ragedracer1977

Ok, I believe I found the vibrator. In the hardest, most impossible place to reach. See photos. One is from underneath, the other is with the autopilot controller pulled out. It's in there. When I turn the key to start, but don't push in, I hear no buzzing nor can I feel anything if I have my hand on it when the key is rotated. I tried the bump starting thing and no joy. Fuel pressure video also attached. Pressure goes up and then drops immediately when the pump is turned off. Where would you go from here?

Heading to my Grandmothers for dinner in 3 hours, so that wouldn't work for me. I'll go poke around tomorrow and see what I come up with. If I can't figure it, maybe we can work it out another day.

If you're bored tomorrow, want to come fix my plane? I'll even bring you money and/or beer, depending on how you get there

I'll try that. I'm confident that it's some part 'going bad'. In the past it always fired up by the 2nd blade.

We signed up for the Waymo (google) pilot program. With the driving we do, we are a perfect fit for what they're looking for. If we get selected, they will give our family a car to use. It would seem, from the way they talked about it, my 9 year old could get in the car and tell it to take him to the store. There supposedly won't need to be a licensed driver even in the car.

Thanks. Gives me a place to start.

Wow that's pretty impressive

I'm really leaning towards a fuel or spark issue. I don't think it's temp related at all. Upper 80's and low 90's really is not cold. I'll spend some time at the hangar tomorrow and see what I can see Anthony, I definitely do not see any decrease when pumping the throttle cause the pressure is all gone already when I turn the pump off, lol

Fuel pressure falls immediately (within a few seconds) when I turn off the pump, to zero. I don't see any fluctuation in the pressure when I pump the throttle. I start with the pump on, always have. Not sure when the carb was overhauled, I don't have the logs handy (still at the IA from annual)

I'm also now wondering if the shower of sparks is working. Just read a little on it and it says you should hear a buzz from it when you turn the key to start. I'm not sure that I hear that. That's one place to look. 2nd, should the pressure stay at 5psi, or close, when I turn the fuel pump off?

1: If I turn the fuel pump off, the pressure drops right away. 2. That's what I usually end up doing and it slowly coughs to life. 3. I have a 201 windshield.

Posted pics in the "today flight for 2017" thread. Just a quick PIREP on KCNY. First, if you aren't aware, the airport will be closed from Jan 1, 2018 - Apr 30, 2018. They are widening and extending the runway. I was not impressed with the FBO. AT ALL. I called ahead and let them know I was coming and that I needed a rental car. They don't do rental cars and we're actually sort of rude about it, so I called in to Enterprise and arranged for it to be dropped off Thursday afternoon so it would be there when I arrived Friday Morning. Here's how it went down. I arrived and a 'follow me' car came out. She tried to taxi me between 2 planes. See attached image for an example (just a screen capture off the 'net'). I'm not comfortable doing that. Maybe I'm risk averse, but I just taxied around and we pushed it back in. Much safer to me and the other planes. Told her I wanted the tanks topped off. She said "Don't you just want to use the self serve?" I said no, I'm fine paying the extra, I have limited time here and I don't want to spend it fueling the plane. I went inside. Went to the counter and told them I needed to make sure the plane was topped off and put in a fuel order. Asked for the keys and contract for the car. What car? We don't have a car for you. Call enterprise. They say they dropped it off. Go back the desk. Enterprise says it's here. Where is it? "Oh, that was for you? We thought it just didn't get picked up so we put the keys back in the enterprise lock box." Me - what the hell? I CALLED you and told you I was coming, when, AND how it was going to be arranged. Them - "we don't like dealing with rental cars." So, I had to wait an hour for enterprise to drive out the field from Moab and get the keys back out of the lock box. Enterprise was awesome. Even knocked off a very significant amount on the rental fee for my hassled. Redtail (FBO) didn't care. Go spend our day. Come back to the FBO before 5:30 so I can make sure my fuel is paid for before they close. Get to the counter, let the lady know I need to pay for my fuel and get on my way. "Ohh, we didn't fuel your plane. Let me see if the lineman wants to do it, since it's almost time for him to go home." IF HE WANTS TO DO IT????? It should have been done already!!! So, wait another 15 minutes for fuel. I was not impressed with their service or attitudes. If I fly there again, I won't even bother talking to the folks at the FBO. I'll just handle everything myself.

Left mag has ~40 hours SNEW, right ~150hrs SNEW. Plugs were replaced at annual ~30 hours ago. In the past, it's started by the 2nd or 3rd blade. Now, it takes 20, then wait, then pump the throttle a little, then crank some more, then some more, then fires off. My standard starting procedure is: Fuel pump on. Mixture full rich. Pump throttle twice. Push throttle forward just a tad. Used to be it would immediately fire off. Temps have not significantly changed. Would start fine in the mid 80's in the evening a few weeks ago. Now in the mid 80's I'm worried I'm going to kill the battery. Once it's running, it runs perfect. Mag checks on run-up are what I would consider perfect. Around 100 RPM drop on each mag, with each mag having an essentially identical drop. What should I be looking at?

Flew up to KCNY with my son yesterday. Spent the day hiking Arches National Park. Beautiful place! We flew up over the Grand Canyon, then over Lake Powell, and up over the Canyonlands National Park. Had a monster tailwind - 162-168kt groundspeed for most of the flight. In descent I saw over 200kts. Of course, that tailwind became a headwind on the way home and we were cruising at a Model "C" like 108kt GS.

Pretty much it was one of those "We built it because we could" sort of things. http://ronkilber.tripod.com/luscombe/luscombe.htm

Well, our trip got canceled. =( The Marine Corps called yesterday and said "You're now leaving this Monday". He was supposed to go the 27th. This being the first kid to leave the roost, I'm feeling a little sad to be honest. We're going to fly up to KCNY anyway on Friday just for a day trip. One last day to spend with him while he's still my 'kid'.

I used to park right next to it at DVT. It's been sitting idle for a long time.

Went down to change my oil. Imagine my happiness when right as I pulled up, I saw a B17 firing up! Walked out to the edge of the ramp and got some pics and vid of it departing. I took a trip around the pattern to warm up the oil and and watched it come straight in while I was on downwind. Then, I got to watch it land again from the edge of the ramp (they were giving rides). Can you imagine what it must have been like to see 100's of these fly overhead all at once?

I'm not sure about logging it, but yes, for intents and purposes last night was IMC.

Absolutely. We had a pretty good conversation about it last night. It's difficult to find actual IMC in Arizona. When it happens it's either known icing or thunderstorms, so... We're going to try to find some in SoCal and fly out there just for that. At this point, I've pretty much decided I'd like to go through to at least CFI. Maybe CFII. So we're going to start throwing some commercial stuff into the instrument training. I took my first discovery flight 9/11/16. As of today, I have 177 hours. 80+ hours cross country with several flights that were 'real' XC. Including from KDVT to KMSY (New Orleans). I like flying. I usually go fly at least twice a week, often 3 or 4 times a week.

I finally experienced it. It's a pretty nice evening and I decided to just go tool around a little. Moon is waxing crescent and low in the sky, less than 20% illumination. I took off from KDVT and headed north out of town. My plan was to follow the highway, roughly, to ensure terrain clearance. I've flown 30+ hours at night, but it's all either been from field to field in the Phoenix area with plenty of ground lights or nights with a pretty bright moon that made differentiating the horizon pretty easy. Not tonight. As I left the city lights behind, the moon was behind my left shoulder so I couldn't even see it. The only thing I could really see on the ground was the headlights on the highway. It was DARK. I couldn't see any horizon at all. My body started telling me I was in a left bank. A pretty good left bank and I wanted for all the world to bank right to level the plane. Only problem was, my instruments were telling me I was straight and level. I'm pretty deep into my instrument training right now (12.7hrs in a AATD sim and 13.8 in my plane under the hood) so I felt comfortable just following the instruments and ignoring my 'senses'. It was really quite shocking how powerful the desire was to correct the bank. I can really understand now how you can become disoriented (like JFK Jr.) and lose control. I spoke to my CFII after the flight (he was also my PPL CFI) and told him about the experience and also that I felt like he needed to change up his training. We did quite a bit of night flying for the PPL, but it was all done either around the city with plenty of reference or under the hood, so we could get simulated instrument and night at the same time - saving me time and $. I really think he owes it to his students to take them out on a moonless night with no ground reference and let them try to fly as if it's VMC. It was totally different experience than being under the hood or recovering from an unusual attitude. I really think I might have had a problem if I wasn't so far into my instrument rating.

Yes, San Diego. Which is much more convenient for us to go visit. I'm very proud of him.

I had also looked at KCUT, but it seems a rental car is difficult to procure there. Does KSPF have easy access to rentals? That was my primary factor for looking at KRAP

My son is off to the Marine Corps end of next month. He really wants to take a father/son trip before he goes and has decided he would really like to see Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills. We're looking at going 10NOV for a couple days. Has anyone been up that way? We would have to make one fuel stop, probably near Moab at KCNY. What is the weather like this time of year up there? Snow, no snow? Obviously weather is going to play a part, but I'm curious if this is an acceptable time of year for touring that part of the US. I know it's usually pretty windy up there, but it looks like KRAP has nice crossing runways so crosswind shouldn't be too much of an issue. Thanks!

Sorry if I gave the impression I pulled 'hard'. I did not. The load was something more than 1G, but less than you would feel in a 45 degree steep turn. So, maybe 1.2G's, given a 45 degree turn is 1.4g. That would have increased my stall speed by about 10%, or to about 70mph, I only climbed till my speed dropped to about 80mph. Pushing over at the top was somewhat less than 1g, but no where near 0. Next time I'm at the same field (sometime next week) I'll try the take off by the book (Vx - gear down, t/o flaps, and about 80mph) and see what I get by the end of the runway. I know with a Vy t/o and light, I was about 130' AGL by end of the runway. Heavy, and accelerating in ground effect and then pulling up, I was at ~215' AGL by runway end. Will be interesting to see what happens at Vx.