Industry News

Ice Detector Woes
I enjoyed your article on carb ice detectors. Id like to relate to you an incident that happened to my aircraft partner and I, where the carb temp indication system delayed our decision to use heat.

During an approach into Las Vegas in IMC with snow, we were slowly losing engine RPM and then altitude. The carb temp indicator was we’ll above the yellow caution range. Im an A&P and I had recently checked and confirmed the carb temp indicator for proper accuracy. Because we were convinced that we couldnt have carb ice due to the indicated temperature, we spent precious time looking for other reasons for the loss of power.

At 800 feet below our assigned…

A sales success story yet the company has endured major cutbacks. Can anybody build airplanes without making buyers nervous?

Beeper Box Notes
Reference your pre-heater article in the March 2001 issue, its unclear to me why anyone would buy the RS Beeper Box when much less expensive options are available.

Any catalog of home automation products will have numerous gadgets that allow remote telephone control of AC-powered devices. So if you have a phone line in your hangar, youre set.

Even if you don’t, the monthly tab for basic phone service has got to be less than for a pager and no worries about pager dead spots or dead batteries.

Possibly the simplest solution is the X10 Telephone Responder (about $65) in conjunction with an X10 Appliance Module (about $14). Plug the Telephone Responder…

Putting your airplane into corporate ownership still protects your personal assets. Its worth the effort and expense.

Lightweight Starters
Id like to comment on two articles in the January issue of The Aviation Consumer. First, the article on lightweight starters. I installed a pair of Sky-Tec starters in my Duke about four years ago. They work as advertised. Theyre light and spin the prop so fast I think I could taxi with them.

One of the starters, however, died after two years and had to be replaced. Regardless, I am still happy with them and would recommend them to anyone.

Second, your article on LASIK surgery. I had mine done 3 years ago and couldnt be happier. I had 20/20 vision when I started college but needed glasses by the time I graduated because I became nearsighted. …

Personal Jet Feedback
I find your Aviation Consumer always interesting and informative. I must share with you an observation concerning your recent article on the Eclipse and Safire projects.

Color me skeptical, but if you use the estimated investment figures from your article of $300 million and the 1000 aircraft delivery schedule over four to six years in the interview with Vern Raburn (thats four airplanes per week, average, over five years), the cost per aircraft of the interest (or return on capital)is 12 percent.

Thats pretty conservative, given the risk profile of the investment. This equates to a cost of $180,000 per aircraft. Thats nearly a quarter of t…

by Mike Busch

As a long-time fan of both Aviation Consumer and Greg Travis, I must tell you I am simply disappointed with Travis article The Oil Argument in the December issue.

In my view, its a one-sided treatment that preaches The Company Line of the Shell and Chevron marketing mouthpieces-who have a major stake in the outcome-while dismissing the collective wisdom from the field overhaul shops and owner associations.

For example, the article dwells on the TCM cylinder problems, which are completely unrelated to the choice of oil. It also dwells on the lubricity issue, which is largely irrelevant because our slow-turning loose-tolerance aircraft engines have such minimal…

If the party is all but over on Wall Street, the crowd may soon be thinning noticeably in the aviation insurance biz.

After more than a decade of competitive rates for aircraft owners, nearly everyone in the insurance business is talking about the latest hard market. What that means, simply, is that premiums are rising and you’ll have to jump through more hoops to get the coverage you want.

Why? Complex reasons, really, but a leading factor is that underwriters have been suffering significant losses and many havent seen much if any profits. Further, the big underwriters are consolidating into fewer yet bigger companies, something that doesnt bode we’ll for competition.

Its no…

Aviation Labs Is Tops
Regarding your article in the December issue on labs that perform oil analysis, I thought I’d pass this along. For several hundred hours I have been finding aluminum flakes in my oil filter and suction screen. Oil filter elements were sent to three of the labs mentioned in your article.

I even sent samples to Light Plane Maintenance, your sister publication. Two of the three labs and LPM diagnosed it as aluminum, probably from the piston pin plugs.

Both recommended flying the airplane another 25 hours, resampling, and borescoping the cylinders for telltale striping. The flakes came and went, reappeared and disappeared.

I did this for 200 hours…

The hapless airplane owner trudging the booths at Oshkosh this year should be forgiven a certain numb sensation from the neck up.

As the industry enjoys continuing recovery, more companies than ever are flogging techy gizmos, hoping that pilots will buy in sufficient volume to at least offset the R&D costs. Making sense of it all is baffling. (Even perpetually upbeat marketing execs have the thousand-yard stare.)

Amidst the din, however, we saw a couple of discernible trends plus an unusual bumper crop of high-tech goodies and Internet-related services. Two trends of note: Even as progress on cheap jet engines seems genuine, Lycoming and Continental are inching forward with single-le…

American Eagle Insurance Co., the flagship of the American Eagle Group and the erstwhile official insurance company of the AOPA, slipped gurgling beneath the waves as it went into receivership late last year. The company had been under the conservatorship of the Texas state insurance department since the preceding July.

Most of its customers have found shelter elsewhere-either with other companies or through fronting arrangements with other underwriters. The large unanswered question, however, is whether Eagle will be able to pay claims relating to incurred-but-not-filed losses. We suspect that in this regard, some customers may come up short.

American Eagle and predecessor, A, had…

If there’s a failsafe way to buy an engine overhaul that will absolutely, positively make it to TBO without so much as a snort, we havent unearthed the formula.

Although the majority of engines probably do make TBO with little more than oil changes and a couple of sets of spark plugs, many engines roll over long before that. And even reputable shops with years in the business turn out the occasional lemon engine that starts making metal 50 hours after it leaves the shop.

Thats what warranties are for. Savvy buyers realize that a shops reputation for standing behind its work matters as much, if not more, than the quality of the overhaul itself. Since the factories bullied their way…