If the engine is manufacturing metal, this simple check will give you enough information to make a decision as to whether the engine actually does have a serious problem.
Opinion
New math and the unleaded future of general aviation
The search for an unleaded avgas continues, with four fuels still in the running and being evaluated by the FAA. Will all four make it to market? Who will the FAA and the industry get behind as the future of general aviation?
There’s an acronym for that
Aviation is awash in acronyms and abbreviations. Thankfully so. To spell out the entire word, term, or phrase the acronym or abbreviation symbolizes would be unwieldy. But some pilots, and even CFIs, think we use too many acronyms.
If you find them, I don’t want them back
Today, I weigh about what I did when I started my senior year in high school. Better yet, I am down about 70 pounds from my unhealthy peak before Deb and I had our first kid. Thankfully.
Baby, it’s cold outside
In aviation, things are absolutely, without a doubt, getting cleaner, quieter, and more efficient.
Questions from the Cockpit: Who was first?
Lucas, a private pilot from Connecticut, writes: “There seems to be some disagreement here at the hangar. Was the Cirrus the first airplane with a full-frame parachute?”
Human Factors: Say it out loud
In his report on the gear-up accident to the NTSB, the pilot said that he was alone in the airplane and “I did not state my GUMPS checks out loud,” adding that he normally “religiously” says a minimum of two out loud and sometimes three.
Old dog, new trick
My new role with the AOPA Foundation is once again something audacious, something that has never been done on a large scale. I now hold the title of High School Aero Club Liaison, which gives me the freedom to work with kids, parents, teachers, administrators, airport administrators, and community leaders from coast to coast to help them create aero clubs where kids can get into aviation in a meaningful way.
de Havilland’s diminutive Fox Moth
If front-line British warplanes advanced with the global state of the art from the 1930s into the postwar 1940s, some smaller utility aircraft remained delightfully unfazed by the eternal quest for speed or modernity. Such was the case with de Havilland’s diminutive Fox Moth biplane.