Magazine Articles

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...

Disastrous Annual

by Mike Busch | July 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

TBO 5000!

by Mike Busch | June 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

What we have here is a Failure to Rotate

by Mike Busch | May 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Tulip Fever?

by Mike Busch | April 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

“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...

Grading on the Curve

by Mike Busch | March 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Spring-Loaded to Teardown

by Mike Busch | February 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Cylinder Rescue

by Mike Busch | January 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Balky Alternator

by Mike Busch | December 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Propwash

by Mike Busch | November 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Hot Heads

by Mike Busch | October 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Machine Learning

by Mike Busch | August 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

A Mechanic’s Liability

by Mike Busch | August 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Misfueled!

by Mike Busch | July 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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 Great Beyond (TBO)

by Mike Busch | June 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

What Plane Should I Buy?

by Mike Busch | May 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

Annual Deadlock

by Mike Busch | April 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

How Risky is Maintenance?

by Mike Busch | March 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...

How Mags Fail

by Mike Busch | February 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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;...

How Mags Work

by Mike Busch | January 1, 2021 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles

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...