drunkenbeagle
Gang Member
As soon as I have a hangar, the dehydrator will be the second purchase (after the fridge).
My last annual
- Thread starter USMCmech
- Start date
As soon as I have a hangar, the dehydrator will be the second purchase (after the fridge).
fholbert
Mod's - Please don't edit my posts!
When you own an airplane you find out how to get things done cheaper without sacrificing quality.
- Static / Transponder checks: You can go to the big time Garmin installer or use the mobile guys who are $500 cheaper and meet you at your hangar.
- Prop Balancing: All the King Air places do a very poor job and are really expensive. Jim Fackler is one of the best in the country and he comes to you for $400.
- Oil Cooler: You can buy from a retailer for $2,000 or direct from Pacific Oil Cooler in Pomona CA for $600.
- Starter: Not legal but my friend uses an auto starter rebuild shop. A rebuild is $130, takes two days. Who ever heard of a SE plane crashing because the engine wouldn't start?
- Cylinder overhaul (valves too): Many engine shop mechanics moonlight on the weekends (don't try to do jugs yourself). Take your jugs to the engine shop yourself and avoid the middle man.
rframe
pǝʇɹǝʌuı
Absolutely run it until it shows signs of excessive wear (metal in filter, oil analysis, visible cam issues, etc). Way more likely to have problems on a young engine than an old one. As others above said, Mike Busch makes a great case for how backwards and outdated we approach GA maintenance, read his books and check out his podcasts/videos if you haven't.
ahw01
Well-Known Member
And John Deakin too John Deakin's Engine-Related Columns
bimmerphile
MCAS Meat Inhibition Logic
it would work great in your place, it actually seems more humid there than my airport most times
You can get the one on spruce for like $300, it has a microcontroller that monitors the outside humidity and will kick the pump on as required. I know a few guys that have made their own but run consantly which is ok if you dont mind recharging the silica pellets more frequently. the dynavibe guys made the DryBot at OSH last year which is cool because it will monitor the dehydrator life and ‘regen’ (bake) the pellets on its own. But its $1000
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
One of the giant money sucks is when your local MX tells you a cylinder failed a compression test, and tosses you a $3k estimate to replace the cylinder, but then doesn't know how to lap a valve or do a solvent purge (to clean/unstick a ring) with the cylinder in place.
Conti lower ends are super solid, but their valves...ah, leave something to be desired. You can get a cheapo borescope that takes awesome pictures with your iPhone right off Amazon. Pull a plug and take a peek every 100 hours. If you see anything other than a circle on the exhaust value, lap the valve, check the rotator, and you'll save yourself some drama.
When I had my airplane, I did stock some parts in my "AOG bag" in the baggage compartment, namely a spare mag, a starter relay (could double as a battery relay), spare tire valve cores, tow pin and a spare data card (in case one got corrupted on the road). At home I kept a spare OHed AC compressor. I did surf and snipe some random peculiar parts that do go bad and could be a hassle to find. It doesn't take long to figure out what is hard to find/expensive/prone to go bad, so when deals pop up, you grab one and stick it on the shelf.
Pull your engine monitor logs and look at them every so often, although the only thing I ever caught from them were bad EGT/TIT sensors.
I did find that installing a standby alternator produced a "Karmic Neutralization Field" so that afterwards, the main alternator never, ever failed.
Ask your A&P/IA if they're good sourcing your own parts. Not common stuff they might make a margin on (which I'm completely ok with), but airframe parts that can be a PITA. They might even welcome it because some can be a hassle to find and soak up a lot of time. Be sure you coordinate to make sure they're the right parts.
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fholbert
Mod's - Please don't edit my posts!
I‘ve never had the need but that’s a really good one. An IA based in PA on my breed forum is a big believer in lapping valves. He does a lot of Viking an Bo’s.
I try to show up with all parts needed at each annual. Had to comply with the Tempest oil filter adapter AD last annual. I brought a gasket kit, filter and a quart of oil with me. Also brought the door seal I wanted replaced. Don’t want my plane sitting in the shop waiting for parts. Shops charge you for hangar storage too.
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drunkenbeagle
Gang Member
Or, you know, maybe fly the airplane and repeat the test when the engine is warm like the manufacturer says to.
In practice, if the engine is making rated power, I don't see a ton of value in what compression tests really tell you. Borescope pictures of the cylinder walls and exhaust valves are way more useful. Oil consumption is something I pay much closer attention to.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
I had cylinders that fell under the SAP investment cast cylinder AD. I had to do the boroscope & soapy water test every 50 hours. I just did it at every other oil change (turbo & salty environment, so I changed the oil every 25 hours). My Conti didn't burn any oil at all between changes. Not a drop. I was out on a trip and I think I ran it out to 40 hours before I had to add a quart.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure how long an engine can last, but I know that infant mortality is a serious risk
3 years ago a college classmate of mine died in a crash due to a freshly overhauled engine failure. It had 13 hours on it since it had been rebuilt by a reputable shop in the US. It basically had the ferry time from the US to El Salvador and was being flown for missionary work. The pilot left behind a wife and two baby girls. The passenger/copilot suffered 80% 3rd degree burns.
I'm firmly of the opinion that if they had just left that perfectly healthy engine alone that crash would never have happened. Somebody somewhere along the line didn't torque a bolt properly and killed a pilot.
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mrivc211
Well-Known Member
Great recommendations. I’ve got my A&P practical planned for April. Here’s a list of spare parts I keep in my warehouse for my fleet of 10 C172’s:
Unfilled 12 and 24V Gill battery
12 and 24V starters for 122 and 149 ring gear
12 and 24V alternators
Attitude Indicator
Directional gyro
push to talk switches
320-H2AD
320-E2D
320-D2J
360-L2A
cylindersstored in a box filled with oil
3 dozen 48110/48103 oil filters
6 new spark plugs
2 freshly overhauled magnetos(1 impulse coupled)
Freshly overhauled airboxes for H2AD,E2D,D2J engines
12 600x6.00 ply tires
4 500x5.00 ply tires
Associated tire tubes
Tire talc
Various nuts, bolts, machines, sheet metal screws
Various size cotter pins
2 sets of main tires mounted on rims ready to install
2 sets of nose tires mounted on rims ready to install
This is just the main stuff I go thru frequently, sometimes I’ll stock a hard to get item I’ll know I’ll need at some point and don’t want AOG for weeks
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Maaaan, you could benefit from some fleet standardization
mrivc211
Well-Known Member
Ya, problem was when I was buying up planes, P models were and still are hard to come by so I had to settle for various models. The various engines don’t actually have much difference in terms of stuff we change. They all use the same spark plugs, air and oil filters, oil. Changing a cylinder only happens once per tbo. The main challenger is the electrically systems being 12 vs 24. If I could run a fleet of all 24V, I’d be able to cut out a ton of overlap on batteries and alternators, ACU’s.
The offer is still good for using my hangar for your annual. My IA only charges $250 for the sign off and my A&P only charges $45/hr. The A&P does the work before the annual starts so the day the IA shows up your 99.9% gonna get signed off that day.
DE727UPS
Well-Known Member
Thanks. This is my first annual and I'm having the guy who's done the last 5 or 6 do it. He's got a pretty good track record but isn't cheap. Just does a good job and knows the plane inside and out. We'll see after that. It's a hike to bring the plane all the way down there from WA and back. After flying for the airlines, I'm pretty scared to fly these little planes over anything other than flat land during the day. Only thing safer than that is your Redbird. I'm so chicken now. When it comes time for the overhaul, though, I might be talkin' to you. The mechanic is a big believer in running over TBO under controlled conditions. We'll see how it goes.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
Man, I have to hand it to you. Running a school or rental op back in the late 80s or early 90s was no joke. Major, major props for doing it in this environment.
DE727UPS
Well-Known Member
I've seen his operation. It's very impressive. He's got comfy couches in the lobby and his dog is there during the day. A young guy came in when I was there checking out flight schools and he got a no BS intro to the career. I got to talk to him quite it bit myself and I think he got a lot out of it. I think the good times in the pilot career biz trickle down to the good flight school. I definitely remember some shady operations back in the 90's. I might have ran one.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
The vast majority of flight school/rental ops seem to go out of their way to make it suck, and suck hard. Absolutely zero "curb appeal" and the inside of the office has all the charm of a temporary H&R Block office during tax time.
I got lucky. Learned to fly at an "old school" place that was a Cessna "Flight Center". Hangar like décor in the office, with plenty of tables for flight planning, talking or just shooting the s4!t with other pilots. Lots of shirt tails hanging on the walls, and a side room where you could study the Cessna film strips. Ground school was friday night, with movie night right after.
Good times.
mrivc211
Well-Known Member
Oh thats right. I forgot its up in WA. Definitely not worth bringing it down by the time you spend money on gas or risk blowing a tire on a refuel stop. During COVID lockdown I was bored out of my mind. We were only doing 50% of our normal flying so I said the heck with it and jumped in my N model and flew up to Eugene. Dude, I'll never do that again! lmao. I kept worrying I was going to run out of fuel. I took a spare nose and main tore mounted on a rim ready to go in case I got a flat. I brought all my tools with me in case the spark plugs got fouled up on that one flight I didn't want them too. I brought a tire jack. Man, the plan got heavy with 2 of us, bags, and all of the tools I hauled up there. The cool thing is I did fuel stops in former cities I used to do layovers in the brasilia. Blast from the past. I never realized the Rogue Valley Inn in Medford is kind of a dump. lol. I maybe it was just newer 20 years ago.
Theres some guys running crazy times over TBO. 3000-3500. Those guys are asking for crazy lawsuits when the you know what hits the fan in a rental scenario. In your case, I don't think its that risky up to a certain point. 2500 hours no problem if you're monitoring things real closely. Oil temps, oil usage, compression checks every 50 hours, oil analysis(your probably going to get some yellow colored reports coming back when going over 2500). Red reports are the ones where I don't let the thing fly.
Tell you what, when you get started on the annual, ask the guy to write down the list of parts he wants you to replace, hopefully the list is short. I'll look around my usual places, and if we can't find the parts used, I get anywhere from 5-20% off parts at spruce. I can have them UPS it directly to you. Free shipping over $250. Good luck on your annual my friend, may the force be with you.
mrivc211
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the compliments Don. He signed up 2 weeks later for the airline program. He's doing pretty well. Unfortunately he had a tail strike in my G1000 S model 2 weeks ago misjudging a landing with Southwest holding between the runways. Damage wasn't too bad. Needs a new tail hook and some plastics. Broke some egos at the same time but I think that's a healthy experience to humble us.
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