druidjaidan

The kids are upset, I'm upset. I don't think it impacts our future flying with them. We likely will seek out legal advice regardless. At a minimum to ensure we are treated correctly for all incidental losses involved (we had personal electronics and equipment in the plane), and partially because we've already received advice to be mindful of the impact of a claim on our insurance and that we should seek out the other parties insurance. Regardless of right or wrong I'm not a huge fan of going after eaa for this. I would bet they will never allow the ultralights to fly right over the campsites again and that procedure will get revamped or that section of parking closed.

The news on the pilots is not good. The one that didn't land on my money was not survivable. The one that did, I met one of the people first on scene who pulled them from the plane. They were alive at the time.

My plane for the past 6 years was destroyed today. Two ultralights collided on approach and one of the planes came down on top of my plane. We were on our way back from the seaplane base, had we decided to take the South 40 bus instead of main gate we, and my children, likely would have been at the tent when it happened.

Surefly is an interesting option, but I'm a bit nervous about going electronic ignition. f you look through my post history you'll learn why I'm leary about going to electronic ignition. It's just a one off, obviously, but My 2016 trip to Oshkosh would have been significantly more painful had I had Surefly

We have a mildly rough running left mag. Between my mechanic and I we've done a bunch of diagnosing, but not found an obvious "this is what's wrong" issue. Plugs check out, leads check out, and the mag when disassembled meets spec. However, there are lots of visual signs of wear, and we are well over the 500 service bulletin so it makes sense to assume it's the issue. He gave us three options: 1. The fastest option: He can replace points, condenser, gears and block. However, he can't sign it off as a 500 inspection, not that we're required to. 2. The apparently cheaper, but much slower option. Send it out for a 500hr. 3. Get an overhaul exchange magneto. Most expensive, but less that .5 AMU more than having him do the work and we get papwerwork for it being 500hr. I'm kinda leaning toward the exchange, as we're valuing getting in back in the air quicker at this annual and the exchange seems like closer to a sure thing. Anyone offer an opinion?

Funny story, right after I posted this I stumbled across a maintenance for the TCM Starter Vibrator and it says basically the exact same thing: "Whenever possible, install the vibrator with the plastic cover up and data plate facing down. If the starter vibrator is installed with the cover below the plate, drill a 1/8 in drain hole at the low point of the cover" Mine is definitely installed with the plastic side down. I'll have to look and see if there is room to flip it since we have an interesting layout due to a 201 windshield. However, the drain hole has certainly been done. I'm going to go back out this afternoon and pull the thing myself. I don't see how it could have water in it with the drains drilled out, but maybe it's getting corroded in the wet environment (Seattle).

When we first bought out bird (7ish years ago), the first thing that we discovered broken on my M20F right after we bought it was the SOS system. We didn't know how to recognize it (kicking back when starting), but it was failed when we picked it up. That turned out to be water ingress from a leaky windshield while the plane sat on a ramp in California while title issues were resolved. A new SOS and resealed windshield later and we were on our way. This lasted a couple years. We pick up the plane for annual and immediately notice the kick back and lack of buzzing. SOS issues again with a 2 yr old part. Swap out the part for a used working one so we could get home. This worked for another year or so before more water found it's way into the SOS, no leaky windshield this time, but also no good answer for how water got in at all. The mechanic (a different one local to my field) made a minor modification this time and drilled a few small holes in the bottom of the SOS case. I don't think it was replaced this time, but I don't recall. Fast forward to the past year we pick up the plane from a long annual due to major engine maintenance and it won't start. No sound from the SOS. The whole picking up the plane to a failed SOS is getting really fucking old by this time. Mechanic pulls the SOS and bench tests it. Failed. Takes it apart and cleans up the contacts, and other basic things, then throws a 12v power supply at it and it buzzes nicely. That gets me through to now. It's been winter here and a long vacation away means I haven't flown in going on 2 months. I go out and the SOS has failed again. We've replaced this thing almost as often as the oil and it just won't stay working. We're stuck outside due to the combination of high cost (with the cost of hangars here we could replace the SOS every couple months and still break even) and a long wait list (4-5 years last I checked). Anyone have any thoughts on how to improve the reliability here? This POS glorified solenoid has caused me way too many issues.

And this math right here is why people use cascade fill systems. You get a lot more fills out of each bottle that way since you're only using a tiny fraction at the high pressure end.

Had this exact behavior after we installed a new zeftronics VR and replaced the failed generator with a one someone gave us after their upgrade to an alternator. Hasn't happened in about a year now, but we made some other changes that seem to help. We used to turn on the strobes before starting (no beacon), but we found the problem didn't occur if we left them off. It's been a while, but I recall something about generators failing to energize the field if there is a load on the system or something.

Engine shop was fantastic as far as I can tell. Cylinder was one they had overhauled and had on hand. It wasn't cheap, but was a bit off list price. I was lucky they had it on hand. The shop was what used to be called Buldoc Aviation in Blain MN. They are currently changing names to Horizon Aircraft Engine Services (previous owner retired and sold the shop to two of his long term original mechanics). I spent a good while talking to Kevin at the shop and was thoroughly impressed. He was also highly recommended by the local prop shop (Mawell Propeller)

Is it just fed into the sleeve and lubricated or is it more like the suggested lawnmower throttle (of bike cables that I'm familiar with) where they come as a single part?

No shit. You don't know the half of it. This actually failed on the same flight that cylinder issue manifested. It was working when we departed OSH. We didn't discover the flap issue until we were on base turn...with the engine issue, so I was already carrying some extra energy to make sure I could make the runway if the engine failed. It resulted in a blown tire due to the excessive energy and over aggressive braking. So yeah...this has been a rough week. I haven't even talked about the fact that the guy who put the cylinder on failed to tighten the intake plug on the new cylinder...and it vibrating out on my flight to return the old cylinder to the engine shop for core credit. That was fantastic. We flew home without the flaps. So now we're home and picking up the pieces. Our prop control is also suspect at this point.

My flap release control appears to have broken at the cockpit end. I haven't gotten a great look to see if it just got loose or if it actually broke, but it was clearly disconnected. Assuming I need a new one, where can I get it? Searching for the part turned up one salvage location, for an E (maybe they are the same length, but that's mildly surprising). Also for a control cable I'm kinda inclined towards new since they wear out. However, I struggled to find one.

He felt the issues we were describing was "surging". In retrospect it wasn't. The loss of top rpm is probably the control cable. I'm getting that looked at as soon as I can get in with a mechanic. We have no buffer on the prop control, it goes all the way to the wall. I had not noticed that before. I suspect it's slipped or something. Probably end up replacing it unless my local mechanic has other advice.

Yup. Important lesson learned. Mechanic on site heard the story and thought the governor so went with it. Plugs showed that something with that one cylinder was obviously wrong.

Well we found something. All the plugs were normal or a touch lean looking...except the #4 those were black and oily. So the suspicion is that cylinder wasn't firing all the time for some reason. Suspicion is the drop in rpm and slight vibration was the bottom plug not firing. Edit: diagnoses is a cracked or stuck ring. Pulling the cylinder =(

We do plenty of flying through the year, but Oshkosh seems to have a special effect on the plane. 3 years ago when we went the generator went out over WY. This time we have weird engine issues in MN. This is quite a trip for us (Seattle to OSH). Most of our trips are up and down the west coast. This is the only one that really takes us far away from support. Our west coast trips have most of our landings at airports with good support or easily called out from nearby so we're less likely to get severely stuck. Middle America has a lot more airports with little or no available services which means much more likely to get stuck. Also, Oshkosh is just a lot of planes in the air at once much more than normal. So that will for sure drive an increase in stranded planes.

Suspicion is that it was caused during installation. It was soft and pliable and didn't seem likely to be aged out. The rest have been looked at and don't show any signs (not removed however). Also this was at WOT for the first incidents, so limited suction. Icing was a thought, but we were in VMC above the clouds. I did check OAT because we were considering if we would need to pick up a clearence to get back down (we didn't). Ram air was open for the cruise incidents and closed for the descent ones. One thought I had was maybe we had some water in the tank that didn't shake out during the preflight sump. It's possible I guess, but seems unlikely. We sumped in La Crosse, did not fuel at Oshkosh, had only a miniscule amount of rain (and our fuel cap o rings have been solid and were replaced in Feb at the annual) and we sumped at Oshkosh before departing.

The 50 was only noticed because the rpm was set at 2500, then the change in noise/slight vibration drew my attention and when I looked at the rpm it was below 2500 line a smidge.once it resolved it was back on 2500. Similar, but different numbers on the later issues in descent. No real opportunity to notice an airspeed change, and definetly nothing severe enough to feel a deceleration. AFAIK it hasn't been removed in the 3+ years we've owned it. I'd have to have a good look through the logs to see the last time. Ignition and fuel supply issues are high on the list of things to look at. O ring pictures attached. That was fixed mid June

Hi folks we got AOG with a RPM issue that's proving hard to work on. We were on our way back from Oshkosh Saturday and decided to make a precautionary landing in Minnesota due to what we thought was a governor issue. We were cruising along at 8500, 2500rpm WOT. We suddenly had a small loss of rpm like 25-50. Along with it we had a very minor vibration, more like a deep hum not really like a lost cylinder. That lasted like 5-10 seconds and then resolved on it's own. About a minute later it happened again. No apparent changes in cht, egt, oil temp, oil pressure etc (however we have one of the shitty JPI classic scanners so it's hard to be sure with a transient issue). Additionally, a few months ago we noticed we were only getting 2650 or so on the takeoff roll and we reported at our last annual that our prop wouldn't hold 2500 rpm and the control would rotate up to 2580ish. We're at an airport with basically no services, but we were able to get a mobile mechanic to come out. The first said fly it home, the risk is minimal. We got delayed by weather and another machanic called us back before we left and said basically you don't really want to risk that failure over the Rockies we have a prop/governor shop 50 minutes away, and they can turn it around in a couple days. So we had him pull it. Drive it to Maxwell Aviation services and they bench test it. They say it's fine, nothing wrong with it. The mobile mechanic that pulled it is unavailable until Thursday. So now I'm here just going fuck. If I fly commercial back I suspect nothing will really get done, if we put it back together and don't find anything else wrong I have to cross the Rockies and Cascades back into Seattle with a machine I don't really trust. We've called a bunch of local shops and nothing great. Maybe an intermittent stuck valve (the loss of rpm is too small for that, the vibration too faint and we have no other signs of that), an intermittent plugged injector (once again I dont buy we were losing a whole cylinder). Really grasping at straws. Current theory is the loss of takeoff rpm might be the prop control, it might have slipped we didn't check. The vibration and loss of 50 rpm in flight is very fuzzy what could cause that. Basically the concensus is it might he a fuel issue, it might be a spark plug, it might be the mags, it might be a sticky valve, it might be related to a intake o ring we lost a chunk of a few months back (valve or cylinder damage), so on and on.

It's really hard to sell things when you overprice them no matter the venue. It was meant as friendly advice "hey you probably can't get that much the recent devices". Jeez this community comes off pretty harsh.

You're right that's the Sentry, and that is available for $500 new. You're asking $600 for a used item, with an aging lithium battery and a lesser feature set. This isn't meant as an attack, it's just the market for these devices has shifted a lot

And a CO and a not old lithium battery.

Yup that's me, over by Northway.

First place I checked was the parts manual. Nothing about the wire to be used. I will obviously choose an appropriate wire gauge for the original load, but I'm more concerned about whether this installation is supposed to be a specialty high temp or fire resistant wire or something (since it's under the cowl). I don't have a picture at the moment, but it looks a lot like this maybe: https://www.mcmaster.com/#high-temperature-wire/=1ddl673 The wire appears to be wrapped in a (possibly) fiberglass sleeve.