WORDLE
Are you playing Wordle? It’s fascinating to me how this puzzle has caught on as we look for distractions from that other 5-letter word that begins with C and ends with D and has two non-adjacent vowels. What has this...
SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
Every month, Joe Godfrey, Savvy’s chief data analyst, presents captivating aviation “puzzlers” derived from real-life engine monitor data on the SavvyAnalysis platform, guiding pilots in identifying anomalies for real-time safety decisions and assisting owners in informed maintenance choices.
Kickback
Recently I saw an ad for a furniture store encouraging me to “kickback in style”. I remember hearing that word a lot as a term for relaxation when I moved to southern California in the early 80s. Before moving, I...
Breaking Bad
“A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No, I am the one who knocks!” — Walter White. Sometimes I look at my airplane the way Skyler looks at Walt in that scene. On my recent annual it...
It Might As Well Be Spring
Would you know the symptoms of a broken valve spring in your engine data? We’re pretty good at spotting clogged injectors and fouled plugs from their distinctive patterns. We even developed our FEVA scan for detecting burned valves. Broken valve...
Hiccups Part 2
In our last episode, we looked at events that seem to happen randomly, versus something that breaks and stays broken. Let’s call them hiccups. I had too many for one Puzzler, so this is Hiccups Part 2. The annoying thing...
Hiccups Part 1
Hold your nose and drink a glass of water. Take a deep breath and hold it. Have someone scare you. There are lots of “cures” for the human hiccups. Don’t try these when your airplane hiccups. If you could choose,...
Ground Effect
Pilots think of ground effect as the reduced aerodynamic drag that happens under the wing to cushion a landing or help with a short-field takeoff. Analysts, who are also all pilots by the way, think of it as what happens...
Bang for Your Buck IV
I have written about this before, every two years since 2015, and with lots of new clients and some new services since last time, it seemed like a good time for a biennial review. The comedians are fond of saying,...
Can Engine Data Spot a Worn Cam?
I’ll admit that coming up with a clever title is one of the rewards of writing a monthly article. But I didn’t spend a second trying to find a clever or arcane title for this one. I wanted it to...
Turmoil
Of all the anomalies that can quickly grab your attention in-flight, which one is second on your list? Because obviously a fire is at the top of the list. For me it’s a rough runner, but a change in oil...
CRISPR
I’m in the middle of Walter Isaacson’s new book on Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna. She co-founded CRISPR which is an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. Imagine having the tools to make humans immune to viruses or other...
In Like a Lion
I heard a weathercaster dig up the old “In like a lion, out like a lamb” line recently in reference to the weather in March. As I write this we don’t know if this year’s “out” will be a lamb...
Red Herrings
Part of the job of engine data analysis is separating relevant, useful information from red herrings. I always wondered why there were two definitions for red herrings; the first is a smoked fish and the second was something meant to...
Sticky valve? Or something else – Part II
This is part two of an article about sticky valves. Part one is here. The cliffhanger was a Cessna 182 with a wobbly trace in EGT 4 for the first 14 mins of ground ops. Your homework was to decide...
Sticky valve? Or something else? – Part I
It has been a while since we took a look at sticky valves. I’m not going to write about why valves stick and how to keep it from happening, although I have a great resource for that. Earlier this year...
COVID Dormancy Syndrome
Recently a client submitted engine data with an erratic EGT trace. It always makes sense to check the connection first, but in this case it looked like a failing probe. When we reported this, he said that he suspected it...
Foreshock
I live in California. I moved here from Chicago in 1983. It’s probably safe to say that Californians think about earthquakes every day. Most days it’s a fleeting thought then you go about your life. But when you feel a...
Could Be a Case of the Sniffles
I’ll go out on a limb and say that priming the engine is not a precise science. Every POH has instructions, but experience often suggests that some engines like a little more and some a little less. What happens to...
Sims and Haptics
Thanks to the virus, I think we’re all logging more flight simulator time lately. I was talking with a game-designer friend about sims and haptics. To save some of you running to the dictionary, haptics are kinesthetic cues given by...
Baffles Are Often Baffling
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that we use the same word for a piece of silicone that directs cooling air over an aircraft engine – and a state of bewilderment. In the world of sound it’s also used to describe...
grok
I was talking with a friend recently and he said “I understand it intellectually, but I’m not sure I’ll ever grok it”. I haven’t heard that word in years, maybe as far back as reading Heinlein in high school. (I...
Fail Harder
Much of the award-winning advertising from the last several decades was produced by Weiden + Kennedy. As they grew and pushed the creative envelope, their motto became “Fail Harder” – if your failures are small you’re not trying hard enough....
Infographic
I’ll be honest. Writing this month’s column about engine data as thousands continue to die from the virus seemed – trivial. Then two things came to mind. First, you’re probably reading this to get a short break from the news....
Magnetude
If you can have latitude in your attitude, then a properly-timed set of mags can have – magnetude. I guess it can have magnitude, too, but this column’s about the good, bad and ugly of mags and ignition spark. The...