Ownership

Under the FARs, performing maintenance is the job of an A&P mechanic or FAA-approved repair station, but managing maintenance is the owner’s job. In essence, the FAA looks at each aircraft owner as the Director of Maintenance (DoM) of a one-aircraft aviation department. Unfortunately, few owners know how to do this important job, and most […]

This article originally appeared in Kitplanes, Dec. 2007. Launching from the softly rippling surface of Lake Seminole in St. Petersburg, Fla., felt slightly like what a stone must feel like after a youngster’s sidearm sling sends it skipping across the water. There’s a little bounce, a slight skip, then another. But, unlike the rock, the […]

On March 2, 2008, a turbonormalized Cirrus SR22 was destroyed when it crashed shortly after takeoff in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing all four people aboard. Shortly after the aircraft departed from Runway 20, the airplane’s engine lost power, and the aircraft hit a building and exploded. Further investigation revealed that the aircraft had been […]

This article originally appeared in Light Plane Maintenance, Dec. 2005. Aircraft starting batteries have a tough life; much more so than their automotive counterparts. They are left idle for days or even weeks at a time, then asked to start a 500 cubic-inch engine in cold weather with three gallons of oil the consistency of […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Consumer magazine, Oct. 2007. The emerging Light Sport Aircraft market has ignited new interest in airplanes at the $100,000 price point and below. Most of these airplanes are composites, but buyers not interested in spending that much are looking hard at older LSA-compliant taildraggers — Cubs and Champs, for […]

Of the many tasks that we have to perform as pilots, leaning the engine is one of the simplest. Leaning is vastly easier than shooting a circling approach in low IMC, picking the smoothest route through a cold front or deciding when to overhaul the engine. Yet no subject I know seems to trigger more […]

During the century since the Wright Brothers first flew, the predominant perpetrator in aircraft accidents has shifted dramatically from machine to human. Today, human error is responsible for 90 percent of aircraft accidents and incidents. It’s not that people have become more careless, forgetful, inattentive or reckless. It’s that aircraft and aircraft components have become […]

This article originally appeared in Light Plane Maintenance, Apr. 2005. Attitudes about annual inspections vary widely. Some like to get right in there and do the owner-assist thing. (We hope most LPM readers fall into this category.) Others either won’t or can’t participate in their annual, and instead hand over the keys and maybe a […]

I‘d been working with an aircraft owner in Memphis for several weeks helping him chase down a problem with his Lycoming engine. The owner initially reported that the engine had exhibited several episodes of rough running after startup, but that the engine seemed to run smoothly once it warmed up.The owner emailed me a data […]

This article originally appeared in Aviation Consumer magazine, Nov. 2006. It’s never a good time for an inflight fire. Stoked by fuel or an electrical short, this nasty brand of emergency is near the top of most pilots’ list of nightmares. But a cabin fire’s consequences can be mitigated by using a smoke hood, which […]