The Most Expensive Ironing Boards in the World...

We received notification of a Ramada Inn that was selling everything to
the bare walls, in preparation for demolition. Although our hotel is
unique in many ways, we *all* use blow dryers, lamps, end tables --
and, yes, ironing boards -- so this seemed like a great opportunity to
find some real bargains.

Problem: This Ramada Inn happened to be located in Columbia, Missouri,
some 245 miles -- and almost 5 hours -- away.

Solution: General Aviation! Atlas, our Cherokee Pathfinder, with his
1460 pound useful load and 140 knot speed, was the perfect tool to
shrink this awful drive into an 80-minute flight.

The weather couldn't have been better today in Iowa, but a few pesky
1500-foot ceilings awaited us in Missouri. However, with a gigantic
Canadian high pressure system sagging to the south, conditions were
predicted to improve throughout the day -- so off we went.

The flight was utterly uneventful. The fall colors were lovely to
behold, and my landing on Columbia's gigantic Runway 2 was a piece of
cake. We taxied to where all the "little planes" were parked, and were
met by a very friendly line guy, who uttered those most horrible of all
words:

"Is all that oil normal?"

With a sinking feeling, I hopped off the wing to behold a mess of epic
proportions. Oil was EVERYWHERE on Atlas' right flank, dripping
steadily out the lower cowling. This obviously wasn't anything to be
ignored, so we de-cowled the engine, and stared numbly at the God-awful
mess that was our beautiful, low-time O-540.

Interestingly, we were only 1/2 quart down on the dipstick.
Nevertheless, we were unable to see where ANYTHING was coming from
(although it was clearly confined to the right firewall, near our
Airwolf remote mounted oil filter). Joe, the head of maintenance,
offered to pull it in the shop, and within minutes, Cliff -- his senior
A&P -- was meticulously spraying the engine down with degreasing
solvent. All of the mechanics were suspecting the hoses and fittings
going to the Airwolf, but I had my doubts. Those things were stainless
steel-wrapped and extremely high quality; it *had* to be something
else.

Standing a safe distance away, Mary and I pondered our sorry fate. The
kids were out of school in five hours (but, luckily, my son had one of
our cars), and my daughter had a volleyball game that we were supposed
to attend. AND it was parent-teacher conference night. In short, this
was a really BAD day to be stuck in the wrong state, with a broken
airplane. My thoughts turned darker as the mechanics started up the
newly cleaned engine...

Cliff stood in the howling propwash, poking around with a mirror and a
flashlight. Within seconds, he had found what he was looking for, and
signaled to his cohort to cut the engine. The news was not good -- our
oil cooler was leaking at a seam in the metal (not at a fitting), and
would need to be replaced.

Dejected, I asked about parts availability, and Joe, the head of
maintenance, just shrugged. He'd have to make some calls, and who
knows if anyone had one of them available? Rebuilding ours might be an
option, too. Either way, we weren't going anywhere today...

So, what to do? How to get home? We had talked about renting a truck
and hauling all the stuff back to Iowa that we might find at the hotel
sale -- but that was a plan to be executed AFTER we looked at the
stuff. If everything there was junk, there was no need for a truck.

Who did we know that could come rescue us?

After a few minutes of thought, our friend, Doug, came to mind. He had
recently gone from sole ownership of a Cherokee 180, into a 3-way
partnership on a nice, older Mooney. Being a loan officer, business
had been relatively slow lately, due to the housing slump -- and I knew
he had been looking for any excuse to fly that new hot-rod Mooney -- so
I gave him a call. Did he feel like flying for free today?

The answer was "Hell, yes!", and we soon had it arranged for Doug to
zip down from Iowa to rescue us. In his plane, it would take something
like 70 minutes, and his only limitation was that he had to be back for
a 5:30 meeting. We realized that we had plenty of time in the interim
to go to the sale -- so we borrowed the FBO's courtesy car and headed
off in search of that old Ramada Inn...

As I drove out of the lot, feeling crappy about leaving our plane at a
strange FBO far from home, I thought to call Keith, our A&P and good
friend -- mostly for a shoulder to cry on. (But also to see what he
thought about the local shop's diagnosis.) So I gave him a jingle and
we chatted for a bit, when he dropped the bomb shell: "You know, I
think I may have one of those coolers here in the shop."

Dumbfounded, I couldn't help but ask incredulously, "Why?" Keith runs
a very small, part-time shop, and he rarely keeps parts in stock. He
CERTAINLY doesn't keep major stuff like oil coolers laying around --
especially not ones made specifically for a Lycoming O-540 B4B5 model
engine. Yet, inexplicably, miraculously, he had the perfect match
laying on a shelf? I simply couldn't believe it.

He promised he would call Joe, the head of maintenance at the Columbia
FBO, just to make sure the part numbers matched -- and we hung up. I
couldn't stop laughing, and Mary and I enjoyed a much happier lunch
than we had thought possible just minutes earlier.

When I hadn't heard from either Keith or Joe after lunch, I called
Keith back. It seemed that their lunch hours were over-lapping, and
they couldn't find the other -- so I relayed the part numbers and
messages between them. The oil cooler *was* an exact match -- this was
going to work!

So, I made a quick call to Doug, and his plan was no longer a rescue
mission -- but a parts delivery mission! On his way to his plane he
would simply stop at Keith's shop, grab the new oil cooler (and the
all-important yellow tag), and fly off to Missouri. Bada-bing --
problem solved.

Meanwhile, we found the Ramada, and spent over an hour wandering the
eerily silent halls of this once proud hotel. With hundreds of rooms,
gigantic banquet halls, and a kitchen that could easily handle ANY
wedding crowd, it was like wandering the set of "The Shining". We
could easily have spent thousands there, but we simply couldn't figure
out an economical way to ship large stuff (like end-tables and desks)
back to Iowa -- so we resolved to only purchase stuff that would fit
inside Atlas.

Thus, we ended up with a dozen absolutely brand-new wall-mount blow
dryers, and four new hanging ironing boards and irons. We packed the
stuff into the courtesy car, and hustled back to the airport, pulling
in the parking lot literally as Doug's Mooney taxied in.

Carefully carrying the oil cooler like the precious cargo it was, Doug
handed it to me -- and I handed it to Joe. He, in turn, handed it to
Cliff, who instantly set about installing it in the hole left where our
old, cracked cooler once lived.

A few tense minutes passed, as we uncomfortably shifted our weight from
one foot to the other. In my experience, there is ALWAYS the chance
that some holes won't line up, or the fittings won't be the same, or
some other such nonsense -- and I simply still could not believe our
good fortune that the part had been available AND delivered in such a
short span of time. I just EXPECTED it not to fit, and glumly waited
for confirmation of my fears.

It never came. Within minutes, Cliff and his helper were test-running
the plane, once again braving the slip-stream with his trusty mirror.
After a nice, long run at various power settings, he pronounced it
oil-tight and airworthy -- we were saved!

Doug quickly departed for his meeting (there's simply not enough beer
in the world to pay for what he did for us today), and we set about
loading Atlas with irons, ironing boards, and blow dryers. From stem
to stern, his whole underside was dripping with oil, but it was nothing
a few rolls of paper towels (and my son's elbow grease) wouldn't cure
-- and we sure wouldn't have to worry about any corrosion for a while!

After settling up the bill -- and profusely thanking Joe, Cliff, and
all the guys at Central Missouri Aviation -- we climbed into the cool,
crystal-clear sky, amazed at our good fortune. A potentially
disastrous oil leak (possibly the minor one that has bedeviled us for
the past year, gone bad?) turned into nothing but a cosmetic problem,
the parts we needed to fix it turned out to be readily available (from
a friend, no less!), and we happened to be at an FBO with the mechanics
and the time to do the job right when the part broke.

Of course, there *were* a few downsides. I'm not fond of launching on
90-minute cross-country flights with untested new engine parts on board
(the engine was totally dry when we arrived back in Iowa City), and we
REALLY don't want to think about how much those ironing boards cost us
in real terms -- but if things must break (and we know they will) --
*THIS* is the way you want things to go down when they do.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
We received notification of a Ramada Inn that was selling everything to
the bare walls, in preparation for demolition. Although our hotel is
unique in many ways, we *all* use blow dryers, lamps, end tables --
and, yes, ironing boards -- so this seemed like a great opportunity to
find some real bargains.

Problem: This Ramada Inn happened to be located in Columbia, Missouri,
some 245 miles -- and almost 5 hours -- away.

Solution: General Aviation! Atlas, our Cherokee Pathfinder, with his
1460 pound useful load and 140 knot speed, was the perfect tool to
shrink this awful drive into an 80-minute flight.

The weather couldn't have been better today in Iowa, but a few pesky
1500-foot ceilings awaited us in Missouri. However, with a gigantic
Canadian high pressure system sagging to the south, conditions were
predicted to improve throughout the day -- so off we went.

The flight was utterly uneventful. The fall colors were lovely to
behold, and my landing on Columbia's gigantic Runway 2 was a piece of
cake. We taxied to where all the "little planes" were parked, and were
met by a very friendly line guy, who uttered those most horrible of all
words:

"Is all that oil normal?"

With a sinking feeling, I hopped off the wing to behold a mess of epic
proportions. Oil was EVERYWHERE on Atlas' right flank, dripping
steadily out the lower cowling. This obviously wasn't anything to be
ignored, so we de-cowled the engine, and stared numbly at the God-awful
mess that was our beautiful, low-time O-540.

Interestingly, we were only 1/2 quart down on the dipstick.
Nevertheless, we were unable to see where ANYTHING was coming from
(although it was clearly confined to the right firewall, near our
Airwolf remote mounted oil filter). Joe, the head of maintenance,
offered to pull it in the shop, and within minutes, Cliff -- his senior
A&P -- was meticulously spraying the engine down with degreasing
solvent. All of the mechanics were suspecting the hoses and fittings
going to the Airwolf, but I had my doubts. Those things were stainless
steel-wrapped and extremely high quality; it *had* to be something
else.

Standing a safe distance away, Mary and I pondered our sorry fate. The
kids were out of school in five hours (but, luckily, my son had one of
our cars), and my daughter had a volleyball game that we were supposed
to attend. AND it was parent-teacher conference night. In short, this
was a really BAD day to be stuck in the wrong state, with a broken
airplane. My thoughts turned darker as the mechanics started up the
newly cleaned engine...

Cliff stood in the howling propwash, poking around with a mirror and a
flashlight. Within seconds, he had found what he was looking for, and
signaled to his cohort to cut the engine. The news was not good -- our
oil cooler was leaking at a seam in the metal (not at a fitting), and
would need to be replaced.

Dejected, I asked about parts availability, and Joe, the head of
maintenance, just shrugged. He'd have to make some calls, and who
knows if anyone had one of them available? Rebuilding ours might be an
option, too. Either way, we weren't going anywhere today...

So, what to do? How to get home? We had talked about renting a truck
and hauling all the stuff back to Iowa that we might find at the hotel
sale -- but that was a plan to be executed AFTER we looked at the
stuff. If everything there was junk, there was no need for a truck.

Who did we know that could come rescue us?

After a few minutes of thought, our friend, Doug, came to mind. He had
recently gone from sole ownership of a Cherokee 180, into a 3-way
partnership on a nice, older Mooney. Being a loan officer, business
had been relatively slow lately, due to the housing slump -- and I knew
he had been looking for any excuse to fly that new hot-rod Mooney -- so
I gave him a call. Did he feel like flying for free today?

The answer was "Hell, yes!", and we soon had it arranged for Doug to
zip down from Iowa to rescue us. In his plane, it would take something
like 70 minutes, and his only limitation was that he had to be back for
a 5:30 meeting. We realized that we had plenty of time in the interim
to go to the sale -- so we borrowed the FBO's courtesy car and headed
off in search of that old Ramada Inn...

As I drove out of the lot, feeling crappy about leaving our plane at a
strange FBO far from home, I thought to call Keith, our A&P and good
friend -- mostly for a shoulder to cry on. (But also to see what he
thought about the local shop's diagnosis.) So I gave him a jingle and
we chatted for a bit, when he dropped the bomb shell: "You know, I
think I may have one of those coolers here in the shop."

Dumbfounded, I couldn't help but ask incredulously, "Why?" Keith runs
a very small, part-time shop, and he rarely keeps parts in stock. He
CERTAINLY doesn't keep major stuff like oil coolers laying around --
especially not ones made specifically for a Lycoming O-540 B4B5 model
engine. Yet, inexplicably, miraculously, he had the perfect match
laying on a shelf? I simply couldn't believe it.

He promised he would call Joe, the head of maintenance at the Columbia
FBO, just to make sure the part numbers matched -- and we hung up. I
couldn't stop laughing, and Mary and I enjoyed a much happier lunch
than we had thought possible just minutes earlier.

When I hadn't heard from either Keith or Joe after lunch, I called
Keith back. It seemed that their lunch hours were over-lapping, and
they couldn't find the other -- so I relayed the part numbers and
messages between them. The oil cooler *was* an exact match -- this was
going to work!

So, I made a quick call to Doug, and his plan was no longer a rescue
mission -- but a parts delivery mission! On his way to his plane he
would simply stop at Keith's shop, grab the new oil cooler (and the
all-important yellow tag), and fly off to Missouri. Bada-bing --
problem solved.

Meanwhile, we found the Ramada, and spent over an hour wandering the
eerily silent halls of this once proud hotel. With hundreds of rooms,
gigantic banquet halls, and a kitchen that could easily handle ANY
wedding crowd, it was like wandering the set of "The Shining". We
could easily have spent thousands there, but we simply couldn't figure
out an economical way to ship large stuff (like end-tables and desks)
back to Iowa -- so we resolved to only purchase stuff that would fit
inside Atlas.

Thus, we ended up with a dozen absolutely brand-new wall-mount blow
dryers, and four new hanging ironing boards and irons. We packed the
stuff into the courtesy car, and hustled back to the airport, pulling
in the parking lot literally as Doug's Mooney taxied in.

Carefully carrying the oil cooler like the precious cargo it was, Doug
handed it to me -- and I handed it to Joe. He, in turn, handed it to
Cliff, who instantly set about installing it in the hole left where our
old, cracked cooler once lived.

A few tense minutes passed, as we uncomfortably shifted our weight from
one foot to the other. In my experience, there is ALWAYS the chance
that some holes won't line up, or the fittings won't be the same, or
some other such nonsense -- and I simply still could not believe our
good fortune that the part had been available AND delivered in such a
short span of time. I just EXPECTED it not to fit, and glumly waited
for confirmation of my fears.

It never came. Within minutes, Cliff and his helper were test-running
the plane, once again braving the slip-stream with his trusty mirror.
After a nice, long run at various power settings, he pronounced it
oil-tight and airworthy -- we were saved!

Doug quickly departed for his meeting (there's simply not enough beer
in the world to pay for what he did for us today), and we set about
loading Atlas with irons, ironing boards, and blow dryers. From stem
to stern, his whole underside was dripping with oil, but it was nothing
a few rolls of paper towels (and my son's elbow grease) wouldn't cure
-- and we sure wouldn't have to worry about any corrosion for a while!

After settling up the bill -- and profusely thanking Joe, Cliff, and
all the guys at Central Missouri Aviation -- we climbed into the cool,
crystal-clear sky, amazed at our good fortune. A potentially
disastrous oil leak (possibly the minor one that has bedeviled us for
the past year, gone bad?) turned into nothing but a cosmetic problem,
the parts we needed to fix it turned out to be readily available (from
a friend, no less!), and we happened to be at an FBO with the mechanics
and the time to do the job right when the part broke.

Of course, there *were* a few downsides. I'm not fond of launching on
90-minute cross-country flights with untested new engine parts on board
(the engine was totally dry when we arrived back in Iowa City), and we
REALLY don't want to think about how much those ironing boards cost us
in real terms -- but if things must break (and we know they will) --
*THIS* is the way you want things to go down when they do.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


Hey, Jay go talk to your tax man see if the expenses of getting the stuff
including the repairs can be used as a business expense?

NW_Pilot wrote:





Hey, Jay go talk to your tax man see if the expenses of getting the stuff
including the repairs can be used as a business expense?

It's all a write off.

On 10/5/06 21:30, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

We received notification of a Ramada Inn that was selling everything to
the bare walls, in preparation for demolition. Although our hotel is
unique in many ways, we *all* use blow dryers, lamps, end tables --
and, yes, ironing boards -- so this seemed like a great opportunity to
find some real bargains.

Problem: This Ramada Inn happened to be located in Columbia, Missouri,
some 245 miles -- and almost 5 hours -- away.

Solution: General Aviation! Atlas, our Cherokee Pathfinder, with his
1460 pound useful load and 140 knot speed, was the perfect tool to
shrink this awful drive into an 80-minute flight.

The weather couldn't have been better today in Iowa, but a few pesky
1500-foot ceilings awaited us in Missouri. However, with a gigantic
Canadian high pressure system sagging to the south, conditions were
predicted to improve throughout the day -- so off we went.

The flight was utterly uneventful. The fall colors were lovely to
behold, and my landing on Columbia's gigantic Runway 2 was a piece of
cake. We taxied to where all the "little planes" were parked, and were
met by a very friendly line guy, who uttered those most horrible of all
words:

"Is all that oil normal?"

With a sinking feeling, I hopped off the wing to behold a mess of epic
proportions. Oil was EVERYWHERE on Atlas' right flank, dripping
steadily out the lower cowling. This obviously wasn't anything to be
ignored, so we de-cowled the engine, and stared numbly at the God-awful
mess that was our beautiful, low-time O-540.

Interestingly, we were only 1/2 quart down on the dipstick.
Nevertheless, we were unable to see where ANYTHING was coming from
(although it was clearly confined to the right firewall, near our
Airwolf remote mounted oil filter). Joe, the head of maintenance,
offered to pull it in the shop, and within minutes, Cliff -- his senior
A&P -- was meticulously spraying the engine down with degreasing
solvent. All of the mechanics were suspecting the hoses and fittings
going to the Airwolf, but I had my doubts. Those things were stainless
steel-wrapped and extremely high quality; it *had* to be something
else.

Standing a safe distance away, Mary and I pondered our sorry fate. The
kids were out of school in five hours (but, luckily, my son had one of
our cars), and my daughter had a volleyball game that we were supposed
to attend. AND it was parent-teacher conference night. In short, this
was a really BAD day to be stuck in the wrong state, with a broken
airplane. My thoughts turned darker as the mechanics started up the
newly cleaned engine...

Cliff stood in the howling propwash, poking around with a mirror and a
flashlight. Within seconds, he had found what he was looking for, and
signaled to his cohort to cut the engine. The news was not good -- our
oil cooler was leaking at a seam in the metal (not at a fitting), and
would need to be replaced.

Dejected, I asked about parts availability, and Joe, the head of
maintenance, just shrugged. He'd have to make some calls, and who
knows if anyone had one of them available? Rebuilding ours might be an
option, too. Either way, we weren't going anywhere today...

So, what to do? How to get home? We had talked about renting a truck
and hauling all the stuff back to Iowa that we might find at the hotel
sale -- but that was a plan to be executed AFTER we looked at the
stuff. If everything there was junk, there was no need for a truck.

Who did we know that could come rescue us?

After a few minutes of thought, our friend, Doug, came to mind. He had
recently gone from sole ownership of a Cherokee 180, into a 3-way
partnership on a nice, older Mooney. Being a loan officer, business
had been relatively slow lately, due to the housing slump -- and I knew
he had been looking for any excuse to fly that new hot-rod Mooney -- so
I gave him a call. Did he feel like flying for free today?

The answer was "Hell, yes!", and we soon had it arranged for Doug to
zip down from Iowa to rescue us. In his plane, it would take something
like 70 minutes, and his only limitation was that he had to be back for
a 5:30 meeting. We realized that we had plenty of time in the interim
to go to the sale -- so we borrowed the FBO's courtesy car and headed
off in search of that old Ramada Inn...

As I drove out of the lot, feeling crappy about leaving our plane at a
strange FBO far from home, I thought to call Keith, our A&P and good
friend -- mostly for a shoulder to cry on. (But also to see what he
thought about the local shop's diagnosis.) So I gave him a jingle and
we chatted for a bit, when he dropped the bomb shell: "You know, I
think I may have one of those coolers here in the shop."

Dumbfounded, I couldn't help but ask incredulously, "Why?" Keith runs
a very small, part-time shop, and he rarely keeps parts in stock. He
CERTAINLY doesn't keep major stuff like oil coolers laying around --
especially not ones made specifically for a Lycoming O-540 B4B5 model
engine. Yet, inexplicably, miraculously, he had the perfect match
laying on a shelf? I simply couldn't believe it.

He promised he would call Joe, the head of maintenance at the Columbia
FBO, just to make sure the part numbers matched -- and we hung up. I
couldn't stop laughing, and Mary and I enjoyed a much happier lunch
than we had thought possible just minutes earlier.

When I hadn't heard from either Keith or Joe after lunch, I called
Keith back. It seemed that their lunch hours were over-lapping, and
they couldn't find the other -- so I relayed the part numbers and
messages between them. The oil cooler *was* an exact match -- this was
going to work!

So, I made a quick call to Doug, and his plan was no longer a rescue
mission -- but a parts delivery mission! On his way to his plane he
would simply stop at Keith's shop, grab the new oil cooler (and the
all-important yellow tag), and fly off to Missouri. Bada-bing --
problem solved.

Meanwhile, we found the Ramada, and spent over an hour wandering the
eerily silent halls of this once proud hotel. With hundreds of rooms,
gigantic banquet halls, and a kitchen that could easily handle ANY
wedding crowd, it was like wandering the set of "The Shining". We
could easily have spent thousands there, but we simply couldn't figure
out an economical way to ship large stuff (like end-tables and desks)
back to Iowa -- so we resolved to only purchase stuff that would fit
inside Atlas.

Thus, we ended up with a dozen absolutely brand-new wall-mount blow
dryers, and four new hanging ironing boards and irons. We packed the
stuff into the courtesy car, and hustled back to the airport, pulling
in the parking lot literally as Doug's Mooney taxied in.

Carefully carrying the oil cooler like the precious cargo it was, Doug
handed it to me -- and I handed it to Joe. He, in turn, handed it to
Cliff, who instantly set about installing it in the hole left where our
old, cracked cooler once lived.

A few tense minutes passed, as we uncomfortably shifted our weight from
one foot to the other. In my experience, there is ALWAYS the chance
that some holes won't line up, or the fittings won't be the same, or
some other such nonsense -- and I simply still could not believe our
good fortune that the part had been available AND delivered in such a
short span of time. I just EXPECTED it not to fit, and glumly waited
for confirmation of my fears.

It never came. Within minutes, Cliff and his helper were test-running
the plane, once again braving the slip-stream with his trusty mirror.
After a nice, long run at various power settings, he pronounced it
oil-tight and airworthy -- we were saved!

Doug quickly departed for his meeting (there's simply not enough beer
in the world to pay for what he did for us today), and we set about
loading Atlas with irons, ironing boards, and blow dryers. From stem
to stern, his whole underside was dripping with oil, but it was nothing
a few rolls of paper towels (and my son's elbow grease) wouldn't cure
-- and we sure wouldn't have to worry about any corrosion for a while!

After settling up the bill -- and profusely thanking Joe, Cliff, and
all the guys at Central Missouri Aviation -- we climbed into the cool,
crystal-clear sky, amazed at our good fortune. A potentially
disastrous oil leak (possibly the minor one that has bedeviled us for
the past year, gone bad?) turned into nothing but a cosmetic problem,
the parts we needed to fix it turned out to be readily available (from
a friend, no less!), and we happened to be at an FBO with the mechanics
and the time to do the job right when the part broke.

Of course, there *were* a few downsides. I'm not fond of launching on
90-minute cross-country flights with untested new engine parts on board
(the engine was totally dry when we arrived back in Iowa City), and we
REALLY don't want to think about how much those ironing boards cost us
in real terms -- but if things must break (and we know they will) --
*THIS* is the way you want things to go down when they do.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


Great story, Jay. It's nice to hear ones that turn out like that.

- Don
Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life
worthwhile... Can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction,
"I served in the United States Navy." - President John F. Kennedy

More than once we've flown 2 hours to "save" $15 shipping on an Ebay
purchase and thought it made perfect sense.
--
Gene Seibel
Tales of Flight - http://pad39a.com/gene/tales.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.





Jay Honeck wrote:
Of course, there *were* a few downsides. I'm not fond of launching on
90-minute cross-country flights with untested new engine parts on board
(the engine was totally dry when we arrived back in Iowa City), and we
REALLY don't want to think about how much those ironing boards cost us
in real terms -- but if things must break (and we know they will) --
*THIS* is the way you want things to go down when they do.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...

Of course, there *were* a few downsides. I'm not fond of launching on
90-minute cross-country flights with untested new engine parts on board
(the engine was totally dry when we arrived back in Iowa City), and we
REALLY don't want to think about how much those ironing boards cost us
in real terms -- but if things must break (and we know they will) --
*THIS* is the way you want things to go down when they do.
--

Hope your oil leak problem is finally resolved! Sounds like you're living
right, everything worked out well.

Quarter of an AMU per ironing board? ;-)

-Greg B.

Hope your oil leak problem is finally resolved! Sounds like you're living
right, everything worked out well.

If that pesky, nagging, maddening, un-traceable little oil leak is
finally fixed, I will kiss Atlas' spinner right on the lips, and all
will be forgiven. I've wasted more hours trying to figure out where
that drip was coming from than you can imagine.

The oil cooler leaked right at a seam between two metal segments, which
made seeing the leak impossible without a mirror. And before it let go
enough to actually produce a series of active drips, it just looked
oily like everything else in that general area.

I'm just really, REALLY glad that it didn't "let go" more than it did.
Large parts of Missouri between Iowa City and Columbia are not great
for forced landings...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article .com,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Hope your oil leak problem is finally resolved! Sounds like you're living
right, everything worked out well.

If that pesky, nagging, maddening, un-traceable little oil leak is
finally fixed, I will kiss Atlas' spinner right on the lips, and all
will be forgiven.

and post pictures of it on your gallery?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message oups.com...
Hope your oil leak problem is finally resolved! Sounds like you're living
right, everything worked out well.

If that pesky, nagging, maddening, un-traceable little oil leak is
finally fixed, I will kiss Atlas' spinner right on the lips, and all
will be forgiven. I've wasted more hours trying to figure out where
that drip was coming from than you can imagine.

The oil cooler leaked right at a seam between two metal segments, which
made seeing the leak impossible without a mirror. And before it let go
enough to actually produce a series of active drips, it just looked
oily like everything else in that general area.

I'm just really, REALLY glad that it didn't "let go" more than it did.
Large parts of Missouri between Iowa City and Columbia are not great
for forced landings...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"



Hi Jay,
I had the same thing happen to me in 1999 on the way to Oshkosh. I noticed oil on the wing while in flight and
quickly looked at the oil pressure and temperature. We were very close to our first fuel stop so we landed as
planned and when I got out I found the same situation you described. Only a few quarts of oil remained in the
engine. Another cooler was rounded up from a nearby airport and we went on our merry way a few hours later. When I
got to Osh, I looked up the Pacific Oil Coolers, Inc. booth and talked to them about getting my old cooler repaired.
They cautioned me about the unknown origin of the installed oil cooler and suggested that since it was used, and if
it hadn't been cleaned thoroughly, it might have contained some congealed oil and debris from the aircraft from
whence it came. That gunk could be circulating in my engine. Needless to say, that concerned me. I checked up on
Pacific and found several good references. They had a good reputation. When I got home, I sent my leaking cooler to
them and they repaired, cleaned, and yellow tagged it. I pulled the other cooler and reinstalled the yellow tagged
unit.

If the cooler you installed was used and hadn't been cleaned, (and I don't mean flushed with solvent), then I
recommend you consider doing it.

Here's a link to their website and procedu

http://www.oilcoolers.com/howwell.htm

Joe Schneider
Cherokee 8437R



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If the cooler you installed was used and hadn't been cleaned, (and I don't mean flushed with solvent), then I
recommend you consider doing it.

Thanks, Joe, but no worries. This was a yellow-tagged, overhauled oil
cooler that we installed.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"