Airplane Owner Maintenance

A Maintenance Oriented Podcast For Airplane Owners, Pilots, and Mechanics

Month: October 2019

125 – Engine Failure – What Would You Do In A Moment’s Notice?

October 14, 2019 / / 2 Comments

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Not long ago, there was an unusual engine failure in a Cessna 182 at Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport.

Cindy Ferek was the flight instructor on board that day, and she landed the airplane safely on the runway. Before we get into that story, I’d like to introduce Cindy. (The Cessna 172 in the following picture is not the airplane that had the engine failure.)

Cindy taught high school physical education for 21 years at Turner Ashby High School, which gave her an excellent teaching foundation that she uses today as she skillfully works with students in the cockpit of airplanes. Not only is Cindy an excellent flight instructor, but she’s also just an inspiring person to be around! I hope you’ll listen to the podcast to hear about more of Cindy’s story, both in and out of the airplane.

The engine failure we talked about in today’s episode, happened in the traffic pattern, thankfully. Here’s the airplane after they landed safely and parked it in the grass to save the engine:

Shortly after their successful landing, one of the line guys tugged the airplane up to the maintenance shop.


At first it was challenging to figure out what actually happened to the engine, because there was no external evidence of any problems. But a borescope inspection revealed the exhaust valve in cylinder #1 was not opening at all. And after removing the rocker cover, it became really obvious. The rocker arm shaft boss had broken apart and the rocker arm could not operate the exhaust valve.

Thank you Cindy, for sharing a bit of your aviation journey and your engine failure story with us, and for all the excellent work you do to make aviation such an inspiring endeavor to pursue!

For those of you who would like to contact Cindy, there are multiple ways to get in touch with her. (And she would love to hear from you.)

Blog: CindyFerek.Weebly.com

Email: pilotcferek@gmail.com

Cell: 540-607-0251

P.S. One last reminder:

If you work on your airplane, and need to learn to perform excellent safety wiring, check out the “Safety Wire Like A Pro” video tutorial course… It will show you in great detail how to do an excellent job, whether it’s safety wiring an oil filter, a fuel strainer, a brake caliper, or any other item an airplane owner is approved to perform.

Click the following link and check it out:

https://airplane-owner-maintenance.teachable.com/p/safetywiring

124 – Owner Maintenance and Cessna Fuel Strainers

October 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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Before we get to the fuel strainers, here are some highlights from the past couple weeks:

Our local EAA chapter had its annual pig roast / fly-in / picnic at Sheldon Early’s “GMI” Greenmount International – a fun name for a country grass runway. It was a perfect evening with a bunch of great people.


There’s even a quaint old porch area for watching airplanes!

One of the members brought a chromed exhaust valve to show me… check it out:

Also, I want to say a big congratulations to John and Leslie Caubble… they both passed their instrument check rides this past Monday, September 30, 2019! Well done friends! You can keep up with their Hawaii flying endeavors by listening to their podcast “Fly Maui.” FlyMauiHI.com

Image may contain: 2 people, including Leslie Caubble, people smiling, closeup

Now for fuel strainers. In today’s episode, we talk about the proper torque value for single engine Cessna fuel strainers, or gascolators. This is one of those “special torques,” and it’s worth checking the maintenance manual for the proper torque value… otherwise, it’s so easy to overtorque the base nut that holds the fuel strainer in place.

Listen to this episode for some ideas on how to avoid common pitfalls.

Remember, 25-30 inch pounds is not very much at all!

Finally, I want to say a huge thank you to Jodey Smith – JodeySmith.com

Joday helped me solve a problem I’ve had for quite some time… only the last 100 podcast episodes were showing up in the podcast apps.

But this past weekend, Maria and I attended a speaker training conference by Kent Julian in Georgia, and Jodey Smith was there running the sound, video, and camera equipment… Jodey told me in about 2 minutes what I should try… and it worked! Thanks Jodey!

So… if you want to access the early episodes of the Airplane Owner Maintenance podcast, you can now find all 124 episodes in the podcast apps and directories.

That’s all for this episode… have a great weekend!

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