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...
by Joe Godfrey | Jun 18, 2022 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
I’m not spoiling the movie if I tell you that one of the opening scenes of Top Gun: Maverick is a pilot swinging a wrench on an owner-flown piston-powered warbird. That may be enough to make you want to see it, although from the box office numbers so far they...
by Mike Busch | Jun 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 flying dlub’s only aircraft—a 1997...
by Joe Godfrey | May 17, 2022 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
The Greek poet Archilochus wrote, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” I’m reminded of this when clients ask “Which engine monitor should I buy?” Savvy doesn’t endorse brands or product models, so...
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 rubbing against...
by Joe Godfrey | Apr 16, 2022 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
When you’re flying and inadvertently run a tank dry, or the cabin door pops open, or you smell smoke, or any similar unexpected threat, the part of your brain that listened to your CFI — train like you fly and fly like you train — goes to work. Your...
by Mike Busch | Apr 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 with all tell me the same thing....
