner dreads a mechanical breakdown while away from home on a trip. In the five and a half decades that I have owned an aircraft—I bought my first plane in 1968 and have always flown lots of long trips—I’ve been the victim of such mechanicals more […]

Optimal flying in a world of expensive avgas.  With fuel prices at all-time highs, it’s more important than ever for pilots of GA airplanes to fly in a fuel-efficient fashion. I am especially sensitive to this issue because I fly a piston twin that guzzles 30 GPH and suffer post-traumatic stress each time I refuel.  […]

The best maintenance shops often warrant the closest owner oversight.  I’m frequently asked by aircraft owners to recommend good maintenance shops in a particular area, and my company maintains a large database of maintenance resources to facilitate such referrals. Our team of more than 20 A&P/IA account managers keep close track of their experiences working […]

Out-of-control annual inspections are painful—and avoidable. I received a heart-wrenching email from the owner of a Southern California flight school—I’ll call him Chuck—who operates 10 airplanes, mostly Cessna 172s and Piper Archers and Arrows, with a Seneca twin and a Cessna 140 taildragger thrown in for good measure. With a fleet like that, Chuck has […]

This Skyhawk’s Lycoming had a 2,000-hour TBO, but it lasted a bit longer—3,000 hours longer to be exact. What follows is true, though the names have been changed… It was 2011 and Unruly Flyers had a problem. This 14-member Midwest flying dlub’s only aircraft—a 1997 Cessna 172R—had a Lycoming IO-360 engine that was rapidly approaching […]

Is the conventional wisdom wrong about why exhaust valves burn? Piston aircraft engines have an awful lot of moving parts. Way too many, if you ask me. The thought of thousands of separate metal parts reciprocating, rotating, wiggling, wobbling, and rubbing against one another thousands of times a minute ought to make you nervous—it sure […]

“You snooze, you lose” or “caveat emptor”? The market for used GA airplanes is crazy right now. In the five decades I’ve been paying attention to such things, I’ve never seen anything like it. Other GA industry veterans I’ve spoken with all tell me the same thing. There’s an airplane buying spree going on, apparently […]

You can learn a lot from your airplane’s report card Jack owns a 2016 Cirrus SR22 with a Garmin Perspective glass cockpit—basically a G1000 on steroids. His MFD records tons of data on an SD card—CHTs, EGTs, oil pressure and temperature, MAP, RPM, fuel flow, altitude, TAS, electrical bus voltages and current, even GPS coordinates—and […]

Does your engine REALLY need to be euthanized? “I’m in trouble. Can you help?”  The owner of the vintage Mooney was obviously stressed. He identified himself as a highly experienced military pilot but a first-time aircraft owner who’d recently flown his airplane to Florida on business.  When it came time to return home, the Mooney’s […]

Low compression doesn’t always require cylinder removal Sam’s 1979 Piper PA-34-200T Seneca II was in the shop, and Sam was not happy. The shop had just done a compression test on the plane’s two Continental TSIO-360-EB3B engines and had given Sam some unwelcome news…  “Compression on left #4 is 35/80 and right #3 is 31/80,” […]

Chasing down an elusive charging system gremlin Intermittent problems are the worst! They always seem to happen at the worst possible time, like when you’re in the middle of nowhere away from home base. They never seem to happen when you want them to happen, like when you’re trying to show them to your A&P […]

How often does your propeller REALLY need to get overhauled? “Your prop is due for overhaul,” says your IA who you hired to do your annual inspection. “It’s been six years.” If your airplane has a constant-speed prop, overhauling it is going to set you back about $3,000 including removal and installation labor.  If it […]

What to do about uncomfortably high CHT For decades now, I’ve been preaching that the two keys to piston aircraft engine longevity are avoiding extended periods of disuse and managing CHT. If you allow your engine to sit unflown for weeks at a time, you risk internal corrosion—and corrosion is the number one reason that […]

This cutting-edge technology could revolutionize GA maintenance. The exhaust valve is the most likely component of a piston aircraft engine to fail catastrophically. When one fails, combustion ceases in the cylinder, the engine loses power and starts running rough. This usually results in a precautionary landing—on-airport if you’re lucky, off-airport if you’re not. It’s particularly […]

If your A&P seems over-cautious and self-protective, there’s good reason. By Mike Busch Mechanics have always been subject to FAA sanctions: certificate suspension or revocation, fines, warning notices, letters of correction, and remedial training. But enforcement actions against GA mechanics were exceedingly rare. The most common way for a mechanic to run afoul of the […]

When piston airplanes are fueled with Jet A, bad things can happen. On March 2, 2008, a turbonormalized Cirrus SR22 was destroyed when it crashed shortly after takeoff in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, killing all four people aboard. Shortly after the aircraft departed from runway 20, the airplane’s engine lost power, and the aircraft hit […]

Lessons learned from geriatric engines. Time Between Overhaul (TBO) is a strange concept. The FAA, in its infinite wisdom, requires aircraft engine manufacturers to publish TBOs for their engines, but doesn’t require aircraft owners to abide by them. You are free to continue flying behind your engine as it remains airworthy.  Yet many owners and […]

Thoughts on finding a good purchase candidate An extraordinary number of GA airplanes were bought and sold in 2020. I imagine this was somehow related to the pandemic, although I’m not sure exactly how. What I do know is that my company had been averaging about 10 prebuys per month in 2019, but by the […]

What happens when an owner and an IA can’t agree? By Mike Busch Sam is a pilot, engineer and serial entrepreneur who lives near Washington DC. About 10 years ago, he bought a 1966 Cessna 182J Skylane that is based and maintained in nearby Maryland. It’s been a pretty economical airplane to operate and maintain. […]

An FAA review of 10 years of NTSB data tries to quantify the risk. I’ve been known preach about the virtues of maintenance minimalism—a.k.a. “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—and the risk of maintenance-induced failures—a.k.a. “MIFs.” But just how risky is maintenance? How often to MIFs occur? How serious are the consequences when they […]

Preventing and dealing with magneto-ignition system failure. Both the FARs and their predecessor CARs require that certificated spark-ignition recip-rocating aircraft engines—the kind most of us fly behind—have fully redundant dual ignition systems: PART 33—AIRWORTHINESS STANDARDS: AIRCRAFT ENGINESSubpart C—Design and Construction; Reciprocating Aircraft Engines§ 33.37   Ignition system. Each spark ignition engine must have a dual […]

The spark plugs in most piston aircraft engines are still powered by 120-year-old technology. My airplane’s piston engines utilize a magneto ignition system. If you’re flying a certificated airplane, chances are good that yours does, too. The fact that we’re still stuck with these superannuated mechanical black boxes is a testament to just how hard […]

Rigid baffles and flexible baffle seals are critical in keeping your engine cool. The Cessna T210 owner was clearly frustrated with his new engine installation: “I recently had my engine rebuilt and had a new baffle kit installed. The CHTs for cylinders #5 and #6 are always 20ºF to 30ºF hotter than the rest. During […]