Tomas Vykruta Data Daily

Disclaimer: I am a pilot, not A&P. I want to learn how to do my own borescope inspection for prebuy of used aircraft and for inspection of my own engines. These are my research notes. Why This Matters There is a big fixation on compression tests to determine engine health. This is plain wrong. An engine with 40/80 compression reads could be perfectly healthy with 1000s of hours to overhaul, while one with 78 compression reads could be on the verge of catastrophic failure. Borescope inspection is the way to go. Where to start Watch this excellent EAA video How Healthy is your Engine from expert Mike Busch. Read Mike's blog post  Putting Compression In Context  on the same subject. What equipment to use Use an intraoral dentistry camera. Higher quality photos than any borescope tool, and it's a 90 degree bend so works well inside cylinders. You will need to attach a light. Barring that, get a digital borescope that can record photos. Avoid cheap $200...

Moment of silence for the 239 lost souls on board this tragic flight. What we do know What makes this different from every other catastrophe in modern aviation is that there was no distress call from pilots, and a sudden, complete loss of radar contact. With radar, air traffic can see every airplane's position (altitude, airspeed, heading). A hijacking is also very unlikely - the pilots would know something was up and follow hijack procedure  F.A.R 6-4-3  - a verbal distress call 'TRANSPONDER SEVEN FIVE ZERO ZERO' and setting a special squawk code 7600. It would take some time for hijackers to break down cockpit door. If there was some mechanical problem, flight data would have shown a descent or change in airspeed. Even if a collision with another aircraft occurred, we'd expect to see this. Most Catastrophic Explosion in aviation history? Only practical explanation is an explosion so catastrophic and violent that no primary target (metal reflected in s...