Maintenance

The Aviation Fuel Club celebrated at AirVenture 2012 the 30th anniversary of the first autogas STC by presenting a network of support options for pilots concerned about the future of leaded avgas, or interested in crossing over. Established in January 2011, the Wisconsin-based non-profit answers questions from pilots about running aircraft engines on automotive fuel, […]

A new-technology digital fuel sensor that has been adopted for Cirrus aircraft soon will be available as a retrofit for other GA aircraft, the manufacturer said this week at EAA AirVenture. “Even in turbulence I have found the system to be extremely accurate,” says Scott Philiben, CEO of CIES, headquartered in Redmond, Ore. “When it […]

In a letter to members of the Malibu-Mirage Owners and Pilots Association, the group’s president, Jonathan Sisk, said this week that the FAA’s just-made-public 100LL replacement plan deserves a critical eye. Although he says it represents progress, he believes it’s too narrowly focused on just one path. “I also recommend that Clean 100 members not […]

This article originally appeared in Light Plane Maintenance, Sep. 2007. Spark plugs. Those pricey little fire-starters screwed into each cylinder can tell you much about the health of your engine and perhaps about your operating technique. Like anything else, learning to remove, read and reinstall spark plugs takes some knowledge and practice, but it’s something […]

Recently, my aircraft management company SAMMwas managing the annual inspection of a client’s piston-powered, single-engine airplane at a well-known maintenance facility in Texas. The inspection found very little wrong with the airplane, and it looked like the annual would be completed quickly and inexpensively. Then, quite unexpectedly, the IA responsible for the annual went to […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Consumer magazine, Nov. 2007. Let’s say you need a part for your airplane — not a maintenance item like a Brackett foam filter or a spin-on oil filter, but something more exotic, say an elevator trim tab or a new wingtip. The immediate impulse is to order it new […]

This article originally appeared in Kitplanes, April 2008. Those of you who attended that big airshow in the state of Wisconsin a year ago might have noticed a curious juxtaposition. If you had started a soft-serve ice cream before dropping by the Van’s Aircraft booth to see the RV-12 prototype, you probably would not be […]

On a winter Friday evening a few years ago, a Texas-based aircraft owner loaded three family members into his Baron and flew to Kansas City to attend a weekend function. One of the aircraft’s vacuum pumps failed over Oklahoma. Upon landing at Kansas City Downtown Airport (MKC), the owner asked the FBO on the field […]

This article appeared in Light Plane Maintenance, Oct. 2008. The most important reason to have a multi-probe engine-diagnostic system is the in-flight diagnostic capability that such a system brings. If the pilot knows and understands the system, a multi-probe cylinder head temperature/exhaust gas temperature (CHT/EGT) system can serve as an unparalleled “early warning” device, pinpointing […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Consumer magazine, May 2007. Utilitarian to the core, we aren’t impressed by flashy instrument-panel work. And by this, we mean panels decked out in custom colors and patterns that blend with a pricey leather interior and a toney exterior paint job. But we’re not crazy about the 1970s-style Royalite […]