Advertise on podcast: Airplane Owner Maintenance - By Dean Showalter

Tangier Island is a great little airplane getaway location! (Be sure to listen to the audio for the more detailed story.) Situated in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Virginia, it’s easily accessible with a small airplane. I borrowed my friend Tom’s Piper Cherokee and took my wife Maria there for […]

(Scroll down for video and photos.) When Dan, the owner of a nice A36 Bonanza called me and reported a “clunking noise” at the right main landing gear while moving the airplane by hand, I was stumped. So I did what I like to do when I have an airplane puzzler… I sent an email […]

This exhaust valve in a turbo-normalized A36 Bonanza looks quite good. The appearance is mostly concentric and uniform. There’s just that one area at about the 10 to 11 o’clock position that looks slightly uneven. If the compression test had been good, I likely would not have lapped the valve. But since it was 44/80 […]

It was a gorgeous VFR day, and we were flying in an Aerostar 601. The destination was an airport in Alabama and I was really looking forward to this trip. But soon after we leveled off at ten thousand feet and got the engines set and properly leaned, a strange but definite engine roughness occurred. […]

In the last podcast episode, we talked about an issue with my friend’s Cirrus SR22, and how the flaps occasionally would not retract. That problem got mostly resolved at the recent annual inspection when they made some adjustments due to the flap 50% and 100% travels being out of spec. However, there is now a […]

Don’t you just love intermittent problems?! This one has been just that… intermittent. In the 2005 Cirrus SR22, the flaps have 3 positions: up, 50%, and 100%. Our intermittent problem has been that occasionally, when selecting 50% or 100%, the flaps will begin to move down, but the “up” light will stay on. The flaps […]

This experience was a good one! (At least looking back in 2020 hindsight.) We had to dig deep to fix this one! I was about to give up and started thinking it might be time to take the airplane somewhere else for troubleshooting and repair. Thankfully Richard, our chief pilot, didn’t give up so easy […]

This morning I felt the inspiration to record a podcast episode… I got my hotel room set up with my computer and my microphone, and there it sat. I missed the window of opportunity… for whatever reasons, I did not record. And this afternoon, the inspiration was fading away. And then I remembered something. Often […]

(If you’re in a hurry, scroll down to see the tiny little chafed wire that caused this whole conundrum.) Now here’s the story… This landing gear relay breaker had been popping intermittently: It came time for annual inspection and we decided to replace the breaker with a new one, in order to rule out a […]

Bennett contacted me awhile back to see if I could lap an exhaust valve for him. The #4 exhaust valve showed a very uneven appearance when viewed with his borescope. Bennett flew in to KSHD one morning and we got started. Before lapping, we checked the cylinder compression and it was 29/80… not good. Here’s […]

If you look closely in the photo above, you can see my friend Chris, smiling. It was the day he arrived at Classic Aviation (KSHD) to begin his annual inspection with me. Chris is not only an airplane owner and pilot, but he’s also a certified airplane mechanic as well. I was very happy to […]

Today’s episode is about Pat’s Mooney, and how we sealed up some exhaust leaks. And it’s a fun story because Pat has become a good friend… check out the above photo where he’s showing his airplane to my grandson Spencer 🙂 Spencer and my daughter McKenzie stopped by the shop one day when Pat and […]

Last Monday, I lapped the #5 exhaust valve on a Continental engine. But more importantly, I met the owner / pilot of a Turbo Centurion, and now I’m happy to call him a good friend! Thanks for flying all the way up here Mark! Here’s the story: Mark had been a little concerned about the […]

Everything looks normal in this photo, right? What we can’t see from this angle is the fact that the brake disc has broken in two pieces! Check it out: Here’s the story: The pilot landed the Piper Cherokee, and after a successful landing, something gave way on the left brake, and it became ineffective. Now […]

This story begins with a squawk from the owner. It went something like this: “When I fly my airplane, on the first landing gear retraction, the gear begins to move and then the “gear pump” circuit breaker pops. After I reset the circuit breaker, the gear retracts and extends normally with no further problems the […]