Waiting for the parts to arrive, I called someone I met a few years earlier when I was stuck in Albuquerque during COVID-19. Back then, Brandon Maestas was the in-house avionics guru at Santa Fe Aero Services, and he got my Garmin software updates squared away while we all waited for the world to come back. It was nice having some order in an otherwise chaotic moment in all our lives. I recalled him being a smart technician and getting things done quickly and cleanly. You remember people like that when they touch your airplane.

I rang up Maestas this time around to find he had left Santa Fe Aero for Los Alamos National Laboratory. Yeah, that one. He still does work for Santa Fe on the weekends, though, and agreed to meet me on a Saturday to update the software on the many boxes in my aviation stack. It was just the two of us in the large hangar, and we had time to catch up as the software loaded. Maestas’ new job involves him keeping 400 CNC machines running at the labs, and he loves the problem-solving skills the job requires.

Maestas has the kind of brain that likes to solve puzzles. Give him something broken, and he will fix it. Describe an issue, and he will diagnose it. I get it. Think of the joy we all felt as children in finishing a jigsaw or solving a logic puzzle. The satisfaction felt in “working the problem” is supported biochemically by bursts of dopamine. As it turns out, some of us are just better at it than others.

Sitting in the airplane, I told Maestas about a particular squawk in my avionics stack that no one, not since its installation, has been able to sort. When I say no one, that includes techs at Garmin, the entire online BeechTalk community, and at least five avionics shops spanning the country.

When I press the power button on the G5 AHRS unit that controls my autopilot in flight, the strangest thing happens: The tail will wag once, intensely, then settle back into coordinated flight. It’s disconcerting to say the least, and you must decide how badly you want to change the dimmer settings on the unit—the only reason I ever futz with the G5. My guess has always been that it’s a wiring issue. Something must have gotten crossed in the install so that the electrical impulse of pushing the power button somehow energizes the yaw damper.

I told him my theory while sitting in the airplane, and he neither nodded nor spoke. In Brandon-speak, that means my idea was being tacitly dismissed out of hand in real time. Right. I’ll be quiet now. Maestas sat there in the left seat thinking, considering, working. He then reached over and pushed the button himself. I knew better than to tell him the G5 had to be powered up for the oddity to occur. He then pushed on the other side of the unit, where there is no button at all. I was confused and skeptical at this point, but I just watched silently.

He then turned to me. “The G5 isn’t tightened down all the way,” Maestas said. “When you press the power button, you’re moving the unit itself, causing the internal, solid-state accelerometers to yaw. The servo is just reacting to the input.” I pushed on the unit myself. It moved, yes, but less than one-eighth of an inch. I told him that didn’t seem like nearly enough of an input to elicit that strong a response.

He just looked at me. I doubled down. “If a loose screw is the reason this has been happening for five years, I’ll buy you dinner next time I’m in town.”

Maestas took out a small screwdriver and tightened down the offending fasteners and replied without looking at me: “Where are you going to buy me dinner?”

• READ MORE: Inspired Individuals

My good friend Ilya is an ER doctor working out of a very busy Brooklyn, New York, hospital. He’s had plenty of opportunities to move up to an administrator position. He has declined them all. The extra money requires additional, and in his mind, unsavory work. Fundraising and palm-pressing are not Ilya’s strong suit. He’d rather stay in the trenches and do the real work. Every person that walks into his ER is a puzzle to solve. His brain accesses years of anecdotal, on-the-ground data that he has acquired as a practitioner, which is then cross-referenced with the medical encyclopedia that resides in his head. His brain then goes to work and, sooner than later, a solution is spit out the other end.

He has saved many lives over the years, but his job is still not as celebrated in quite the same way as others. Ilya has a humorous, slight disdain for surgeons and all of the kudos they receive. He explained to me that surgeons are high-level technicians. Craftsmen at best, glorified plumbers at worst. There is a skill set involved, no doubt, but it requires little thought. They don’t have to figure out much. The problem has already been solved by the diagnostician. They just have to implement the solution. They have to cut. And while both Ilya and Brandon are adept at using their hands to execute a designed course of action, the real joy lies in the diagnosis, in solving the puzzle. Why is this happening? Where did it originate? How can I fix it?

In my quest to get home, I found an angel in David Espinosa of Air One Systems. His shop is at the Double Eagle II Airport (KAEG) on the outskirts of Albuquerque. Espinosa interfaced with Garmin and got my new gyro ordered and installed. All was well again. I finally departed Santa Fe and continued my journey back east. Fried chicken in Memphis, Tennessee, and grits in Arkansas completed the trip home. On my last leg, up at cruise altitude, I reached over and carefully pressed the power button on the G5.

Nada. Nothing. No yaw. No movement. Not from the unit or the airplane. Just a command to change the dimmer setting. Looks like I’ll be buying dinner next time I pass through Santa Fe. Brandon’s choice.

This column first appeared in the October 2023/Issue 942 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Some Just Diagnose Problems Better Than Others appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

“There are hangars, and then there are hangars,” Kenny Hinkes said. “We are building the hangars that we would build for ourselves. They are an all-steel building with a concave, concrete floor that goes to a floor drain. Then they are coated with hard deck fuel and hot tire-proof epoxy finish. That floor is the centerpiece of the hangar because now you have a place where you can wash, not only your airplane, but you can keep the whole hangar clean. There is also a three-quarter bathroom with hot water. Right now, there is only one bathroom at the airport. And it’s far away, depending on where you [have your hangar].”

The anticipated addition of 87,000 square feet of hangar space (spread between four rows) at the airport solves a problem experienced by the developers and dozens of other pilots. 

• READ MORE: The Second Life of Yoder Airpark

“I got my private pilot license in 1970 and have been an active aviator for 53 years,” Kenny  said. “Fast forward, [and] I have five adult children. When the kids were little, we had family airplanes. They were mostly Bonanzas, but we also had a Cessna 205 and a 414. Even though we would fly and take trips to lots of places, none of the kids showed any interest in learning to fly. I always felt like that’s something that’s an internal process that you don’t put on anybody else.”

Although it didn’t happen right away, strong aviation influences during childhood eventually left their mark on Jack Hinkes. 

“We started going to Oshkosh in 2006, and it was always a lot of fun,” Jack said. “But it wasn’t until maybe 2017 that I started to think, ‘Wow. Maybe I messed up and should have learned to fly when I was younger!’ So, I kept saying that I wanted to do it, buy a plane, and have my dad teach me how to fly, since he’s a CFI. But he would say, no, you have to really want it, and if you still want to do it later on, we will.”

Jack added that 2019 was the year when he finally had the time and resources to make his dream of flying a reality. He and his father set out to buy a trainer, settling on a red Skyhawk that they flew to Albuquerque from Northern California. 

“Once we got it home, I called the local FBO at Double Eagle Airport,” Jack said. “I told them that I just bought a plane and was looking for hangar space, a T-hangar. The front desk person who answered kind of laughed at me and told me that they would put me down on the list. She said that there were about 57 people in front of me on the list.

• READ MORE: This Runway Is a Keeper, New Airport Owner Says

“With how long the waiting list was, it was possible we never would have gotten in. Because the way it works out there is that people have friends and, whenever someone leaves a hangar, their buddy ends up in their old space, and the list never gets served. So, we ended up putting the plane in a community hangar [at Albuquerque International Sunport (KABQ), 11 nm away]. This was nice, because it’s full service, and they will pull the plane out, fuel it, and whatever. But you can’t do any maintenance on your plane or wash it. It’s a very controlled environment.”

The Hinkeses’ airplane was at this facility for six months before they decided there should be the option to keep their aircraft at their preferred home base. “Let’s go build some hangars, Jack!” is how the elder Hinkes remembers beginning a course-setting conversation in May 2020. 

“My background is real estate development, and I build office buildings, condominiums, and shopping centers,” Kenny said. “I get that process, and it’s something that’s very familiar to me. So, we went over to the city of Albuquerque’s office and met with the aviation department. They were very excited for us to build hangars.”

The High Flying Hangars project now stands as a testament to the father-son duo’s tenacity. From that initial meeting, it would take three years of active discussions to negotiate and approve lease terms mutually beneficial to the developing team and the city. 

• READ MORE: Tavernaero Airport Park Special Due to Its ‘Proximity to Paradise’

“Without going into all that detail, the federal funds that the government gives the sponsor are generally funneled almost exclusively to the large, international airports that are served by the airlines,” Kenny Hinkes said. “And the general aviation airports are definitely [secondary in] that system. So, we learned quickly that this was going to be an interesting process to navigate a lease and find a lender that understood how to finance construction and long-term, permanent financing for hangar buyers on leased land. I’m knowledgeable about how bankers think, since I’ve dealt with them for years, so we structured a deal that’s very compatible with community banks and credit unions. Our buyers all have 20-year, fixed-rate financing, if they need it.

“The other issue is title insurance. If you go to most GA airports, the people that are buying and selling hangars, quote, unquote, are just exchanging money in a handshake. They typically don’t have a real, constructive, equitable title to that improvement. It’s just a gentleman’s agreement, and that’s why it’s hard to get financing in most of those scenarios. We were able to get a recorded lease, a recorded sublease, [and] a recorded survey that gives title companies and lenders the kind of security that they need. With this, they feel comfortable advancing permanent funds to our buyers.

“We are excited about the project and have 46 hangars that we will develop over the next few years. We’ve sold out the first row and are taking reservations on the second row. Every month, we send out a newsletter to our buyers letting them know where we are at in the process. A recent response to our newsletter from a husband-and-wife team is priceless. They are both pilots and wrote to me that they are already so excited that they are decorating their hangar.”

As evidenced by the lengthy list the two encountered for their 172, Kenny said there is a voracious appetite for hangars in New Mexico’s most populous city. 

• READ MORE: Silver Lake Airport Aims to Go the Extra Mile

“People are hungry for shelter,” he said. “I tell people this all the time, and it’s true for our development. There are people on the sidelines wanting to either upgrade from their older airplane or get into aircraft ownership. But they are not going to buy anything unless they have a great place to keep it. They are not going to leave a new plane outside…We just got a call from a local business owner who bought a new plane, saying that he needed somewhere to keep it right away. We are bringing in new permanent residents to Double Eagle Airport who do not presently exist because there is no shelter.” 

The duo also pointed out the development is beneficial to the airport community in many ways, in addition to the obvious advantage of capturing some of the local demand for aircraft storage space. 

“This is such a good thing for this airport because there are old, existing T-hangars that people are going to come out of and move into our development,” Kenny said. “That is going to free up some space for people that aren’t ready to buy a hangar that would like a space to lease. Since there’s nothing available right now, it will open up opportunities for people at different price points to have shelter for their planes. It is going to bring more maintenance and fuel sales to the local FBO. So, we have seen this as a really symbiotic relationship and a good thing for Double Eagle Airport.”

The post Hungry for Shelter in New Mexico appeared first on FLYING Magazine.