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The Story: I bought an Ovation last October that needed some attention. My son and I are going to travel in it and he is building time for a flying career. It had a new and very nice glass panel in it but everything else was well used. The airplane flew about 35 hours in the last 5 years. The paint was very oxidized, carpet old and dirty worn through and the seats looked like a frat house couch. Both wings had fuel leaks. It had been well maintained but it was tired when i bought it. I used the Winter months from then until now to refurbish the airplane. I tackled a bit more than i wanted to but my thinking was to fix everything now and fly it versus fly-it-and-fix-it etc….. So, this is what we did: Firewall forward is all new. Every line, hose and connector. Factory new IO-550. New engine isolators. Stripped and painted the engine baffles. Prop Governor Overhaul Prop Overhaul to include new internals. Compete external light conversion to Whelen (WATT) LED’s. New wingtip and taxi/ landing light lenses. New tires and tubes. New batteries (2) New O2 bottle and fill. Polished the spinner and took the dents out. 18 hours with a buffer and ceramic wax to bring the paint back to life. Complete fuel tank seal scheduled for this year. New Interior. (I started with the just carpet but I had to take the seat out to take out the carpet………and one thing led to another and i just took everything out). I also removed most of the old adhesive, cleaned every inch of the inside and added insulation and sound proofing to the interior. FIRST FLIGHT: Accomplished the first flight and first two hours of engine break-in yesterday. The new engine and prop are powerful and smooth. Everything else mostly worked as advertised. After the first hour I landed. We took the cowlings off to inspect. No leaks. We adjusted the prop governor for full take-off thrust and the gear warning horn on the throttle cable. We flew another hour and I got two more landings in since it had been awhile in GA for me. I would have added 4 more hours to the break-in except i was limited to lower altitudes and high power settings for the break-in and it was VERY windy. TAS was 176-178 on 24/24 at 3500” so I am guessing 180-185 higher. It was a rough ride. I have a fuel pump that needs overhauled so that is going out. I also have a small box in the avionics bay that controls glareshield and panel lighting that needs overhauled. Maybe one EGT probe as well. Otherwise, for the amount of work we did on the airplane……everything went well.

It would make sense to check on the ground against known runway direction prior to takeoff before jumping to any conclusions.

Circuit breakers exist to protect wiring. They have a secondary use for deactivating a circuit manually if they are the push on, pull off type. Some voltage regulators react to an overvoltage failure by intentionally causing a short in the field circuit to trip the field breaker and disable the alternator. The 70 amp breaker protects the wire between the alternator and the main bus. The alternator cannot supply enough current to trip this breaker but the battery could if there were a short circuit in this wire.

The ALT breaker is on the output of the alternator. The ALT FLD breaker is for the voltage regulator. If you pull the ALT FLD breaker, you will turn off the voltage regulator which removes excitation from the alternator so it will not make any power. It is mostly there to protect the regulator. Sometimes if the alternator stops working, power cycling the regulator will reset it and it will start working again.

Hats off to you! I underwent a similar project but found a local custom car outfit to do mine. The hardest part of doing the interior is contorting into the fuselage to remove and then reinstall the pieces you took out. If you can measure and use scissors and a screwdriver…….you can redo your interior. The upholstery part is real skill so if you are interested in good results, I would find a good one. Otherwise, take it slowly, take notes, take a ton of pictures, put the screw from each section into baggies and label them. Good luck.

@wombat, et al. The problem with interpreting regs the way the pilot wants to, or even based on what the language of the regulation appears to plainly say, is that it does not work that way. There is a doctrine called "Chevron deference" (named after a Supreme Court case) that says that whatever understanding or interpretation the regulating body (here, the FAA) applies to the regulation is the correct interpretation unless it is arbitrary or capricious. "Arbitrary and capricious" is a very high bar. In short, if a regulatory body such as the FAA issues a regulation, it gets to say what the regulation means, not you and me, or other pilots who may have to operate under the regulation, or even the Federal courts. The result has been some really crazy interpretations of regulations as regulatory bodies seek to expand their authority and jurisdiction, and the Courts have felt bound not to interfere. There has been speculation that Chevron deference will be limited by the Supreme Court and that perhaps Chevron itself will be overturned, but today that is not the case. In other words, if you were in an accident because you failed to use a mask above 18k it would not matter much what neat arguments you could come up with about the language and structure of the regulations, or how a reasonable pilots would understand them, the FAA's understanding of them would apply. Thus, for example, if the agency said that, to be airworthy under 23.1441 et seq,, the aircraft must have a functioning O2 mask for the pilot, and therefore to fly such an aircraft above 18k the pilot must use the approved equipment, then that interpretation would be the governing interpretation. The FAA brochure pretty much says that is the case. And the FAA could reasonably conclude that 1441 is not limited to aircraft "certified" under part 23 because 1441 is broader than that, it covers an "airplane [that is] is approved for operations at or above altitudes where oxygen is required to be used by the operating rules... ." Don't get mad at me, I am just the messenger. When I first looked at those regs I had the same thought, that nothing in the regs requires the pilot to use a mask above 18k, the regs simply require that one be on board. But it is likely that the FAA would not see it that way. If you have a concern you could write a letter to the FAA's Office of General Counsel and request a formal interpretation.

I’ve popped the alternator breaker after jump starting a dead battery. I know, you are not supposed to do that.

Since Loran is only 2 dimensional (no altitude guidance, so no LPV approach) , GPS will always be the best choice.

Pulled a PT6 in July last year. Just received it back from OH this month. Stabbed it on today. Seems that way across the board with regards to timing. -Matt

With engine and electronics off, and then on.

Manufacturer "mandatory" service bulletins aren't mandatory for Part 91, but they generally are for Part 135 and 121 operators. We're the "special" kids so they lighten up on us a bit.

Maybe relevant:

I’ve had an ACK ELT 04 for years. Never gone off randomly. Perhaps it’s not working?

My 70F has the skid:

Too wet. That's our monsoon season, generally, and the humidity gets high enough that the swamp coolers don't work very well. Swamp coolers got deprecated here partly because of aesthetics in new neighborhoods. I had a swamp cooler at my old house, which we used all the time and only ran the a/c during the monsoon when the humidity got too high, which you knew inherently because suddenly the house wasn't comfortable any more. We had the current house built 27 years ago and they wouldn't let us put a swamp cooler in...the view was that they're ugly since they're a big, chunky thing that sticks up from the roof and is hard to hide. They don't work as well if they're not on the roof and benefit from down draft. My attic is huge, so I tried to figure out how to put one up there, but eventually gave up. If they leak, which they do from time to time in normal maintenance, it's a mess if it doesn't have a roof to leak onto.

It's the same as "mandatory" service bulletins from factories. They are not required for Part 91 unless they're included in an AD.

I fly cross country a couple times a year and fly to Alaska occasionally and fly the Mooney for business and breakdowns can be a huge issue. I've had a flat tire on a runway at night (Savvy breakdown advisor told me to go to Walmart and buy a car moving dolly and we got the plane off the runway!) Another time I had a gear door broken hinge and need a double check that I could continue the trip with the gear door removed (I was advised to take both sides off so the plane was symmetric) and so the savvy breakdown has been a good value for me. I don't use it for annuals and routine service as I like to do my research about which shops I use so my annuals always come in on time and at the estimate.

I had good results using a Rustoleum garage floor kit at home. It's 2-part epoxy with color chips to sprinkle on as you go, and was available in gray or beige. It even came with cleaning powder, which I think the water turned into muriatic acid to mop the floor with. The mop was fairly destroyed when I was done. The whole thing took a couple of days, with the door cracked and a fan blowing on it to dry. Paint adhesion of any kind is all about surface preparation, so be thorough. I lived in that house for nine years, parking on the surface every day, with no problems. Think the kit came from HD, but most big box stores should carry it. A hangar is much larger than a 2-car garage, so calculate the square footage and buy multiple kits, and don't expect to clean the floor in one evening after work. Good luck!

Everything I've read indicates that if you really want it to last, you ought to look into a grind prep, honestly. You might search the topic on beechtalk.com or garagejournal.com. Years ago at my first house, I used an over-the-counter 2-part epoxy floor coat kit on brand-new concrete. I did a muriatic acid etch and good rinse/dry and thought that would be sufficient since there was no oil or grease exposure. It failed in places after a couple of years... next time I will pay a pro to do the best process and use the best products.

The engine starting when the key is released is classic sign of a bad left magneto. Either the mag is bad, the switch is bad, or the left magneto wiring is bad. I'd start by testing the left magneto.

Not sure why it would have been messed with at annual, but the fact you bench checked the ignition switch implies the wiring was removed. Any chance the ignition switch wiring was hooked up wrong when it was reinstalled? It seems like the mag is being inadvertently grounded while you are cranking; an mis-wired switch might well cause that.

Took theses with my iPhone from my driveway today, totally blacked out here:

Any A&P who knows how to weld can do it. It is in 43.13-1B. I’ve done it. You can make a jig from your existing system by just laying the system upside down on a piece of plywood. Mark the position of the flanges and drill mounting holes for the risers. Bolt the system to the plywood. Assemble the new parts on the jig and tack them together, then take them off and run the welds. I have found it easy around here to find race shops that can make the bends and slip joints. For little money. I will admit I don’t do the welding. I know guys that are artists with a TIG torch. I get them to run the welds.

I put in a fancy new interior and flew my airplane more than ever.