A light dinner will be served at 6:30pm. Our speaker will begin at 7pm.
With aircraft total cost of ownership (TCO) on the increase, especially with looming tariffs on the horizon, pilot/owners are looking for ways to be more cost conscious and frugal.
Hangarage, insurance, fuel and maintenance costs dramatically increase the operating costs of owning or renting an aircraft. Outside of the acquisition cost of an aircraft, overhauling the engine is next largest cost component of ownership. Many owner/operators will overhaul at the engine manufacturer’s recommended hours (e.g. 2,000). At overhaul costs almost double what they once were, getting as many hours out of the engine just makes a lot of practical sense.
Our presenter, Mike Busch will discuss the “5,000 hour Time Before Overhaul Fact Not Fiction.” As a pilot, A&P (AME in Canadian verbiage), Mike brings a real world approach to managing 1,000’s of aircraft through his company Savvy Aviation. In fact, one of his clients aircraft has exceeded 5,000 hours TBO.
About Mike Busch
Mike Busch founded Savvy Aviation Inc. in 2008 and since then has served as its CEO and chief evangelist. His involvement in GA maintenance began in the late 1980s as a technical rep and instructor for the Cessna Pilots Association. He subsequently earned his A& certificate the hard way, by swinging wrenches on his Cessna 310 and a few other airplanes for 10 years. He earned his IA three years later. In 2008, he was honored by the FAA Administrator as Aviation Maintenance Technician of the Year.
He is the author of four books and hundreds of articles and videos about GA maintenance and presently writes the monthly Savvy Maintenance column in AOPA Pilot magazine. Mike is a frequent presenter at the EAA’s monthly webinar series.
He became a private pilot while in college in the mid-1960s, and subsequently earned instrument, commercial, glider, seaplane, CFI, CFII, and CFIME ratings. He bought his first airplane (a Cessna 182) at age 25, then upgraded to a Bellanca Super Viking and finally to a Cessna Turbo 310 that he still owns, flies and maintains.
Mike graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in mathematics, did graduate work in math at Princeton University and in business administration at Columbia University before relocating to California to become a senior computer scientist for a Fortune 500 company and later starting his own software company.
Mike cofounded AVweb in 1995 and served as its editor-in-chief for nearly a decade until it was sold to Belvoir Publications. Mike hosts AOPA’s “Ask the A&Ps” podcast, where the panel answer your toughest aviation maintenance questions. New podcasts are released the first and fifteenth of every month.
Through his work as a type club tech rep for Cessna Pilots Association, American Bonanza Society, and Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association, and as CEO of Savvy Aviation, Inc. (https://www.savvyaviation.com), Mike has helped thousands of aircraft owners resolve thorny maintenance problems that have stumped their local A&Ps. Founded in 2008, Mike’s company Savvy Aviation Inc. provides a broad palette of maintenance-related services to thousands of owners of piston GA airplanes. Those services include maintenance management and consulting, engine monitor data analysis, a nationwide prebuy management program, and 24/7 breakdown assistance that’s essentially “AAA for GA.”
Location:
This is a hybrid meeting, on Zoom and in person. If you cannot attend in person, check your BFC-News email for the Zoom link!
The in-person session will be held at the SMS Training Facility at 75 Tiverton Court. This is just off Allstate Parkway just short of the old Nav Can tower on the southwest side of the field. Google Maps link.
Come North up from Hwy 7 on Allstate Parkway just past the sign that says No Exit after the 2nd or 3rd stop sign, and Tiverton is on the left. Follow it west to the end (only 100 meters or so) and go to the Toshiba Building, #75. Go left into the parking area (you may recognize a number of Ambulances parked there). The door for the Training Center is at the basement area on the South side of the building. The door is normally closed but we will have someone letting people in. Call Dave Sprague if you need assistance -- his cell phone number is posted in the BFC-News announcement of this meeting. Or, ask in the WhatsApp group.
