414 Engine Overhaul GoFundMe

Ted

Ted

The pilot formerly known as Twin Engine Ted
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
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iFlyNothing
I'm trying something new here. The right engine on the 414, while 200 hours from TBO, will get there probably within the next year or two. Also, both engines have 25 years on them. While I'm going to run the engines as long as I can, TSIO-520s aren't known for being engines that typically go well past TBO.

For the 310, we sent the engines down to Zephyr Aircraft Engines. They did a wonderful job and the engines ran beautifully. Plus, the engines had a "pedigree" being first run factory remans.

For the 414, I plan on overhauling the engines myself under the supervision of an A&P. This will save a great deal of money for Cloud Nine. However in order to do that without having the plane down for 6 months or more (I'm realistic about my schedule capabilities), we need to buy a core engine to overhaul. I expect this will save us around $30k between the two engines by doing it ourselves (these engines are not cheap to overhaul).

I've talked with the seller of a particular TSIO-520-NB that is a good candidate. So, we're running a GoFundMe to raise money to buy the engine.

For the pilots and aircraft owners, I am going to document all aspects of the engine overhaul from the engine arriving at my door to the parts ordered for the overhaul to the break-in run and share it with the world. This will be both entertaining and educational for pilots and will include pictures and videos of what we find and do. The engine overhaul process is something that is somewhat mysterious to many and can be scary because of what you might find. By doing it this way, we also are in the good position of not only having plenty of time to make decisions (and thus work to make the most cost-effective ones), then doing the final swap when we're ready.

The GoFundMe link is below for anyone who's interested.

https://www.gofundme.com/26n6pgs
 
so, before I speak what's really on my mind, what is Cloud Nine? maybe I should know but I don't.
 
eman1200 said:
so, before I speak what's really on my mind, what is Cloud Nine? maybe I should know but I don't.
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Sorry, I make the assumption that people on here know, but I don't talk about it much.

Cloud Nine Rescue Flights is a 501(c)3 non-profit that I started over 7 years ago with my Aztec ("Just a guy and a plane"). We've focused primarily on animal rescue, transporting homeless pets from overpopulated areas where they will be euthanized due to overpopulation to parts of the country where they'll find new homes. I started off with the Aztec, a couple years later the 310 got donated and it became the primary aircraft. Last month, we sold the 310 and bought this project 414 which will fit more dogs, allow us to fly over the Rockies with reliability (this has actually come up as an issue with a number of recent requests), and will also allow us to get a stretcher and start filling a niche that Angel Flight doesn't fill since Angel Flight requires that patients be able to sit in a standard plane. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time.

I don't talk about Cloud Nine regularly on here, and even less regularly do I post any request for donations. Mostly I limit that to our Facebook page and directed eMails to our followers (all of whom sign up on their own - I never sign people up for our mailing lists just because I have their eMail addresses).

If the overall reaction to this is negative, I won't do it again. My thought was that this might be something that would be of interest to the group since I am going to overhaul the engines myself and will document the whole process. Between the purchase, the annual to get the 414 up and flying, and the expectation that more will break on it once I start flying it, I don't want to cut into the reserve funds to buy this engine. However, it does seem like it's a very good candidate for the overhaul, and the seller has agree to hold it for me for a couple weeks while I try to raise the funds.
 
I just tossed $20 your way :)
 
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Thanks, Jesse! :)
 
I think its wonderful what you're doing. I have a huge love for animals and would have been a veterinarian if I wasn't such a wuss. I'll try and donate as soon as I get paid but in the meantime I will share this on my twitter and Facebook :)
 
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PicklesWartooth said:
I think its wonderful what you're doing. I have a huge love for animals and would have been a veterinarian if I wasn't such a wuss. I'll try and donate as soon as I get paid but in the meantime I will share this on my twitter and Facebook :)
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Thank you! And no kidding on the veterinarian part. We haven't done this in a few years, but I used to fly teams of veterinarians and vet techs up to the middle of nowhere to do spay/neuter clinics. They'd do 50 surgeries or so a day, sometimes more. I'd sometimes stay up there to help, which mostly consisted of me carrying the passed out dogs into and out of the operating room. A few times I went in there in the middle of a surgery. It made the veterinarians (who always got airsick flying) smile to see me turn a bit green.
 
I'll go ahead and share on my FB. I've already gotten a few shares of it myself already. Many of my FB friends are also already connected, somehow, with Ted, so expect to see multiple posts.
 
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And if you are looking for someone to help turn a wrench now and then, give me a holler. Your place is just two right turns down the road from mine...or my place is 2 left turns from yours, or something...

And yes, I know you don't park the plane in your barn.
 
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Matthew said:
And if you are looking for someone to help turn a wrench now and then, give me a holler. Your place is just two right turns down the road from mine...or my place is 2 left turns from yours, or something...

And yes, I know you don't park the plane in your barn.
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Definitely will let you know.

I'll have to work out the specifics, but I do expect the teardown to be done in my garage/basement. Putting it back together we'll see. The A&P I'm working with at the moment is in Nebraska.
 
Is a gofundme contribution directly 501(c)3 deductable? Or do we use the cloud9 number?
 
I put in $10. It's not much, but it'll help some. You've been generous with your advice to both piston engine owners and the twin curious on here and I appreciate it. Also, flying dogs is a good thing.

John
 
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deonb said:
Is a gofundme contribution directly 501(c)3 deductable? Or do we use the cloud9 number?
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That's a great question. They all constitute contributions to Cloud Nine, so you still get the 501(c)3 tax write-off.

However, I don't get contact info for donations on GoFundMe, so I can't send out acknowledgement letters. As I understand it you don't need the acknowledgement letter until the donation reaches a certain amount, so you'd have to keep track of it yourself. I do eMail acknowledgements for all donations made through the website since I do get your eMail via PayPal.
 
Donated on the website. Go fund me sends me too much spam email so I don't like that route.

Great service Ted. Wish I could have given more but the Velocity is killing me this month.:(
 
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Velocity173 said:
Donated on the website. Go fund me sends me too much spam email so I don't like that route.

Great service Ted. Wish I could have given more but the Velocity is killing me this month.:(
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I saw the donation - thank you! :)

Including yours and another website donation that puts us at close to 10% of the goal. :)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
That's a great question. They all constitute contributions to Cloud Nine, so you still get the 501(c)3 tax write-off.

However, I don't get contact info for donations on GoFundMe, so I can't send out acknowledgement letters. As I understand it you don't need the acknowledgement letter until the donation reaches a certain amount, so you'd have to keep track of it yourself. I do eMail acknowledgements for all donations made through the website since I do get your eMail via PayPal.
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Thanks. I made a donation via your website. Couldn't specify that it's for this specific goal though, so please add it by hand.
 
deonb said:
Thanks. I made a donation via your website. Couldn't specify that it's for this specific goal though, so please add it by hand.
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Saw the donation - thank you!

I'm making all donations that come in now count towards this goal. Basically, first $6,500 I get, I'm cutting the seller a check and the engine will be on the way.
 
Good luck Ted!

Mary and I sent along a donation via the Cloud Nine web page. I'm looking forward to following the build.
 
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Thank you, Gary!

We're at over 10% of the goal already, I'm happy to say!
 
Just curious, do you end up funding most of Cloud Nine's expenses out of your own pocket, or do the donations (or something else) fund most of it?
 
First off, I want to thank everyone who's donated thus far. Most of the donors have been POA members, and that means a great deal to me. Thanks to you, in the first 24 hours we raised over 10% of the goal!

I didn't push this over Memorial Day weekend here or on Facebook because frankly, as a country we should be focusing on the true reason for the day and I wasn't going to take away from that. I put an updated blog on Facebook.

dans2992 said:
Just curious, do you end up funding most of Cloud Nine's expenses out of your own pocket, or do the donations (or something else) fund most of it?
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I can't afford to do all the Cloud Nine missions out of my own pocket. If I could, I wouldn't bother with the non-profit. It's a lot of extra work and I hate asking for donations, even though it's not for me. I've gotten better at it, but it's still not something I enjoy doing. I'm also more of a "Do not let you right hand know what your left hand is doing" kind of people when it comes to being charitable, so that's always been a challenge for me with running a non-profit.

The way I try to structure things is to use my pocket as the emergency fund in case something major happens that needs to get fixed, and then use donations and grants for the day-to-day operations and long term goals. Sometimes I structure the money as loans (which gets paid back via flight time for personal use - I do not get any personal flight hours for free from Cloud Nine, nor do I log personal flights as "Maintenance Flights" like I've seen some people do for corporate owned aircraft to get around paying) and sometimes I structure it as an outright donation. At my last company, there was a generous employee matching program for donations. If I recall correctly, I made two 5-figure donations during that time period that were matched at 100%, one towards the engine overhauls and one for another reason that I can't recall, I think it might've been to get through an annual when the Cloud Nine account didn't have the money in the bank account. Cloud Nine never has and never will pay me (or anyone else) a salary. Of course, we do end up paying shops for labor. Eventually, Laurie and I hope to get an A&P/IA (one or both of us) and then we'll do all the MX ourselves, which we also won't get paid for.

We knew going into the 414 that it would be a stretch and a push from a financial perspective. You also have the safety aspect to consider, which gets into various upgrades that I intend on doing. The 310 had excellent OEI performance and safety, in part due to the simplicity of being overpowered (300 HP IO-520s instead of the factory 260 HP IO-470s) and also due to a great useful load - we were almost never flying at gross. Compare that to the 414, for which virtually all of our flights will be at gross out of operational necessity, and with only 310 HP per side (but a gross weight of 6350 lbs as I recall instead of 5200), the plane needs to be optimized for better OEI performance. This includes going on a diet (the plane, not me - I'm 175 lbs) and increasing OEI performance through targeted upgrades - VGs being first (coming right after this trip), strakes, and likely AA intercoolers as well. Eventually we will probably go after a RAM conversion that will increase the gross weight as well. Of course, none of these are free and have to be budgeted in while being balanced with other needs. Don't forget ADS-B on the horizon, and this plane is /A as it sits.

GlennAB1 said:
What better cause.... maintenance challenge to match or beat my donation. Come on folks.
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Thank you! Could you clarify what you're offering here just so everyone knows?
 
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She flies! :)
 
Great work Ted ! I just sent in a little something. In most cases I care more about animals than I do about most people. Keep up the good fight.
Art
 
Art VanDelay said:
Great work Ted ! I just sent in a little something. In most cases I care more about animals than I do about most people. Keep up the good fight.
Art
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Thanks, Art! The dogs and I appreciate the donation.
 
Not much, but I threw a $20 your way. Don't spend it all in one place :p
 
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Got back from the inaugural dog run today. Put 20 hours or so on the 414 in the past week.

All I can say is, this is an excellent plane and even better suited to the mission than I'd thought it would be. It has literally double the capacity of the 310 for dogs (keeping the $/dog ratio roughly the same). While doing that, it's also more comfortable and has space for a cooler that I can put my food in, which is nice on the long trips. There were a few minor squawks that came up, but nothing significant.

Thanks to those who donated!
 
Close to 30% now. Getting there!
 
Good luck with that! I just made a donation to my Angel Flight fund and a smaller one to my beer fund so can't contribute at this time but wish you all the best.
 
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