The Squawk Sheet

✦   Preflight Brief

Every aircraft that ever left the ground did so because someone cared enough to know it was ready.

That someone is you — and it’s us. The Squawk Sheet exists for one reason: to put the right information in your hands before it ever becomes the wrong surprise at altitude. Each issue delivers one AD worth understanding, one maintenance truth worth knowing, and one honest take on the news shaping general aviation.

We close with a joke — because the hangar has always been as much about laughter as it is about wrenches. Welcome to Issue One. Let’s fly.

On April 8, 2026, the FAA superseded an active airworthiness directive with a broader, more urgent one. AD 2026-04-11 replaces AD 2024-21-02 — and if your airplane runs behind a Lycoming engine, this directive applies to you until you can prove otherwise. The FAA has documented uncontained engine failures and in-flight shutdowns traced directly to this defect. A supplier manufactured connecting rod bushings that did not conform to specification. When those bushings fail, the rod can release at cruise power — and it does not fail gracefully.

Your Action

Visually inspect the oil filter, oil pressure screen, and oil suction screen for bronze metal particulates. Repeat at every oil change until the affected bushings are permanently replaced. This is not a one-time check — it is a recurring watch that only ends when the defective parts are gone.

Here is something most owners miss: the FAA specifically permits a certificated pilot (private or higher) to perform this oil-side inspection themselves, logged per 14 CFR 43.9(a). If you change your own oil, we will walk you through what bronze flake looks like the first time. If you bring it to us, this inspection is part of your service — full stop.

Every time a piston engine cools, it breathes. Moist air enters through the breather and the exhaust system and settles on every bare steel surface inside — cam lobes, lifters, cylinder walls. That moisture does not evaporate on its own. It oxidizes. It rusts. Rust becomes microscopic pitting. Pitting becomes wear. Wear shows up as elevated iron in your oil analysis, or if you are not analyzing your oil, it shows up as a cam lobe that no longer holds the profile it was machined to hold.

The fix is deceptively simple: heat, sustained above 212°F, long enough to boil the moisture out of the entire oil system. Not a ground run. Not a taxi. A real flight — long enough for oil temperature to climb and hold. That is the only thing that protects the metal.

If you have been reading aviation news for the last decade, you have seen the same headline recycled until it barely registers: “Unleaded avgas — closer than ever.” The skepticism is earned. But 2026 is not last year, and what is happening now deserves more than a jaded eye-roll.

In January 2026, the FAA released its draft Transition Plan to phase general aviation off 100LL by December 31, 2030 — a legally grounded, agency-wide commitment backed by the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. Three fuels are in serious contention: