Red Box, Red Fin

How NOT to lean your engine. At my July pilgrimage to EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, I had the opportunity to speak to thousands of pilots and aircraft owners on a wide variety of subjects ranging from reliability-centered maintenance to TBO busting to corrosion, and to...

Mini or Maxi?

Is your mechanic a minimalist or a maximalist? I’m an unabashed maintenance minimalist. I believe in doing only maintenance necessary to make an aircraft safe, reliable, and compliant with regulations. I believe that doing more maintenance than that is not only a...

Flying Efficiently

In a world of $7 avgas, it’s more important than ever to get the best bang for the buck. How can we get the best fuel economy from our airplanes? Given the painful cost of avgas these days, this is a question on lots of airplane owner’s minds. That goes at least...

Cam Distress

When your engine finally needs to be overhauled, the most likely cause will be corrosion-induced distress to the cam lobes.  I recently received an email from a Skylane owner in Miami, Florida who was understandably upset after receiving bad news from his IA, and...

Teardown!

The decision whether or not to tear down an aircraft engine is among the most difficult and agonizing ones we make.  My company manages the maintenance of many hundreds of piston-powered GA airplanes, so we frequently deal with all manner of engine problems. Our...