Maintenance

During WWII, tens of thousands of Americans were either taught to fly by the U.S. military or were exposed to the routine use of air transport to cover long distances quickly. Aircraft manufacturers naturally assumed this fertile crop of newly released soldiers, armed with the recently enacted G.I. Bill of Rights, would generate a sales […]

Last week I was on the telephone with Tim Roehl, one of the founders of General Aviation Modifications, Inc., the folks who created the tuned fuel injectors called GAMIjectors. We were talking about a number of things, including Lycomings fairly new IO-390 engine that puts out 210 HP and is getting attenion in the aviation […]

Face it, buying an airplane involves more of the former Federal Reserves Chair, Alan Greenspans irrational exuberance than it does steely-eyed appraisal-its easy to fall in lust with a paint job. Thats especially true after having had an enjoyable time learning to fly while making new friends in aviation-it can be hard to believe that […]

Prospective buyers of used aircraft have long found it hard to obtain good pre-buy examinations, particularly when the aircraft theyre interested in is located some distance away. Savvy Aircraft Maintenance Management, Inc. (Savvy) now offers a nationwide pre-buy management program that solves this problem and helps avoid the many pitfalls that can plague prospective buyers. […]

A few days ago, we emerged from a polar vortex that drifted south – a textbook example of what those things do from time to time. The associated cold managed to get the media into full cry and revived all of the how cold is it? jokes. Judging from Internet aviation forums, it also got […]

More than 10 years after Congress mandated that the Transportation Security Administration establish security regulations for repair stations certified under FAR Part 145 and four years after the TSA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on the matter, the TSA is about to formally publish the final rules (PDF). In a January 10 conference […]

Ive been covering the aviation piston fuel story intensely for four years now and off and on for a lot longer than that. And honestly, the more we bump along toward an eventual replacement for 100LL, the more confusing and confounding the process appears to be. Not that Im discouraged, for there will be a […]

What will it take to stimulate a flat avionics retrofit market? There are buyers, bythe way. Its just that fewer of them are willing to slap $40,000 on the counter at the avionics shop like they did 10 years ago. Today, $20,000 is the new sweet spot for a modest up- grade. For many, thats […]

With the average age of the light aircraft fleet north of 40 years, it’s a challenge to keep older aircraft maintained. In this video, Cub owner Paul Bertorelli shows how the shop uses a borescope to see deep inside the aircraft to detect any issues before they become serious. view on YouTube

It used to be self-fueling just referred to the aircraft owner who brought mogas to her airplane in five-gallon cans and upset the airport manager or FBO because of lost fuel sales. While thats still the case, over the last decade, its also come to mean putting avgas into your airplane from a self-service pump. […]