Don’t overthink the chore of wiping down the cabin. The favorite store-brand disinfecting wipes work we’ll for cleaning control yokes, throttle handles and anything else germy hands touch—except display screens. Hit those with a heavy-duty cleaner and you might as we’ll pull the whole unit from the panel and ship it away for a flat-rate […]
Face it, aircraft tires are expensive, so why not do everything you can to make them last? Unfortunately, tires are one of the most neglected items on the preflight checklist. You can likely be doing more to increase their life and more importantly, help avoid a trip into the weeds—or worse— if they fail. Start […]
We’re not crazy about the fact that something we predicted in these pages over the last two years has come to pass. The reality—significantly higher insurance rates—is hitting pilots right in the wallet. The new, “hard” insurance market is especially challenging for those owners who bought an older jet for a bargain-basement price and thought […]
Until a decade ago, there wasn’t much management available for piston aircraft owners—such ”management” as existed largely consisted of relying on the local shop to give you a nudge when it was oil change or annual time. That started to change in 2008 with the appearance of Savvy Aircraft Maintenance Management (SAMM) (www.savvyaviation.com) and has […]
There it is. Right there on the ramp in front of you. You finally pulled it off. You’ve wanted a turboprop—no, that turboprop—ever since you saw one a few days after you soloed. Now, look at yourself. You just closed on the purchase of that Cessna 425. That one, with the incredibly cool four-bladed prop […]
The steps for choosing the right engine oil blend are based on simple and perhaps not so simple logic. Moreover, your value drivers may add some variation, but here I try to make my thinking apparent so you can evaluate what’s appropriate for your engine and ops. If you have a Lycoming O320-H2AD or O360E […]
The article in the November 2019 Aviation Consumer on the new Phillips Victory aviation oil prompted lots of letters from readers asking how they might choose the perfect oil for their engines. There isn’t a one-blend, across-the-board pick, of course, but I can offer a straightforward guide for a logical decision-making process. Let’s start with […]
We’re all guilty at one point or another. There’s more to properly preflighting a prop than quickly running a finger along the leading edge of the blades to feel for imperfections. Moreover, if you do look closely at the prop before putting the power to it, do you really know what you’re looking at? Walking […]
It’s bound to happen. Your airplane hits the shop for an annual inspection and all seems to be going we’ll until that dreaded call from the mechanic, who says the propeller (or propellers, if it’s a twin) needs to get shipped to a propeller shop for overhaul. But what exactly happens to that propeller once […]
In the typical car or truck the battery box may be nothing more than a tray to support the battery. But there’s more going on in the battery box in most aircraft—and it might not be good. Neglect can lead to unnoticed airframe corrosion, engine starting problems, audio system noise and other electrical system problems. […]
If you’ve ever retrieved an aircraft from a maintenance shop you probably sat up a little straighter in the seat on that first takeoff run. If you haven’t, your mind is not in the right place. Maintenance can—as the NTSB reports consistently prove—introduce another layer of risk that goes with the territory of wrenching an […]
Stupid pilot tricks, anyone? Here at the magazine some of our test aircraft for sending portable products through the wringer are Cessna 150s and 152s—seemingly the best combination of budget-friendly economy, durability and simplicity. Flying and filming the Faro Stealth headset in the 150 for the field report in this issue got me thinking about […]
