James’ World

I found out about AOPA Expo 2008 at the last minute on avweb.com, and spent half a day there Saturday.

First of all, sorry to out-of-town attendees for the showery weather today. San Jose is normally sunny, but not in winter.

The Expo was 3 days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) for $55/day including seminars and exhibits.

Exhibits Hall

The Exhibits Hall was twice as big as I expected and a lot of fun. I’m used to sparse IT conference exhibits, but aviation exhibits are a welcome relief with lots of hardware: aircraft, wrap-around simulators, parts, interior fabrics – you name it.

I only had time to spend an hour looking at the exhibits, but could easily spend a day going booth-to-booth and trying everything out.

The Cessna 162 Skycatcher in purple was on display, as well as the DJet (and a Williams engine static display) and Epic.

Frasca had a wrap-around simulator, and there was a very nice glass cockpit Cessna 172 simulator with 3 almost 180 degrees of displays. It’s available for rent in Hayward for $65/hour.

Rolls-Royce had 2 engines on display, the A300 used in the Robinson R66 helicopter and a prototype for the A400.

Noticeably absent … Eclipse did not have a booth.

I listened to 2 seminars from trainers that I haven’t seen live before, and really wanted to: John and Martha King and Mike Busch.

Pilot Risk Management, John and Martha King

John and Martha King talked about managing flying risks in a systematic fashion.

It took John a minute to warm up, then he sounded just like his pilot training tapes.

They calculate that small-time GA flying is about as risky as motorcycle operation in the US. Half the audience personally knew a pilot killed in GA.

John then went into 3 war stories: IFR letdown in a Cessna 210 with no electricity due to ignoring maintenance near St. Paul in icing, poor takeoff decision at max. weight at a high DA airport (Lone Pine, 3680′), and an unlighted flight from Big Island to Oahu over the ocean at nite (forgot to pre-flight lights for a nite flight.)

They recommend using checklist nmenonics like PAVE CARE for reducing risks.

• Pilot
• Aircraft
• enVironment
• External Pressures

• Consequences
• Alternatives
• Reality
• External Pressures

Airplane Maintenance Management, Mike Busch

Mike Busch gave an awesome talk on airplane maintenance management.

Mike is an aviation maintenance author, trainer and businessman who is famous in the GA aviation community.

His latest venture is savvymx.com, which provides professional maintenance management for owners. They represent dozens of aircraft already.

(I’ve attempted to paraphrase what Mike said below, but any errors or omissions are my fault.)

40 years ago in GA’s hayday, there was an authorized Cessna, Piper or Beech service center on every field with specialist mechanics and a building full of parts on the shelf. Now GA maintenance facilities are merely a shadow of that, unless you’re talking jets.

He recommends 5 rules/secrets for affordable maintenance:

1. Interview your mechanic/shop like you’re hiring an employee
2. Inspection, Discrepancies, Approval in writing
3. Don’t fix what’s not broken
4. Pilot needs to troubleshoot before mechanic can fix anything
5. one other …

The aircraft owner is the manager, the mechanic takes orders, and there must be a business-like relationship. Otherwise, find another shop.

However, while giving his SavvyAviation talks, he’s noticed that some people either don’t want to make the time, effort or be assertive enough to actually do the mgmt. needed.

95% of aircraft components can and should be maintained on-condition, meaning periodically inspected and replaced as needed. Examples are tires, some actuators, etc.

The remaining 5% are things maintained on a time-based schedule, like magnetos and hoses which are difficult to inspect.

When approving aircraft repairs, terminology is very important. The terms repair, overhaul and rebuild mean very different things. Normally what one wants is a repair (fix just what’s broken directly and as cheaply as possible), and not an overhaul (blindly follow an overhaul checklist from beginning to end and change and test everything, broken or not.)

He says that TBO is a psychological limit, not a maintenance one. His P210 is currently 1100 hours past TBO, FWIW.

Mike recommends using the most direct method for monitoring and troubleshooting aircraft: engine monitors, oil and filter analysis, borescope. He calls this “21st century analysis”, while old techniques like magneto RPM-drop and cylinder compression tests are “Orville and Wilbur Wright analysis.”

He uses Blackstone Laboratories for oil analysis. Unfortunately, many shops don’t have borescopes, and even when they do, nobody with training to interpret the image, since studying borescopes is not required for A&P.

In newer airplanes, there is no separation between airframe and electronics, so you need a shop that can handle integrated maintenance, like Woodgreen in SoCal.

He used a black Asus EEE PC to show his slides.

Aviation Mentor: Expose (review of this show)
Robinson R66: a preview by Philip Greenspun, Feb. 2008
flyingmag.com: Learning to Use an IFR Rating