Hi all,
I'm in the first cycle (i.e. have not yet done my first annual) of a new-to-me airplane - a Cessna 205. I have a couple of maintenance related questions I could your help on:
I need to do an ELT check and pitot/static in December. The plane has a handful of small squawks and inop items that I'm considering having addressed at the same time, but I'm pretty sensitive to doing "elective surgery" and having things spiral out of control, cost-wise. Can you opine on the following questions? Should I do them now, at annual (in April), or not at all?
1. The plane came equipped with a belly strobe that was stated as INOP when I bought the plane. As best as I can tell, it is an In-Flight Devices IVI-2, installed in 1970 (per STC records). Some day I'd like to just remove it for weight and drag (it sticks down like a red solo cup on the bottom of the fuselage) and I had planned to put that off EXCEPT that for that some reason on my last flight I noticed that the ancient lens cover was cracked and falling off. I reached down to inspect it, and the cover / "lens" fell off in my hand leaving the old lightbulb exposed. I don't know if there's any risk to flying around with an exposed lightbulb on an already INOP belly strobe, worst I can think is I don't want exhaust getting up into the tail cone, but that seems a stretch. I considered just buying a new lens and putting that on to cover things up, but can't find anything on that model (company probably went out of business in the last 50 years).
So here's the question: just fly with the lightbulb exposed? Remove the whole belly strobe system now? Will it be easier to remove when the plane is opened up for annual in April?
2. The plane has some extra equipment, some that I just won't use and some that is INOP that I'd like to remove. How hard it is to remove this stuff and its wiring and antennas? I'd like to remove these items, but not if it jeopardizes other systems, or could open up the proverbial "can of worms" and discover a bunch of problems. Also, one of the items is an old Apollo GX55 GPS, but it has a nice CDI head - might that work with a potential future GNS430 installation? Can it be saved? Should it be saved?
Here are the things I'd like to remove: CD Player/Entertainment system, GX55 GPS (but save the CDI head?), belly strobe (as discussed, inop), Stormscope and its associated parts (inop),
3. Where to start on a couple of new squawks?
First, the Nav1 VOR seems to be intermittent. It will work perfectly at times, and not at all at other times. Is there any troubleshooting you might suggest that I should try before opening things up? What's the most cost-effective way to approach fixing / replacing this unit? The unit is a MX170, not sure what the indicator is.
Second, sometimes the AI will be all whacked out of level. Not always, but sometimes. When it is whacked out of level, it will stay that way as if it were simply out of "calibration" but will *slowly* correct itself (for instance, did a 3 hour flight over Thanksgiving, on the return trip the AI started out showing a 30* bank to the right, by the time we landed three hours later, it was finally showing level). I also notice that the vacuum pressure reads on the low side of the acceptable range. The DG, however, does not precess meaningfully. Do you think this is a vacuum problem or an AI problem? What is the best course of action here?
Note: I'm not really panicking about any of these issues because I don't fly IFR (not current). Looking for your best advice to keep costs down. The big questions are basically should I fix all of these now (and what is the best route to do so), should I wait until annual when the plane is opened up, or should I leave sleeping dogs alone (like in the case of removing some of the inop stuff)?
Thanks a TON!
I'm in the first cycle (i.e. have not yet done my first annual) of a new-to-me airplane - a Cessna 205. I have a couple of maintenance related questions I could your help on:
I need to do an ELT check and pitot/static in December. The plane has a handful of small squawks and inop items that I'm considering having addressed at the same time, but I'm pretty sensitive to doing "elective surgery" and having things spiral out of control, cost-wise. Can you opine on the following questions? Should I do them now, at annual (in April), or not at all?
1. The plane came equipped with a belly strobe that was stated as INOP when I bought the plane. As best as I can tell, it is an In-Flight Devices IVI-2, installed in 1970 (per STC records). Some day I'd like to just remove it for weight and drag (it sticks down like a red solo cup on the bottom of the fuselage) and I had planned to put that off EXCEPT that for that some reason on my last flight I noticed that the ancient lens cover was cracked and falling off. I reached down to inspect it, and the cover / "lens" fell off in my hand leaving the old lightbulb exposed. I don't know if there's any risk to flying around with an exposed lightbulb on an already INOP belly strobe, worst I can think is I don't want exhaust getting up into the tail cone, but that seems a stretch. I considered just buying a new lens and putting that on to cover things up, but can't find anything on that model (company probably went out of business in the last 50 years).
So here's the question: just fly with the lightbulb exposed? Remove the whole belly strobe system now? Will it be easier to remove when the plane is opened up for annual in April?
2. The plane has some extra equipment, some that I just won't use and some that is INOP that I'd like to remove. How hard it is to remove this stuff and its wiring and antennas? I'd like to remove these items, but not if it jeopardizes other systems, or could open up the proverbial "can of worms" and discover a bunch of problems. Also, one of the items is an old Apollo GX55 GPS, but it has a nice CDI head - might that work with a potential future GNS430 installation? Can it be saved? Should it be saved?
Here are the things I'd like to remove: CD Player/Entertainment system, GX55 GPS (but save the CDI head?), belly strobe (as discussed, inop), Stormscope and its associated parts (inop),
3. Where to start on a couple of new squawks?
First, the Nav1 VOR seems to be intermittent. It will work perfectly at times, and not at all at other times. Is there any troubleshooting you might suggest that I should try before opening things up? What's the most cost-effective way to approach fixing / replacing this unit? The unit is a MX170, not sure what the indicator is.
Second, sometimes the AI will be all whacked out of level. Not always, but sometimes. When it is whacked out of level, it will stay that way as if it were simply out of "calibration" but will *slowly* correct itself (for instance, did a 3 hour flight over Thanksgiving, on the return trip the AI started out showing a 30* bank to the right, by the time we landed three hours later, it was finally showing level). I also notice that the vacuum pressure reads on the low side of the acceptable range. The DG, however, does not precess meaningfully. Do you think this is a vacuum problem or an AI problem? What is the best course of action here?
Note: I'm not really panicking about any of these issues because I don't fly IFR (not current). Looking for your best advice to keep costs down. The big questions are basically should I fix all of these now (and what is the best route to do so), should I wait until annual when the plane is opened up, or should I leave sleeping dogs alone (like in the case of removing some of the inop stuff)?
Thanks a TON!
