Wildly Discouraged

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Mtns2Skies

Final Approach
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Mtns2Skies
I'm on year 3 of my Skywagon flying restoration. It seems like at every turn I take a step forward and a step back. Cosmetically the plane looks worse off than it ever has, both from a paint standpoint as well as interior - both are scheduled for install. Lately the plane has just felt like "work" to own it and to maintain and upgrade it, I'm long past the point of regret as far as electing to do a restoration, but at this point I'm far enough in that it just makes sense to push through for another year to finish it out.

We've been pouring money into the plane for years and it just never feels closer to being done. A hangar collapsed on the plane and some shoddy A&P's that worked with my avionics shop have made for some bad rigging and something amiss with the engine on start-up that hasn't been quite right since. I'm just tired of flying from maintenance event to maintenance event only to have the plane take backward steps. Right now my A&P is struggling with some parts I ordered out of my own pocket to fix damage from the hangar collapse, but they're just not working out quite right. I'm tired of this same old fight, interrupted only very rarely by flying that makes it worth it.

I'm not interested in selling since well, I don't think I want to exit aviation and by the time this plane is done that would be better than buying another one and having to start the process over or not having a full grasp of the status of all of the systems.

My biggest proponents of me taking this journey have passed away, Robin, or others have retired, or exited aviation altogether so overall I'm feeling a bit wobbly from a support standpoint, and well just wildly discouraged. Just venting, not really looking for sympathy it really is a first world problem and important to keep that in perspective.

To me it feels like building a plane. Those of you that have built planes where do you find the willpower to keep pushing through on such a massive project?
 
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I’m sorry to hear you’re having to reassess. Only you can decide if it’s with the investment.

I encourage you to finish the project and fly until you can’t fly anymore because it’s worth it. What I think doesn’t matter though…

Good luck!
 
Stay the course. One day you’ll tell your wife you’re thinking of selling the 180 and she’ll say no, it’s part of the family. That’s a great feeling!
 
Mtns2Skies said:
We've been pouring money into the plane for years and it just never feels closer to being done.
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Have you thought about pouring MORE money into it, FASTER? Because that seems to be the trick... ;)

The hangar collapse was really sad, and a big setback... Luckily, that is probably never going to happen to you again, so hopefully things will be smoother-sailing. And once you have the P&I done, you're really down to just maintenance "stuff", and the longer you own the plane, the more systems you will have gone through and fixed up and the better it'll be.
 
That hangar issue sounds painful.
The rest is not la, best of luck. I am just stubborn, that is how I approach these kinds of problems.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I have the same condition.
Sadly there is no treatment, no vaccine.
The state health services should at least recognize we have a bonafide disability!
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It’s masochism of sorts. Some folks seem to have it worse than others...
 
Mtns2Skies said:
To me it feels like building a plane. Those of you that have built planes where do you find the willpower to keep pushing through on such a massive project?
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Building a plane takes someone that isn't a quitter. I'm not, and from what I read ... neither are you! Stick with it and soon you'll be glad you did!
 
Vent away, it helps! Hang in there, this too shall pass...
 
Being a home builder, I can empathize with the “will this ever end” sentiment. I’ve been building my Hatz Classic for over 10 years now, and it seems once I finish a task, two others pop up.

What helps for me is first having fellow builders that I can lean on. I have two buddies that are in the same boat, and we often group text, mostly to take jabs at each other, but also to report progress and offer encouragement. Even though we are not in close proximity, keeping touch helps.

I’ve also had to step away from the project for a week or two at a time. Clears the mind, often enough to think through the latest challenge.

Then there’s seeing fellow builders complete their projects. Just happened to me this week. It’s an illustration that there actually is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Hang in there. Each time you open the hangar door and see your completed restoration you’ll realize it was all worth it.
 
Hey fellow pilots are the first to judge even a great landing, first to say you are wrong on any number of topics aviation related or not (even if your are right), Critique your pre-heating technique or your completely wrong use of mixture... but dagnabit when the proverbial poop hits the propeller- it’s all for one and one for all- vent away brother! Sounds like you have earned the right to!

hang in there man, bring back one of our precious old birds is the labor of living saints in my book. My hats off to ya...
 
I know the feeling man, but I think it’s easier to beat ourselves up over something when things aren’t going so great, versus when everything is all hunky dory. Times like these make it easy to throw in the towel and find something else to do, but once everything in the near term is mostly completed, you’ll be glad that you weathered the storm. You and I both know that there’s nothing better than being able to go to the hangar and fly an airplane, when and wherever we want and that privilege is what puts a smile on our faces. Chin up, it will get better.
 
I like to think of math. Figure out how much a finished 180 is worth and how much you paid and will sink into it. You bought low and will probably end up somewhere close to even when you’re done? That motivates me.

My suggestion - find the best A&P and pay and be done. You probably know who you should take it to for proper rigging, for instance.
 
I felt this way when doing my engine overhaul. At the time it felt like it would never fly again. Now that’s 3 years behind us and the pain is finally receded. I am skittish about starting any work to it though because I remember that feeling of getting further from the goal rather than closer. The hardest part for me is the best medicine for that despair is to go flying, but... so I joined a club and got my glider rating during that time, and did a lot of renting.

now we’re building a plane. It definitely requires looking at the forest only occasionally, and focusing on the trees immediately in front of you day to day, but the expectations of completion are so far away it’s not as much of a distraction.
 
Purchasing tunnel vision can have long term effects. Been there.
 
One of the airplanes I maintain and fly received a full restoration about 10 years prior to purchase. It made it through the import ok, and we flew it about 50 hours that year. Then it took 1.5 years to annual it and correct the discrepancies I found. About 5 hours after that one of the engines let us know it was unhappy so the plane sat for about a year that time, with the engine off. So, for all the years this guy has owned it, spending money, he has gotten very little enjoyment out of it.

The same guy also owned another plane that was imported and subsequently wrecked on the first flight after import. Of course it wasn’t insured and was quite unique too. He hadn’t ever even sat in that one...

You’ve got a flying airplane that just needs work. Even brand new ones need work and the job of keeping an airplane in decent shape can feel a lot like work. Remember to enjoy the good parts of the process. From other posts you’ve made it sounds like you’ve flown it a lot more than most recreational owners do.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
To me it feels like building a plane. Those of you that have built planes where do you find the willpower to keep pushing through on such a massive project?
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My project is not work, it's supposed to be fun. When it's not fun I stop. It takes a lot longer, so it's not for everyone, but it works for me.

Nauga,
long in the tooth
 
nauga said:
My project is not work, it's supposed to be fun. When it's not fun I stop. It takes a lot longer, so it's not for everyone, but it works for me.

Nauga,
long in the tooth
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Yup. Take a break from it. When a project does that to you, you no longer own it. It owns you. You have to drop it for awhile to let your mind recover.
 
I feel your pain. I purchased a Cessna 150 a couple years ago to build hours in. I flew 800 hours in a year and it felt like for every week I flew I spent 4 days tinkering on things. Then covid happened and the airline industry tanked so I gave up on that dream. Sold the 150 just as the condition inspection came up on the Venture. During the inspection we found some significant issues that needed to be addressed. It's been almost a year since I flew now because I was just fed up with it. The bug is starting to return though which seems to be the case with everyone in aviation. They get burned out, take some time off only to have their interest re-sparked. No shame in taking a breather on the project to help boost your motivation.
 
Dan Thomas said:
Yup. Take a break from it. When a project does that to you, you no longer own it. It owns you. You have to drop it for awhile to let your mind recover.
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I’m reminded of this. Long, but really worth the read, from "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M Pirsig (September 6, 1928 – April 24, 2017)


Stuckness. That's what I want to talk about today.

A screw sticks, for example, on a side cover assembly. You check the manual to see if there might be any special cause for this screw to come off so hard, but all it says is "Remove side cover plate" in that wonderful terse technical style that never tells you what you want to know. There's no earlier procedure left undone that might cause the cover screws to stick.

If you're experienced you'd probably apply a penetrating liquid and an impact driver at this point. But suppose you're inexperienced and you attach a self-locking plier wrench to the shank of your screwdriver and really twist it hard, a procedure you've had success with in the past, but which this time succeeds only in tearing the slot of the screw.

Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a torn screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. You're stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle.

This isn't a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck. In traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.

The book's no good to you now. Neither is scientific reason. You don't need any scientific experiments to find out what's wrong. It's obvious what's wrong. What you need is an hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses. It operates only after they're around.

This is the zero moment of consciousness. Stuck. No answer. Honked. Kaput. It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing time. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take the machine to a real mechanic who knows how to figure these things out.

It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. You think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and drop it off. It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can defeat you so totally.

What you're up against is the great unknown, the void of all Western thought. You need some ideas, some hypotheses. Traditional scientific method, unfortunately, has never quite gotten around to say exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses. Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past. Creativity, originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination..."unstuckness," in other words...are completely outside its domain.

We're still stuck on that screw and the only way it's going to get unstuck is by abandoning further examination of the screw according to traditional scientific method. That won't work. What we have to do is examine traditional scientific method in the light of that stuck screw.

We have been looking at that screw "objectively." According to the doctrine of "objectivity," which is integral with traditional scientific method, what we like or don't like about that screw has nothing to do with our correct thinking. We should not evaluate what we see. We should keep our mind a blank tablet which nature fills for us, and then reason disinterestedly from the facts we observe.

But when we stop and think about it disinterestedly, in terms of this stuck screw, we begin to see that this whole idea of disinterested observation is silly. Where are those facts? What are we going to observe disinterestedly? The torn slot? The immovable side cover plate? The color of the paint job? The speedometer? The sissy bar? As Poincaré would have said, there are an infinite number of facts about the motorcycle, and the right ones don't just dance up and introduce themselves. The right facts, the ones we really need, are not only passive, they are damned elusive, and we're not going to just sit back and "observe" them. We're going to have to be in there looking for them or we're going to be here a long time. Forever. As Poincaré pointed out, there must be a subliminal choice of what facts we observe.

The difference between a good mechanic and a bad one, like the difference between a good mathematician and a bad one, is precisely this ability to select the good facts from the bad ones on the basis of quality. He has to care! This is an ability about which formal traditional scientific method has nothing to say. It's long past time to take a closer look at this qualitative preselection of facts which has seemed so scrupulously ignored by those who make so much of these facts after they are "observed." I think that it will be found that a formal acknowledgment of the role of Quality in the scientific process doesn't destroy the empirical vision at all. It expands it, strengthens it and brings it far closer to actual scientific practice.

I think the basic fault that underlies the problem of stuckness is traditional rationality's insistence upon "objectivity," a doctrine that there is a divided reality of subject and object. For true science to take place these must be rigidly separate from each other. "You are the mechanic. There is the motorcycle. You are forever apart from one another. You do this to it. You do that to it. These will be the results."

This eternally dualistic subject-object way of approaching the motorcycle sounds right to us because we're used to it. But it's not right. It's always been an artificial interpretation superimposed on reality. It's never been reality itself. When this duality is completely accepted a certain nondivided relationship between the mechanic and motorcycle, a craftsmanlike feeling for the work, is destroyed. When traditional rationality divides the world into subjects and objects it shuts out Quality, and when you're really stuck it's Quality, not any subjects or objects, that tells you where you ought to go.

By returning our attention to Quality it is hoped that we can get technological work out of the noncaring subject-object dualism and back into craftsmanlike self-involved reality again, which will reveal to us the facts we need when we are stuck.

Let's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the stuckness now occurring, the zero of consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it's exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce; through koans, deep breathing, sitting still and the like. Your mind is empty, you have a "hollow-flexible" attitude of "beginner's mind." You're right at the front end of the train of knowledge, at the track of reality itself. Consider, for a change, that this is a moment to be not feared but cultivated. If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then you may be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas.

The solution to the problem often at first seems unimportant or undesirable, but the state of stuckness allows it, in time, to assume its true importance. It seemed small because your previous rigid evaluation which led to the stuckness made it small.

But now consider the fact that no matter how hard you try to hang on to it, this stuckness is bound to disappear. Your mind will naturally and freely move toward a solution. Unless you are a real master at staying stuck you can't prevent this. The fear of stuckness is needless because the longer you stay stuck the more you see the Quality...reality that gets you unstuck every time. What's really been getting you stuck is the running from the stuckness through the cars of your train of knowledge looking for a solution that is out in front of the train.

Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. It's this understanding of Quality as revealed by stuckness which so often makes self-taught mechanics so superior to institute-trained men who have learned how to handle everything except a new situation.

Normally screws are so cheap and small and simple you think of them as unimportant. But now, as your Quality awareness becomes stronger, you realize that this one, individual, particular screw is neither cheap nor small nor unimportant. Right now this screw is worth exactly the selling price of the whole motorcycle, because the motorcycle is actually valueless until you get the screw out. With this reevaluation of the screw comes a willingness to expand your knowledge of it.
 
I saw that airplane a couple years ago in better days. I don't recall an airplane in desperate need of paint. I've never seen one in desperate need of an interior, except maybe one that caught fire. Says me knock off the restoration and go fly the thing. Make some new friends. The airplane has been doing its thing since the 40's, it'l survive a bit longer.
 
I'm not quite in your position, but I know how you feel. I pulled my 180 panel out in February. Built a new panel with a 430, and two g5's. I added a glove box on the left side and cleaned up a bunch of wiring. It took me about 5 weeks working nearly full time on it. At one point, with only a pile of wires where the panel used to be, I asked myself "what have I done?" But, there was no option, I had to finish it, and I did.
Currently preparing it for paint, all stripped, sanding out corrosion, it is nearly ready. Painter is behind schedule, it was supposed to go to him today, but maybe not for another week or two. When its painted, I'm just going to fly it. I'm tired of working on it!
 
I built my own plane. I agonized over it the whole time. It was an ordeal that was stressful and painful and it dragged on and on. I pretty much hated every minute of it.

My problem was I just couldn't quit. My wife and I are not rich and this was a huge financial commitment. She gave up a lot so I could build the damn thing, so I felt I had to finish.

I'd I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't. I should have just quit half way thru and sold it. To go years living with the stress and the distraction from more important things (like my wife and friends) was just not worth it in retrospect.

Four years later, I'm living a 30 year dream (right now) of circumnavigating the US in the bucket of bolts that I built. This wouldn't have been possible if I didn't build my own plane.

In the end, even this very cool adventure was not worth the ordeal.

Not trying to sway you in any way, just relating my own personal experience.
 
Thinking about this some more, I realized that in reality, EVERY airplane is a never-ending restoration project.

My airplane is probably 40-50 years newer than yours. We're "half done" with the panel and will probably do the rest in another couple years. We've got an engine that's past TBO, kinda waiting for it to let us know it's ready to be overhauled. Its paint is OK now that we've let the shop touch it up, but there are still small spots that are uncovered and the scheme is old, so we'll have to do that at some point. And once we have finished the panel, the engine overhaul, and the paint, it's probably going to be time to start upgrading the panel *again* (damn you, technology!) or at least reseal the fuel tanks.

But ya know what... While no airplane is ever exactly what you want, and it takes time and a LOT of money to make it more into the airplane you want... The entire time, YOU HAVE AN AIRPLANE! Humans throughout history have looked to the birds in the skies and desired to fly, and only in the last 118 years have we figured that out. We're lucky enough to live in the richest country in the world, and the cheapest place to fly, and with financial means that allow us not only to fly, but to actually own our own airplanes!

No matter how "bad" or annoying our airplanes might be to us sometimes, that puts us in the luckiest 0.00005% of people who have ever lived. So go fly YOUR AIRPLANE. Don't look at the interior, or the panel, or the paint. Look at the ground, where billions of other people are stuck wishing they were you. Smile. Repeat.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
No matter how "bad" or annoying our airplanes might be to us sometimes, that puts us in the luckiest 0.00005% of people who have ever lived.
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Often forgotten, or maybe never realized. In the US and Canada wealthy countries where regulations are actually pretty permissive and flying is sort of affordable, one in 500 people have a pilot license or permit of any sort. 0.2%. Privilege way beyond the world's normal.
 
My plane was advertised as "about 800 hours" to build. At about 8 hours per week, it would only take two years to build!!!

EIGHT YEARS LATER I made the first flight. What they don't tell you is that the build manual is so bad that you spend two hours reading and trying to figure out what you're supposed to do for every 1 hour of actual building. :mad:

For me and other home builders, we (usually) have it easy in that the "airplane" is at our house for most of the build. I'm not sure if the build time would have been longer or shorter if the airplane was 30 minutes away. But it definitely would have been more of a pain.

The only thing I can say is every little thing you do gets you closer and never further from being finished.
 
I'm about 99% done with an RV-10. I've been burned out on the project for about two years. The unfun tasks for me have been A) Fiberglass and B) Wiring. The fiberglass on this thing is a beast. On wiring, I don't mind wiring up the landing lights to a switch on the panel, but I genuinely detest running all of the harnesses and bringing the G3X system to life. Things (or expectations) around instrumentation have gotten so much more complicated since I finished the RV-6 twenty years ago. I wired that sucker in a week and didn't think it was bad at all. I'm months, maybe a year into the wiring and punch list on the -10. I often said I was gonna build an RV-10 with a J-3 panel, and I should have gone that route. The Garmin system is a monster to install.

Thankfully, all of the flying surfaces are already painted and the fuselage should leave the garage/go to the paint shop/airport next weekend. I'll be glad to make that step.
 
donjohnston said:
.

The only thing I can say is every little thing you do gets you closer and never further from being finished.
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Unless you drill a hole in the wrong place on a wing spar, say, and have to pull everything apart and make a new spar and put it in. Again. The closer one gets to completion, the easier it is to make such a mistake.
 
I’ve built two Cubs while I’ve owned my 180 and gutted the 180’s interior and panel to replace them in-between Cub projects. I love working on my planes. I dream about building another one!
 
Stewartb said:
I’ve built two Cubs while I’ve owned my 180 and gutted the 180’s interior and panel to replace them in-between Cub projects. I love working on my planes. I dream about building another one!
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Circumstances may play a role. I feel an obligation to complete the RV-10 while our son is still relatively young so we can be a flying family. That pressure takes away some of the fun. When I was building the RV-6, there was no pressure other than what I applied to myself, also, I was single, so there were no family obligations that took precedence over building.

These days, it is "Get up, get ready for work, drop the 10 year old at school, work all day, come home, do home/yard maintenance and/or play with the tyke, help him with homework, eat dinner, get him in bed." Then I get to pay bills and eventually find my way out to the workshop.

That's a far cry from my bachelor days when in the evenings I could choose to go on a date or spend from when I got home until 2:00 AM working on the airplane. Alternately, I could get home from work on Friday afternoon and spend 20 hours working on the airplane that weekend, or spend all weekend running around with insane women who thought it was neat to date a guy who could build an airplane.

The family obligations have changed the game for me on a project the family is actually invested in. As opposed to say a Fly-Baby, which would just be a toy for my entertainment.
 
I think happiness doing a project has to do with interests and capabilities. Not all guys like to build things. They hire work out, be it home, car, etc. Some guys are programmed to do their own. I’m definitely in that category.

There’s a saying that when you’re 90% finished you have 50% left. Toward the end you spend all day and see no progress when you go to leave. Or you work all day and find more things you hadn’t seen needed to be done that you go backwards that day. Every builder goes through it.
 
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donjohnston said:
My plane was advertised as "about 800 hours" to build. At about 8 hours per week, it would only take two years to build!!!

EIGHT YEARS LATER I made the first flight. What they don't tell you is that the build manual is so bad that you spend two hours reading and trying to figure out what you're supposed to do for every 1 hour of actual building. :mad:

For me and other home builders, we (usually) have it easy in that the "airplane" is at our house for most of the build. I'm not sure if the build time would have been longer or shorter if the airplane was 30 minutes away. But it definitely would have been more of a pain.

The only thing I can say is every little thing you do gets you closer and never further from being finished.
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How many hours did it actually take?
 
Dan Thomas said:
Unless you drill a hole in the wrong place on a wing spar, say, and have to pull everything apart and make a new spar and put it in. Again. The closer one gets to completion, the easier it is to make such a mistake.
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I didn't think it was necessary to state the obvious. :rolleyes:
 
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