ScottM
Taxi to Parking
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2005
- Messages
- 42,529
- Location
- Variable, but somewhere on earth
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iBazinga!
Ok so it is 15F here and mostly sunny. For us, that is now what I call superior flying WX. It has bee a real crappy winter.
I went out to the airport to visit my plane. On the way there I tried to remember the number you call for weather. It was luckily it was in my phone so I was able to reach them, thank you speed dial. Then I had to remember my n-number, but that came back to me too. I got a WX brief and it was good enough to head up and do some practice and check out the plane since it just finished annual a couple of week ago. But that is when FSS tells me the airport in NOTAM'ed closed. WTF!
I still head up there and figure I'll do my post annual, special in depth, super dooper, pre-flight and also see if the LM guys just screwed up the grass strip closed for winter NOTAM.
The airport is actually closed. Thanks to ice. But the maintenance dude is working on clearing it up and he expects the runway to open in 30 minutes.
I head up to where my plane has been staying and start the preflight. Everything looks good except for a couple of missing screws on the flap handle cover. So I pull it out and start it up.
Weird noise from the nose, sound like something rubbing. ALT light is one and won't shut off, Ammeter is at zero, hmmmm
I shut down and go get one of the mechanics.
The rubbing came from a balance screw on the prop disk that was added to dynamically balance the prop. We pull the cowl to look at the alternator which had been replaced. The old one was functionally fine but a mounting bracket was about to break. After looking at it closely it looked ok and we start to wonder if it is a bad one from the factory. We look inside and check the circuit breaker and it is good, but I have had a couple of breakers sometime appear good but are not making contact. A simple tap and they come back to life. We decide to try this an viola' it works again.
We changed the bolt for the balance and button everything back up. There is not any more rubbing on the cowling from the balance bolt. So it is time to start her up and try flying.
The airport has been reopened but there is still patches of ice to deal with.
The engine kicks right over and I do an extended run up with everything looking great. I decide to take off, stay in the pattern and knock the rust off with a few take offs and landings. I surprise myself and and actually can still fly. It has been 6 weeks since my last flight.
I do two take off and landings and everything is working great so I head off to the west to do some practice. The plane is performing great! Better than pre-annual. My mags had fallen to 6 degrees and 5 degrees off and re-timing is really helping. The prop balance really did smooth out the flight. I am hitting yellow line with 2550 RPM!! I never hit yellow line except in a dive and now it is happening in level flight.
I do two 360-steep turns, one left, one right, and keep my altitude at +0/-80 feet. I then go into slow flight and with the stall horn screaming I do a 360 and fly for a while, never dropping my altitude by more than 50 feet.So I can still fly I am thinking. I decide to head back to the barn and call it a day. It has been about an hour.
All in all a nice way to find the plane and get the cobwebs off. Hopefully Saturday it will be even nicer and I will fly some more.
The only thing that is worrisome is that during preflight I noticed some blue liquid right behind the fuel tank. 100LL leaking CRAP! I wipe it off and wonder if it is from the vent they were working on. We decide to watch it, well after the flight there is again a little seepage, so they are going to boroscope the tank tomorrow to see if the rear sending nit gasket is bad. I hope it is not anymore serious than that.
I went out to the airport to visit my plane. On the way there I tried to remember the number you call for weather. It was luckily it was in my phone so I was able to reach them, thank you speed dial. Then I had to remember my n-number, but that came back to me too. I got a WX brief and it was good enough to head up and do some practice and check out the plane since it just finished annual a couple of week ago. But that is when FSS tells me the airport in NOTAM'ed closed. WTF!
I still head up there and figure I'll do my post annual, special in depth, super dooper, pre-flight and also see if the LM guys just screwed up the grass strip closed for winter NOTAM. The airport is actually closed. Thanks to ice. But the maintenance dude is working on clearing it up and he expects the runway to open in 30 minutes.
I head up to where my plane has been staying and start the preflight. Everything looks good except for a couple of missing screws on the flap handle cover. So I pull it out and start it up.
Weird noise from the nose, sound like something rubbing. ALT light is one and won't shut off, Ammeter is at zero, hmmmm
I shut down and go get one of the mechanics.
The rubbing came from a balance screw on the prop disk that was added to dynamically balance the prop. We pull the cowl to look at the alternator which had been replaced. The old one was functionally fine but a mounting bracket was about to break. After looking at it closely it looked ok and we start to wonder if it is a bad one from the factory. We look inside and check the circuit breaker and it is good, but I have had a couple of breakers sometime appear good but are not making contact. A simple tap and they come back to life. We decide to try this an viola' it works again.
We changed the bolt for the balance and button everything back up. There is not any more rubbing on the cowling from the balance bolt. So it is time to start her up and try flying.
The airport has been reopened but there is still patches of ice to deal with.
The engine kicks right over and I do an extended run up with everything looking great. I decide to take off, stay in the pattern and knock the rust off with a few take offs and landings. I surprise myself and and actually can still fly. It has been 6 weeks since my last flight.
I do two take off and landings and everything is working great so I head off to the west to do some practice. The plane is performing great! Better than pre-annual. My mags had fallen to 6 degrees and 5 degrees off and re-timing is really helping. The prop balance really did smooth out the flight. I am hitting yellow line with 2550 RPM!! I never hit yellow line except in a dive and now it is happening in level flight.
I do two 360-steep turns, one left, one right, and keep my altitude at +0/-80 feet. I then go into slow flight and with the stall horn screaming I do a 360 and fly for a while, never dropping my altitude by more than 50 feet.So I can still fly I am thinking. I decide to head back to the barn and call it a day. It has been about an hour.
All in all a nice way to find the plane and get the cobwebs off. Hopefully Saturday it will be even nicer and I will fly some more.
The only thing that is worrisome is that during preflight I noticed some blue liquid right behind the fuel tank. 100LL leaking CRAP! I wipe it off and wonder if it is from the vent they were working on. We decide to watch it, well after the flight there is again a little seepage, so they are going to boroscope the tank tomorrow to see if the rear sending nit gasket is bad. I hope it is not anymore serious than that.
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