Ownership

Unless you’ve been around homebuilts, you’ve probably never heard of a Jabiru. (Sure, you may be familiar with the varieties of stork whose name comes from the Tupi-Guarani term meaning “swollen neck.”) I mean the Jabiru airplane — a tidy design that’s morphed into several varieties: two- and four-seat, 51% experimental and, soon, a ready-to-fly […]

In 2002, I did something unfortunate: pulled a perfectly good cylinder off of one of the engines of my Cessna T310R. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have touched the cylinder. But at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing.It was the usual story. I had just downed […]

An aircraft tire is a sophisticated, computer-designed, multi-component product consisting of three major materials: steel, rubber and fabric. Taking this down a level, there are multiple types of nylon and rubber compounds in tire construction, each with its own special properties designed to complete the task assigned. The only thing they have in common with […]

I‘ve had wonderful luck with piston aircraft engines throughout my 37 years as an aircraft owner. All the engines on my airplanes have made TBO with minimal maintenance along the way, and in recent years they’ve gone well beyond TBO.For decades, I was convinced that the secret of my success was the fact that I […]

I subjected my still-new (and barely broken-in) Barrett-built IO-390-X to the kind of abuse that would make the old pelican himself, John Deakin, stand up in a crowd and shake his fist at me. I ran the cylinder heads to a temperature that would make any half-smart metallurgist cringe. I flogged my four-banger in a […]

Prop strikes come in all kinds of flavors. Some involve obvious sudden stoppages of the engine (for example, a gear-up landing). In others, the engine keeps running, perhaps with some short-term loss of RPM as the prop tips curl back. Still others occur when the engine is not running (such as when a car backs […]

This article will cover brake linings, disc replacement, inspection guidelines and operational tips and techniques for Cleveland/McCauley-type brake systems, the most prevalent in piston, single-engine, GA aircraft. There are also Goodyear-type brakes, which will be covered at another time. It should be noted that repairs to brake systems are not considered “Preventative Maintenance” by FAR […]

Bob Moseley is far too humble to call himself a guru, but he knows as much about piston aircraft engines as anyone I’ve ever met. That’s not surprising, because the man has been rebuilding Continental and Lycoming engines for the better part of 40 years. Consequently, there’s not much about these engines that he hasn’t […]

Last year at Oshkosh, Garmin dropped the weather bomb on pilot nerds with the GPSMAP396, the first integrated, portable navigator with XM weather and music capabilities. Built on the 296 platform, it was faster, more capable and so feature rich that you might get through War and Peace before finishing the user’s manual. Now comes […]

Like the changing of seasons, I imagine this scene happens at regular intervals through the year: The managing editor of some large technology magazine catches a story on the net about some crazy aviation idea that could revolutionize the industry, make flying possible for every man, woman and (quite possibly) child on the planet with […]