by Joe Godfrey | Nov 14, 2022 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
Good news! They’re making Spinal Tap 2, with plans to release it in 2024 – 40 years after the first one. Of all the great quotable lines in ST1, it’s hard to top “these go to eleven”. Sometimes we get a set of screwy engine data that...
by Mike Busch | Nov 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, 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....
by Joe Godfrey | Oct 15, 2022 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
A lot of analysis requests begin with “Something bad just happened and we had to divert and land. Is there something in the data that would’ve told us this was about to happen?” Our first reaction is usually relief – that the pilot got on the ground...
by Mike Busch | Oct 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
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...
by Joe Godfrey | Sep 16, 2022 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
Baseball has the cycle – single, double, triple and home run. What would that be for an analyst working a shift? Clogged injector is probably the single. Bad spark plug is probably the double. Let’s say the triple is a stuck valve. And the homer is a...
by Joe Godfrey | Aug 13, 2022 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
Apparently the 80/20 rule is also known as the Pareto Principle. Broadly applied, it means that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your outcomes. In my previous careers in advertising and education, I would contend that 80% of stuff I spent my time on were...
by Mike Busch | Aug 1, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
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...
by Joe Godfrey | Jul 17, 2022 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
It’s always fun at Oshkosh when one of the technologies of GA makes a move after spending a lot of time on the plateau. Avgas is the latest example. For years we just pumped it and worried about the short-term cost and the long-term availability, and now...
by Mike Busch | Jul 5, 2022 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, 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....
by Mike Busch | Jul 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...
