Online Video Course on Airplane Owner Maintenance?

[Matt Ward]

I'm a first time airplane owner (66 M20E) and new to maintaining an aircraft.  While I don't have any desire to actually turn a wrench, I would like to know more about maintenance, and especially, spotting potential issues.  I've read a bit in the MAPA PPP about the Mooney specific systems but I'm looking for a more elementary understanding.  Is there anything like the Sportys "How to Fly" courses available for maintenance?  Or, any books you'd recommend as a good introduction?  Thanks!

[dzeleski]

Mike Busch has a ton of great webinars on this stuff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc-IpamUhzvGsAfMzH2lIcA/videos

Some are pretty long but there is a lot of really good info. He also has a few books on amazon that are also really good.

Edited April 16, 2020 by dzeleski

[Ross Taylor]

Definitely start at the beginning and watch all the Mike Busch videos, as @dzeleski mentioned.  He also has series of books...four now, I think, and they're all worth reading IMO.  If you watch all the videos, which are EAA podcast recordings, you'll get much of what's in the books - but I like reading, too.  The two most recent books are free reads if you've got Amazon Unlimited...I was able to read them on my Kindle app as part of the Unlimited, then I bought paper copies.

I also encourage you to join the EAA and you can then join these webinars live, and ask questions.

Mike Busch's videos won't show you exactly how to turn the wrenches, but they'll teach you a lot about what to look for, when to do (or not do) things, and the regs.

[carusoam]

+1 on the mike Busch things...  pretty easy to follow, pretty accurate in most cases...

The more you know, the better you can describe the work you want your mechanic to do...

This really cuts down the extra work getting done...

If you don’t like turning wrenches on a new car... doing it on an old plane just gets more expensive... 

PP thoughts only...

Best regards,

-a-

[Sabremech]

As an A&P/IA, I don’t always agree with Mike Busch and have challenged him on a few of his assertions, his writings would be good for you to learn some maintenance fundamentals. Don’t allow yourself to take his words as the maintenance gospel, but allow it to give you the knowledge to know what questions to ask.

 

[kortopates]

The 3 day weekend  Mooney PPP's all provide a few hours of specific preventative maintenance from doing oil changes to changing tires to lubricating the airframe. Probably the best Mooney specific maintenance you'll find in a classroom setting. If you haven't been to one, I highly recommend them. Use to do them in Denver every other year but its been awhile now. But their will be one at near by Santa Fe the weekend of Aug 21-23 (postponed from original being scheduled this weekend).