EricJ

Another thing that affects the longevity of a blade is how often and how much it gets dressed by an A&P to remove nicks due to rock or other debris strikes. A common practice these days is to remove a nick by filing the entire leading edge down (instead of just locally dressing the nick), and then removing an equal amount from the other blade(s) to "maintain balance". A brand-new C182 that I help with and also fly had a lead fail in one of the mag harnesses, and the shop that came to fix it ran it up on the ramp at full throttle to try to clear what they initially thought was a fouled plug. It sucked up a rock and put a big ding in one of the blades. Instead of just locally dressing the affected blade they filed all three blades down. This was on an airplane with only a couple hundred hours total time. I was...disappointed, but this is not the first time I've seen that done. It'll certainly affect the blade profile of all blades when that is done. If that is done whenever any blade gets a nick, all of the blades will wind up with reduced service life.

That's a little suspicious because it may mean that the other mag isn't turning off. Regardless of how good they are, there should be an rpm drop when either side of the ignition is shut off.

The Lycoming Direct Drive engine overhaul manual is usually pretty easy to find for free on the internet, and it should have detailed guidance on what needs to stay together and what doesn't. IIRC things like the actual hydraulic lifter assembly may need to stay together (or not, I don't recall exactly), but it should be spelled out in the manaul. The pushrods aren't that big of a deal since they're selected during assembly using dry tappet clearance, which is pretty easy to do. You'll either wind up using all of the pushrods or need to order one or two. It's not ideal that everything is mixed up, but probably not horribly tragic, either.

The nosewheel is usually the hard one. Glad to hear that the ratchet strap worked in your case. I know some have had no luck trying that.

+1 to check the easy stuff first. Vary RPM and see if it changes, do a mag check to see which side(s) it's coming from if it is the ignition. Does it do it on both radios? FWIW, my #2 comm had ignition noise on it, but the comm in my IFD didn't. I just got my mag overhauled and now they're both nice and quiet. So in my case it was coming from the mag rather than faulty wires.

I don't see any reason to not try to repair that one by straightening it out. It should be evident whether there's any unrepairable damage. And, yeah, that's completely different than the little disk screen in many gascolators, including my M20J.

Apparenty there was video as well as recordings of the CTAF. The preliminary is attached at the bottom of this article. https://www.azfamily.com/2025/03/14/security-cams-capture-moment-impact-deadly-mid-air-collision-marana

Yes, the two screens on AS are 10543-2 and 10543-74, with the same dimensions for each, so I suspect they'll fit the gascolator. It's easy enough to measure the existing one and make certain.

The PN is 10543 on both, and the Lasar part is nearly 3x the cost of the AS part, so that's probably right.

AS has some gascolator screens with the dimensions indicated. If the dimensions match it should be usable. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pnpages/05-03436.php

100%. Work with your A&P/IA so there are no surprises.

Wait until the next oil change. It's a miserable job. I'd get your A&P to do it if you're not a masochist. Here's a vid getting it out on a Mooney. As previously noted, take the cap off first and then pull the screen out with a finger, otherwise there's not enough room to get it out on a Mooney. In this vid it has a pre-heater, normally there's just a cap with a crush washer. Immediately after this post is a vid showing reinstallation. Safety wiring it is pain but the long wire twister tool makes it a bit easier. I don't take the suction screen out unless there's a good reason to, since it is such a pita. The videos are on page 3 of this thread. That sounds like a reasonable theory, and a good reason to just monitor it to see whether it gets worse or better. If the rings are just wearing in it might stop, and if you have good compression then it's not an issue. If the wrong rings were installed for a chrome cylinder it might continue or compression might suffer. Regardless, there's no reason to take things apart at this point, so just keep running it and keep an eye on things.

That looks like good progress!

In the Swiss Cheese model it's essentially doing what you can to minimize the number and size of holes in each slice.

Both create severe vibrations, both stress the crank and the case and the mounts and a bunch of other stuff. Yes, they're different, but everything is.

Drag racers used to do that sometimes, and offroad people as well. Sometimes it was just to limit engine travel relative to the chassis due to torque.

When mine was making metal I talked to both the local Lycoming rep and the rep from AES, the shop that had done an IRAN on my motor about 100 hours or so previous with the previous owner. Both were very consistent in stating, "Keep running it, keep an eye on it." That's basically the conclusion from the Lycoming SB for cases that don't quite rise to the level of specific advice. People are sometimes shocked that you can have up to 1/4 teaspoon of metal and not really need to do anything. Apparently the number of cases that self-clearance or just don't present much risk until the failing part is obvious is pretty high, so unless it's making the significant amounts of metal quantified in the SB, you're better off to just keep running it and keep an eye on it. Spalling lifters and cams generally present a very slow, soft failure of just slowly diminishing performance. There are some minimally invasive techniques to check for worn cams by checking valve lift, so if you start to get diminished performance that's a good thing to check. As others have mentioned, checking the oil suction screen (which is separate from the pressure filter) is not a bad idea since it'll catch the really big chunks and will let you know if there's a bearing disintegrating or something. Often that's accompanied by flakes in the filter, which you're not seeing, but it may still be worth checking. If the amount of metal in the filter increases in subsequent oil changes, then further action may be warranted.

The local shop that tried to overhaul the governor said it was totally roached and couldn't be overhauled, i.e., it had essentially destroyed itself and internal parts were chewed up and couldn't be reused. I replaced it with a new governor and there hasn't been any significant metal in the filter since. That was 570 hours ago so I'm confident that that was the problem.

Not until it failed completely, which was evident during a runup one day. It was fine until that.

I have dual G5s and love them. I've flown with 275s as well, and they're very nice and do a lot of interesting things, but I think they try to cram too much into the tiny space of a 3" round gauge. The square display on the G5 looks less cluttered to me. I'm looking at replacing my #2 nav and ancient CDI with a modern nav/com and use a basic 275 for the CDI, and connect it to my IFD to add the map display, etc. I think they're good for that sort of thing, although it's an expensive solution for that task.

I had an injector clog at full throttle just after takeoff and I thought the engine was going to come off the airplane it shook so hard. Four-cylinder motors aren't happy when a cylinder stops making power but still has full compression. I had to keep it at full throttle to maintain about 100 fpm climb to get around the pattern and land, so it did that for a lot more than a few seconds. I've put over 900 hours on it since then.

That's definitely enough to pay attention to. The expectation is that you see a few flakes here and there, but not very much accumulation on the magnet. You've got a fair amoutn on the magnet, which means you need to pay reasonable attention to how the engine is behaving and closely monitor the filter during subsequent oil changes. Starting an oil analysis program now might not be as useful as it could be, since the real strength of oil analysis is monitoring trends. If you start an oil analysis program now it could still be useful, but there's already some wear going on somewhere. I don't think what you're seeing is anything to get too stressed over, but definitely suggests that you should closely monitor what the engine is doing. And +1 to follow the Lycoming guidance on metal in the filter. Mine made a significant amount of metal for a period of time but it turned out to be the prop governor failing. Once that was replaced it returned to normal.

Had a big weather system come through and dump a bunch of snow, so we went up to take a look. This is the Sedona area on the way back. You can see the airport on the mesa toward the upper right of the pic.

Android tablets and EFBs don't have any restrictions on using the GPS with a WiFi-only device, so that's how I've always operated. That said, my Stratux has a GPS receiver, too, so even if the tablets didn't have native GPS reception they'll get everything they need from the Stratux.

I'm not aware of any Lears that are approved for single pilot. Also, this aircraft was not US-registered, so it may have been operating with different requirements.