Airplane Owner Maintenance - By Dean Showalter

I received an email recently from Spence, the owner of an S35 Bonanza with a Turbo-Normalized IO-520 engine. He included a picture of his #2 cylinder exhaust valve. Here’s what it looked like:

I got an email from Michael this past week. He owns a Mooney M20J, and something strange happened with cylinder #1’s EGT and CHT recently. Michael agreed to let me share the story, so that’s th…

12/80! That’s a terrible compression test result. And unlike some cylinders, this one did not show any obvious reasons for the low compression… take a look at the valves after the cylinder was …

Can you see the problem with this exhaust muffler?

Maybe a closer look will help: (The cracked area was just inside the shroud that collects heat for the cabin.)

Thankfully Matt, the o…

I had a surprise call this morning… my friend Eddie called and wondered if he could borrow a borescope. One of the cylinders in his Sonex’s Jabiru engine had zero compression, and he wanted to t…

Our guest for today’s episode is Autumn Duntz, an aviation interior designer and refurbishment expert… welcome Autumn!

After observing some poor quality elements in a newly refurbished Beechcr…

Does your airplane have emergency exit windows?

If so, would your passengers know how to operate them?

Here’s an emergency exit window where the instructions were hardly readable:

Thankf…

In a previous episode, I shared the story about how I accidentally left a shop towel in an engine…

I got some great feedback from that episode, including the picture above… a flight student f…

Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) James Cox, a member of the Navy’s Blue Angels Team, is our guest today on the podcast! He exceeded my expectations in so many ways in our conversation, and I’m thril…

Hi Friends!

I have a story for you today that I wish I didn’t have. But it’s true, so we might as well learn from it. Thankfully, everything turned out well on this one.

At Moody Aviation…

Bob Shenk (right) is a huge fan of Luscombes… this beautifully restored aircraft was among the airplanes I got to see when I visited Bob’s place a week ago… what a pleasure that visit was!

Don…

I recently did an annual inspection on a Rockwell Commander, and the gear warning light was not working.

Before we tell that story, I want to thank our sponsor, PilotWorkshops.com

This…

Without Jonathan Brush, this podcast might not exist! I’m super-thankful for his part in pushing me to launch this whole thing. I think you’ll enjoy the conversation with him today.

At the …

Our sponsor for this episode is PilotWorkshops.com

Be sure to sign up for the “Tip of the Week” and you’ll receive a short, but valuable tip to make you a better pilot… it’s a fun way to l…

Jessica is our special guest on the podcast today. She and her husband Mark, along with their 5 kids, are serving with a mission organization in Cameroon, Africa. Mark flies helicopters, and Je…

I’m so glad I got talked into this one! (Thanks Kenneth!)

It turned out to be a definite highlight of the week… you can hear more about the details in the podcast audio.

I want to than…

I installed this starter and starter adapter on a Beechcraft Debonair IO-470 engine last week… the starter adapters (or sometimes called a clutch, or starter drive,) sometimes begin to slip, and …

Valve lapping is sometimes a great option for improving cylinder compression and extending the life of an exhaust valve. We’ll talk about it in today’s episode.

Pilot Workshops.com is our…

Although a shop vac might not pull as much vacuum as an engine driven vacuum pump, it can still be useful for some parts of the troubleshooting process. This was just one thing we did on the pat…

This is what Josh discovered recently in his Beechcraft Debonair while getting some training in his airplane with an instructor as part of the Bonanza Pilot Proficiency Program (BPPP.) The gear mot…