Aircraft maintenance and inspections are important!

In going to ground school last year and studying for the FAA private pilot exam, learning FAA regulations took a fair amount of time. The FAA regs are fairly comprehensive. And no, I'm not going to write about FAA regulations.

But it was studying the regulations that speak to aircraft maintenance and inspections that I do want to spend some time with in this blog. It did not take me all that long after I started writing about aerial wildland firefighting to appreciate the importance of aircraft maintenance and inspections. I knew that such maintenance and inspections take place on an ongoing basis, both during and outside of fire season. But I never gave any thought to the specifics aircraft maintenance and inspections.

I learned that there are specific items of preventive maintenance that private pilots can do, such as changing seatbelts; replacing landing gear tires, and replacing batteries, and replacing or cleaning spark plugs.), that these are detailed in CFR 14 FAR part 43, appendix A (c).

I learned about different kinds of aircraft inspections and who can do them, either an airframe and powerplant mechanic or an airframe and powerplant mechanic with inspection authorization, depending on the type of inspection. An inspection is not the same thing as preventive maintenance that can be performed by a private pilot.

For me, the most important thing that I have been learning and doing, is the pre-flight inspection of the Cessna 172 when I take scenic rides. The pilot and I do this together, where he is looking for things that I miss. Like everything else in aviation, this is on a check list that is kept in the aircraft. In this case, the check lists are on laminated cards for ease of use. It covers things like:

• siphoning off a little gas to check for impurities, to
• checking the oil level and the alternator belt, to
• looking at the cables in the ailerons, flaps, elevators and rudders; to
• looking at the rivets (we don't want any popped rivets); to
• checking the propeller to be sure there are no nicks.

This is just a sample of what is on the pre-flight list for the Cessna 172. It is the most important part of the flight. Doesn't matter if she just had an annual inspection the week before, you do a pre-flight anyway. Doesn't matter if you took it up yesterday, you do another pre-flight. The check list will be different perhaps, depending on the aircraft, but a pre-flight is a pre-flight.

I'll be writing more about aircraft (fixed-wing) inspections and maintenance as time goes on. In the next three articles, I will be taking about a certain type of inspection known as a progressive inspection. I had the privilege of seeing an A&P mechanic with inspection authorization perform an annual inspection on a couple of general aviation aircraft, I'll be writing about that in a few weeks. So stay tuned.