Note:  CLICK HERE for more episodes of the Airplane Owner Maintenance Podcast.  Classic Aviation needs one or two more experienced A&P / IA’s! If you know of any good possibilities, contact our manager, Yev Bondarev: 540-234-0226 or [email protected] Classic Aviation is a great place to get a well-rounded general aviation maintenance experience. Website:  https://www.classicaviationshd.com/ Now for […]

How do you Lap an exhaust valve on an airplane engine?  That’s a good question, and this is the topic in today’s episode. If you’ve owned an airplane for very long, there’s a good chance you’ve had a “low compression” at some point during one of your annual inspections.  What is perhaps not so common, […]

New spark plugs every year? Yep… that’s what happened for five annual inspections in a row, with the A36 Bonanza I’ve been inspecting and working on.  From 2013 to 2017, the spark plugs were replaced every year.  Four of those times, the spark plugs being replaced, had less than 150 hours on them.  That is […]

Happy New Year Friends! This week on the podcast, we’re talking about simple fixes with just a little lubrication.  Sometimes on airplanes, there are parts that might need some lube, that can easily be overlooked.  We have several of these examples in today’s episode.  Here they are: A Beechcraft Debonair with a starter problem. A […]

Sometimes, airplanes have some out-of-the-ordinary maintenance and servicing requirements.  I discovered one of those items yesterday while talking with Kyle Jones, owner of a really nice, fixed gear Cessna Cardinal.  We talk about that in today’s episode.  It’s a very specific procedure for servicing the shimmy dampener on that airplane.  These are items you might […]

Yes, it is an art, and it takes careful and precise thinking, in order to prevent damage to an airplane. I’m not going to post any pictures with this episode, so here’s what’s included in the audio for this podcast: An update on my family’s Thanksgiving trip to Colorado… what an awesome state with so […]

I received a voice message the other day from John, a Mooney owner.  He was asking for some discussion on the podcast about using “torque plates” when removing cylinders from airplane engines.  He mentioned that Mike Busch was a proponent of this practice.  John also mentioned the concept of using torque plates had come up […]

This week, I inspected a Cessna 172.  From a distance it appeared to be a really nice airplane, and it is.  But at closer examination, as is often the case, there were a number of issues that needed to be addressed.  In today’s episode, we’ll cover those issues and talk about what was discovered. When […]

Retractable landing gear is an incredible feature when everything works properly.  On Bonanzas and Barons, the gear motor is like the heart of the system.  And sometimes, a heart repair, or even a “transplant” is necessary.  Sometimes, the heart, (or the gear motor,) shows signs and symptoms of poor health, and sometimes, problems become apparent […]

Today, I’m sharing with you a story about busting my knuckles trying to remove a locknut from an engine mount bolt.  The nut was bottomed out on the shank of the bolt, making it very hard to hold the bolt still while loosening the locknut. I could have avoided all that if I had put […]