Airworthiness

by Roger Alder ‘Never, in the history of aviation maintenance, have so many been distracted by so little.’ With apologies to Sir Winston Churchill, who was paying respect to WWII Battle of Britain air aces. The...

A recent airworthiness directive from the US Federal Aviation Administration highlights the difficult issues surrounding the ageing general aviation aircraft fleet. Some things just seem eternal: sunrise, sunset and rock ‘n’ roll music for anyone...

A tangle of misinformation about engine bay flammable fluid flexible hoses needs clearing up Dangerous ideas are not always outrageous. Sometimes they arise out of simple misunderstandings, turgid language or the unfortunate situation where a...

Thomas P. Turner The pilot of a vintage Cessna 120 taildragger noticed over time that the aeroplane’s battery would not always hold a charge. It wasn’t uncommon that he would prepare the aeroplane for flight...

In the five years since a very near miss put the issue of flight control deterioration into clear focus, sixty-one unserviceable and potentially dangerous cables have been discovered on aircraft, and four cable failures. It...

A known and documented problem continues to cause embarrassment and expense for Cessna operators. It was a memorable sightseeing trip, for the wrong reasons. The aircraft passengers got a ‘near death experience’ anecdote to enliven...

A recurrent issue on a popular training aircraft illustrates the many factors influencing aircraft reliability. The Beechcraft Model 76 Duchess has introduced a sizeable proportion of Australia commercial pilots to the pleasures and perils of...

To state the obvious: water in fuel is A. Bad. Thing. Whether avgas or jet A1, fuel and water just don’t mix. And water makes engines stop. Water in fuel takes two forms, dissolved...

Your aeroplane’s trim tabs are proof that size does not always equate to importance. Trim tabs are used to counteract forces on the control surfaces so that an aeroplane can be flown straight and...

A simple failure of a common out-of-sight part can have nightmarish consequences. It now appears there are two ways for it to fail. What do you do, if, as a student pilot, flying solo, you...