SantosDumont

Would you do it again in your Mooney? A rental club I was a part of had two guys that took the AA-5 out there and it came back destroyed with dust everywhere. Took months for the owner to clean the engine, replace all the hoses, clean the interior... it was kind of a dick move by those guys to take it.

What fun would that be?! Just going the next row over and needed to back it up an incline into my mechanic’s hangar for annual. Thought about taxiing over and lifting the ez tug into and out of the truck when I turned around and realized I could just ride it 200 yards.

Here’s the gas powered version. 54CB7843-5B13-4961-AB96-2107BDD3ECA4.mov

except for tank seal condition, old moisture prone insulation, etc. There are a few things in the vintage fleet where 30 years more time adds risk to the airframe.

There is no free lunch. When you buy an airplane, you are going to find things that are old and broken or not there... be prepared to pour money into it. However, I'm gonna plug a modded F. I have all the mods making my plane basically into a J, and I have a fully working autopilot, IFR GPS, speed brakes, etc... for about half of the cost of that J. The downside is that my airframe is 30 years older than a J.

The baffle on top is actually just bent over. When I look in with a flash light I can see it touching the top of the cowl. Need to put a flashlight in the bottom of the cowl to see if I can see any light coming through. The baffling is 20 years old though. Probably time to replace it.

It’s too late! I already read the specs for the RV-8!

I ended up calling all four shops up at VGT. I decided to use Lone Mountain because they actually immediately emailed me a quote with maintenance line items. They weren’t the cheapest quote, but their response was exactly how I want to be treated by a service provider. Problem now was that now I had to get it up there. Took me 2 days to put the plane back together. I tried to get one of the other mechanics to sign that my plane was safe to ferry but they weren’t interested in getting involved in small airport politics. Lone Mountain wanted $600 to send someone to inspect it. I ended up getting my CFII (who’s also an A&P IA) from CA to come out and I spent Marriott points to put him and his wife up room on the Strip. He inspected it and signed that it was safe to ferry. The following monday 8AM I called the FSDO to get a ferry permit. The guy that answered the phone said that I had to make an appt to go down there and appts are only available Tue - Thu, which was a bummer because I had to work out of town all week. Made an appt for the following Tuesday 9AM. The ASI emailed me Tuesday morning and wanted my 8130-6 and log entry. Got down to the FSDO and the ASI asks me why I even made an appt, because we could have done this all over email! The government at work. Finally was able to ferry the plane over to VGT this morning. Got a transition over Nellis and when I got to VGT was able to hear some excitement. Some tweaked out dude had jumped the fence and was running across the runways. They sent a van out to get him. Then he jumped out of the van and ran across the other runway and jumped the fence. They sent the police copter after him and followed him over to the walmart parking lot. In the meantime tower sent me and a couple cessnas on extended downwinds. Anyway this whole maintenance thing was too much drama. I’ve been down for two months and for what I thought I was going to save I’ve easily spent triple in my time. I also thought I would be able to better control the quality of the maintenance... which turned out to not be the case. Pretty much decided I’m never going to try to do an annual in my hangar ever again... and might even just give up on certificated airplanes and build an RV.

SA02204AT http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgstc.nsf/0/5A0B546A969B279385256CC1007F395A?OpenDocument

I dont have a complete set of the drawings. I ordered the FAA CD and was hoping they would be on there, but they are not... not sure who to contact to see if the FAA has the drawings.

Did you replace a KLN94? Is it tied to an annunciator to switch between CDI/VLOC? Is it driving an autopilot? I have a KLN89B right now that feeds track to my king 525A HSI that drives my STEC 30. Been looking at the 375 for a replacement. Wondering if I should just bite the bullet and do it or wait for Tailbeacon and just get by with less.

Since ModWorks got their hands on it in 1998, made a STC that was installed on two M20Fs then went out of business. Having to reverse engineer a few things...

My LH baffle has a crack that I want to repair. It looks like someone had already tried to repair it with a doubler, and that cracked. Thinking it might be better to just buy the new part and install it, but I’m not sure how to figure out which part it is. Its the TCM IO-360-ES so I’m thinking it might match one of the baffles from the M20K IPC, since the M20K has a TSIO-IO-360 Looks like there are two different LH baffles in the IPC: 600380-029 and 600410-501. Googling those part numbers doesn’t seem to have any useful results, and not even a parts search on LASAR turns up anything. Am I just going to have to take it off, model it in Solidworks and get it laser cut out of aluminum?

I'm just talking about the mechanics of the deal. They want your order at the show so they can close the deal in person. But if a dude told me I could close a deal today if I give him the show price, then I would give him the show price. Why would I wait to bring in revenue for my company? On the other hand I wouldn't give up a discount to someone unless I think they are actually going to place an order, which if they make an effort to come to the show to get the discount, i know i have won their business. Either way I think it is petty both to make someone show up to an event to get the price they want, and to think that by putting your name on a piece of paper they are actually going to give you the show price. I think you're going to realize that you're still going to have to fight for the show price because they want to close on the deal at the show. Otherwise they really suck at sales and more power to you for exploiting their system.

Software. But so much effort for what, $1k off? Full CB in effect here. But honestly if you were my customer I would just give you the show price and mark you down as having attended the show so my marketing dept was happy and felt like doing the show was a good use of marketing dollars. No need to make anyone jump through hoops.

I think you need to come at him with a competitors quote and get more than 5% off then. But I just do sales for a living.

Wait... so the door salesman isn't going to take an order unless you physically come to OSH? How stupid is this guy? Are you sure you want to do business with him?

At this point I'm tempted to sign up for their managed maintenance service. $750 seems like a bargain compared to all the time and heartache I've spend on this annual.

He said "if you are happier with what you were told by others about your engine then your should use them to do your annual". Unfortunately the plane is out of annual, otherwise I would have flown it to a shop.

I will call him and get a quote. I looked in my logbook and it had been maintained by Apex at HND for 10 years before I bought it. I talked to them today and they quoted me $2700 for an annual at their VGT shop... but I still have to get it to VGT somehow, so I still need to find an A&P willing to sign off on a ferry permit. Might as well get a quote from Len as well while I'm at it.

No I haven't paid him anything yet... which makes it awkward. I feel like I owe him for his hours worked... but I also feel if there's no logbook entry then there should be no payment. The only thing we really did was a couple compression checks and put the plane on jacks and do a gear check. He seems reluctant to do any more and told me that he's leaving Saturday for Osh and will be gone the rest of the month.

I told mechanic #1 that I had two other mechanics look at the engine and they couldn't see anything wrong with it. He said if I was happier with their opinion then I should use them to complete the annual. I think I'm just gonna see what the shop rates are in town and drop it off. That way it will be taking up their hangar space and they will be motivated to get it out the door and collect their money, and they can help me with a ferry permit. I think taking it to a shop is going to be my best plan going forward until I find an IA that is on the same page as me... as well as starting the annual before I can't fly the plane away legally.

I ended up calling one of the mechanics in this thread, who brought another mechanic to double check him. Did cold compression checks and got good results, high 60s / low 70s. They borescoped it and didn't see anything. They said there's nothing wrong with the engine and to put it back together and fly it. Now I need to try to figure out if I try to convince mechanic #1 to sign off on the annual, or just cut my losses, put it back together, get a ferry permit and take it over the hill to HND or VGT.

If you're looking for an alternative option I bought this portable evaporative cooler from Home Depot that works pretty well for spot cooling.

Sure send me a PM.