Post-Annual Flight

We decided to move the annual inspection for Atlas -- our '74 Cherokee
Pathfinder -- into February, since there has been little use for an airplane
this winter. As a result of the weather and the annual (bless me Father,
for I have sinned...) it had been 20 days since our last flight.

I've always done "owner-assisted" annuals, and this year was no different.
After ten of them, on two different Cherokees, my A&P barely needs to tell
me what to do, but there are always surprises.

This year we found an exhaust shroud (on the carb heat side) that had rivet
and screw holes wowed out (vibration) and needed sheet metal work that was
beyond my capabilities. And, in an incredible coincidence, the right main
gas tank gauge that had stopped working immediately after some avionics work
(the classic "maintenance-induced failure") last fall turned out to be the
float having fallen off the sending-unit arm, rather than a gauge problem.
Who'd a thunk?

This meant draining the tank (full, of course) into 5-gallon cans, removing
8 jillion screws, disconnecting the fuel hose (dislocate wrist, cut
forearms), disconnecting the grounding wire (dislocate wrist, curse inventor
of flat-blade screw drivers), removing the tank, fishing the float out of
the tank, removing the sending unit, blah, blah, blah. Reinstalling it was
great, too, since the very last screw would not thread into anything, and I
had to start all over...

New tires were deemed necessary, ordered -- and never came. According to my
A&P, this was the first time that Desser had ever screwed up an order --
they simply didn't ship the stupid things, for reasons unknown. After a few
confusing phone calls, they promised them by the end of the week, but I
didn't want to wait any longer, so I simply rotated the tires to the side
that wasn't in contact with the runway. (Because of landing gear dihedral
on a Cherokee, the inner 1/3 or the tires wears first. Most flight schools
rotate them so that they can extend the life of their tires.)

Checking the logs, I was surprised to see that we had almost 400 hours on
this set of main tires -- two years worth. My A&P always orders "Monster
Retreads" for us, which have 40% more rubber than regular tires -- and I'm
really sold on them now. I suspect we'll get another 100 hours on them now,
and I'll just store the new tires when they arrive.

I did install the new "Leak Guard" inner tubes, which (supposedly) leak far
less than standard tubes. Any improvement here will help, as the old ones
required servicing weekly, which -- with our wheel pants -- was quite the
pain.

Speaking of wheel pants, our "Fancy Pants" are the biggest pain in the butt
there is. Each wheel pant takes about an hour to install, with practice,
and they ALWAYS require repairs. Wowed out holes, busted screw backing
plates, stripped screw heads -- they always need repair of some sort, and
this annual was no exception.

I'd take 'em off permanently, but the previous owner (the guy who put all
the speed mods on Atlas) told me that they provided the biggest speed
increase -- so I suffer with them. Besides, Atlas looks positively naked
without them.

The traditional "Annual-Induced Repair" happened again, as always. The tail
cone on our Pathfinder is 34 years old, and brittle as an old host. I got
it off okay, but -- after inspecting/lubricating everything inside -- one of
the plastic edges broke off during reinstallation, which gave my A&P a good
laugh. The inside of that thing looks like a Frankenstein monster of
aluminum strips, JB Weld, and fiberglass patches. So, he added another
aluminum strip, and went to reinstall it himself...

....only to break off ANOTHER piece of plastic in the attempt. This gave ME
a great laugh, until I realized that I had to pay him to fix it... He just
smiled. (Before you say it, I'd replace the damned part with new, but the
paint job on it is so complex that painting it would cost more than the part
itself.)

A new brake rotor (we replaced the other one last year), new brake linings,
new air filter, a change of oil and filter, magnetos timed, compressions
checked, wing spar checked for corrosion, control cables checked for
tension, all moving parts lubed and checked for clearance, pour four cans of
gas back into the tank -- and the bird was done. $1800, plus 30 hours of my
time later, Atlas was once again FAA-approved.

And today was the test flight. First, we had to chip two feet of ice out
from in front of the maintenance hangar (two major snow/ice storms in one
week). The temperature was just 6 degrees above zero, and the runways were
solid ice-covered -- but the skies were crystal clear blue, with light (if
frigid) winds. After almost three weeks, we NEEDED to fly.

So, after an incredibly thorough preflight inspection (indoors, of course,
and by Mary, to give it a new set of eyes), we trundled out. The newly
lubed landing scissors and aired-up struts took the staccato bumps of the
ice ruts in stride as we slipped and slud out to the runway, looking for a
dry spot to do our run-up. Not finding one, I did the old "on-the-fly"
run-up, and rolled onto the runway.

For the first time, ever, the snow was so deep, and the piles of snow so
high, that we had to stop at runway and taxiway intersections to peek around
before proceeding, simply because we couldn't see the other runways!
Remarkable winter, we're having here.

Prop and mixture full forward, advancing the power smoothly, with one eye on
the JPI analyzer, Mary called out our usual checks. "6 good bars" (on the
analyzer) -- "Oil pressure good" -- "Manifold pressure good" -- "RPMs
good" -- "Airspeed alive" -- and we were airborne and climbing out at 1500
feet per minute.

Once around the pattern, a gingerly landing on the ice-covered runway, and
we rolled back to our A&P's hangar to de-cowl and check for leaks. None
found, and we repeated the whole process, for a pretty little flight to
nearby Muscatine for a great lunch at "The Button Factory" -- an old
Mississippi River button factory that has been converted into a first-class
restaurant.

What a great feeling, climbing out into those clear skies. It had been a
long 20 days (with too few flights before that, all winter), and the world
was a fairy-land of deep snow and blinding white ice stretching to all
horizons. It made even coming back to our snowed-in hangar a pleasure.

Atlas is good for another year, and we'll be seeing y'all in the skies...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Well, good for you...

I will post an analysis of my annual if I ever get it done - minus the
usual halfway, tongue in cheek, descriptions of The Kid and his helper
Father Time whom I haven't mentioned yet...

But a tantalizing preview of some new findings I haven't whined
about . . . errr, discussed . . . yet...
both props have to go to the prop shop to have the studs replaced
after some a**hole gorilla over torqued them...
And right now we are puzzling over the PowerPak, whereby the gear will
fold up in spite of the bird sitting on the squat valve if someone
accidently raises the gear lever... It looks like the pac has to be
removed and rebuilt - at least 2 amu, if not more, in labor and
parts...

As Senator Evert Dirkson said (before many of you were born), "AN AMU
here and an AMU there, and pretty soon you are talking real money"...

Denny

Jay Honeck wrote:
And, in an incredible coincidence,
the right main gas tank gauge that had stopped working immediately after
some avionics work (the classic "maintenance-induced failure") last fall
turned out to be the float having fallen off the sending-unit arm,
rather than a gauge problem. Who'd a thunk?

This meant draining the tank (full, of course) into 5-gallon cans,
removing 8 jillion screws, disconnecting the fuel hose (dislocate wrist,
cut forearms), disconnecting the grounding wire (dislocate wrist, curse
inventor of flat-blade screw drivers), removing the tank, fishing the
float out of the tank, removing the sending unit, blah, blah, blah.
Reinstalling it was great, too, since the very last screw would not
thread into anything, and I had to start all over...



Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on
the top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is
located. Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for
tank to be empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.

Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on the
top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is located.
Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for tank to be
empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.

Agreed. Making the sending unit inaccessible without removing the tank is
crazy. But it's just another goofy thing in aviation, non-specific to Piper
products. I suspect every owner can tell a maintenance story about
"stupid-design-induced-headaches" on their brand of airplane.

Thankfully, the sending units on our tip tanks are much easier to work on,
should that ever become necessary.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on
the top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is
located. Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for
tank to be empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.


Agreed. Making the sending unit inaccessible without removing the tank
is crazy. But it's just another goofy thing in aviation, non-specific
to Piper products. I suspect every owner can tell a maintenance story
about "stupid-design-induced-headaches" on their brand of airplane.

Thankfully, the sending units on our tip tanks are much easier to work
on, should that ever become necessary.

Jay, didn't you know that the mean time between failures is inversely
proportional to the difficulty in removing and replacing the component.
The senders on the inboard tanks are therefore much more likely to
require service. Geez, and I thought you would have figured that out by
now.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:12:32 -0700, Newps wrote:



Jay Honeck wrote:
And, in an incredible coincidence,
the right main gas tank gauge that had stopped working immediately after
some avionics work (the classic "maintenance-induced failure") last fall
turned out to be the float having fallen off the sending-unit arm,
rather than a gauge problem. Who'd a thunk?

This meant draining the tank (full, of course) into 5-gallon cans,
removing 8 jillion screws, disconnecting the fuel hose (dislocate wrist,
cut forearms), disconnecting the grounding wire (dislocate wrist, curse
inventor of flat-blade screw drivers), removing the tank, fishing the
float out of the tank, removing the sending unit, blah, blah, blah.
Reinstalling it was great, too, since the very last screw would not
thread into anything, and I had to start all over...



Nice design, Mr. Piper. Beech Bonanza you take off the access port on
the top of the wing to expose the top of the bladder where sender is

Yah, but changing one of those bladders is a real treat.

located. Remove 6 or 8 more screws and sender comes out. No need for
tank to be empty, down 5-10 gallons helpful. Sender out in 5 minutes.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Feb 20, 11:21*pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
We decided to move the annual inspection for Atlas -- our '74 Cherokee
Pathfinder -- into February, since there has been little use for an airplane
this winter. *As a result of the weather and the annual (bless me Father,
for I have sinned...) it had been 20 days since our last flight.
...
This year we found an exhaust shroud (on the carb heat side) that had rivet
and screw holes wowed out (vibration) and needed sheet metal work that was
beyond my capabilities. * And, in an incredible coincidence, the right main
gas tank gauge that had stopped working immediately after some avionics work
(the classic "maintenance-induced failure") last fall turned out to be the
float having fallen off the sending-unit arm, rather than a gauge problem.

How were you able to fly in the meantime? A plane is not airworthy
without a working fuel gauge for each tank (91.205b9). Can one get a
waiver for this sort of thing?

How were you able to fly in the meantime? A plane is not airworthy
without a working fuel gauge for each tank (91.205b9). Can one get a
waiver for this sort of thing?

In an incredible display of aviation daring...I placarded the gauge as INOP,
and flew the plane. I never use the fuel gauges for anything other than
passing reference, since we do everything by visual inspection and the timer
in our Garmin GTX-327 transponder. (A very handy feature that I never,
ever, expected to use -- but we literally use it on every flight.)

If I wasn't looking for something not working in the panel (a habit I've
formed after a decade of "maintenance-induced failures") I'm not sure how
long it would have taken for me to accidentally notice it wasn't working.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
I never use the fuel gauges for anything
other than passing reference, since we do everything by visual
inspection and the timer

Doesn't everyone?

Do people actually use the fuel gauges?

On Feb 21, 2:23*pm, B A R R Y wrote:
Jay Honeck wrote:
I never use the fuel gauges for anything
other than passing reference, since we do everything by visual
inspection and the timer

Doesn't everyone?

Do people actually use the fuel gauges?

Are you serious? You're supposed to frequently cross-check your timing
calculations against the gauges, in part so you can discover a fuel
leak before it's too late. That's why an inoperative fuel gauge makes
a plane unairworthy, and illegal to fly.