by Mike Busch | Apr 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
The new crop of factory-built LSAs are impressive and exciting, but the maintenance regulations for them are…ah…different I recently returned from the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida, the foremost aviation event devoted to light sport, homebuilt, and...
by Joe Godfrey | Mar 15, 2016 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
What gets your attention when you’re flying? Obviously traffic, terrain and weather get your attention, but let’s narrow it down to events or trends in the engine data that would cause you to consider a precautionary landing. High CHT,...
by Mike Busch | Mar 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
FAA’s Engine & Propeller Directorate meets with GA to improve how ADs are dealt with. Early last December, I had the privilege of attending a two-day meeting at the offices of the FAA’s Engine & Propeller Directorate (EPD) in Burlington, Mass., about 30...
by Joe Godfrey | Feb 15, 2016 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
I saw the phrase “fueling speculation” in a political context this week and wondered how those two words became attached in our lexicon. Why didn’t “provoking” or “prompting” or “eliciting” catch on the way...
by Mike Busch | Feb 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
Maintenance decisions need to be fact- and evidence-based. The current owner of the vintage J-model Bonanza emailed me for advice. He’d purchased the airplane just four months earlier with a fresh annual inspection, and was already stressing out about what to do about...
by Joe Godfrey | Jan 15, 2016 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
The 14th century friar William of Ockham would probably cringe to know that his lofty and articulate principle “Non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate” has been boiled down to “Keep it Simple.” The Latin translates to...
by Mike Busch | Jan 1, 2016 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
When requesting maintenance, the words you use can be very important. The voice on the phone identified himself as a Cessna 182 owner—let’s call him Jim—who said he was considering overhauling his O-470-R engine and could use some advice. I asked Jim why he was...
by Joe Godfrey | Dec 15, 2015 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
First some old business. In the November Puzzler I used data that depicted intermittent and unusual patterns in EGT and CHT 5. I was happy to be able to include two pictures provided by our client — one showing the rocker arm on the engine lined up off-center to...
by Mike Busch | Dec 1, 2015 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
When repairs are covered by insurance, it’s the owner’s job to keep things under control. By the time he contacted me, the aircraft owner—let’s call him Fred—was boiling mad. Fred had bought an airplane last year, and the pre-buy and subsequent annual inspection gave...
by Joe Godfrey | Nov 15, 2015 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
One of the classic lines in Casablanca comes from Claude Rains playing Captain Renault: “Round up the usual suspects.” In engine monitor analysis, when we see an EGT or CHT diverge from normalcy, it’s often the result of a...
