by Mike Busch | Dec 9, 2025 | Savvy Stories
A true story of smart maintenance management. When aircraft owner “David” brought his Cirrus SR22 in for its annual inspection at a large maintenance facility, he braced himself for a hefty bill. The shop’s initial estimate totaled over $54,000, citing numerous...
by Mike Busch | Dec 9, 2025 | Savvy Stories
A true story of smart maintenance management. When aircraft owner Mark received an oil analysis showing elevated iron levels, he feared the worst. His maintenance shop recommended an engine teardown to inspect the camshaft and lifters—work that could have cost...
by Joe Godfrey | Nov 13, 2025 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
When my grandmother would say “He sure sold you a bill of goods” there wasn’t anything good about it. The dictionary says the phrase has two meanings. The first is literal, meaning a list of merchandise. But the second meeting seems to be the one...
by Mike Busch | Nov 13, 2025 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
In the early 1940s as World War II was raging, the distinguished British biologist ConradHal (C.H.) Waddington Ph.D. had his academic career temporarily interrupted when he became involved in operations research for the Royal Air Force Coastal Command. The...
by Joe Godfrey | Oct 16, 2025 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
I’ve been training new analysts recently, and I thought I would share some thoughts about continuity. Of course signal continuity is important for sensors and probes so we have reliable data to perform actionable analysis. I’ve made this point before and...
by Mike Busch | Oct 15, 2025 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
I got my first car when I was 17 years old. It was a green 1947 Plymouth sedan, a hand-me-down from my parents that they used as an excuse to buy a brand new 1961 Chrysler.I remember back then that the gasoline was heavily leaded, the engine oils were refined from...
by Mike Busch | Sep 15, 2025 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
In my column in the June 2025 issue of AOPA Pilot (“Borescope Initiative”), I reported on the initiative we launched on January 1, 2024 to promote and improve the use of borescopes as the gold standard for assessing cylinder condition for piston aircraft...
by Joe Godfrey | Sep 14, 2025 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
Years ago, when we noticed that one of the data signatures of a burning valve was an oscillating pattern in the EGT trace, we got excited about the prospect of setting up automatic scans for other parameters. Would we be able to write a program that would identify a...
by Joe Godfrey | Aug 16, 2025 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers
It’s one of the great lines from a movie filled with great lines. Wallace Shawn was the perfect actor to deliver it, and now it’s hard to say the word without putting his unique cartoon-like spin on it. And now a quick pivot to engine data. Sometimes the...
by Mike Busch | Jul 16, 2025 | AOPA Pilot Magazine, Magazine Articles
I last wrote about Project GADfly in the November 2022 issue of AOPA Pilot (“When Data Doesn’t Look Right”). This was a first peek at an R&D effort here at Savvy Aviation to harness artificial intelligence to analyze the 10,000 flights of digital engine...
