What does it look like, how do I fix it?

[MIm20c]

I’ve noticed a lot of posts during the past year with owners tackling maintenance items head on that may or may not involve knowledge/glance/signature. 

To be honest it has changed the way I look at Mooney aircraft. 

Thoughts?

[David Lloyd]

I doubt there is any more maintenance being tackled by owners than years past.  Just more seen via the internet.

[RogueOne]

Not by this owner. 

[RLCarter]

It's not only Mooneys, there are a ton of owners that fiddle with their aircraft 

[smwash02]

I see the same items across my other aviation forums.

I can't speak for everyone, but I attack problems head on too leveraging the resources of these forums as a supplement to my A&P. It's saved my us both time learning from others who have done the work recently (he's not an MSC) and can point out good tips and gotchas. A great example was when re-rigging my plane I made a post that resulted in someone pointing out something that both my mechanic and I had missed that otherwise would've resulted in an incorrect setup.

I don't ever explicitly say "I ensured to have my A&P/IA looked over and signed off my work", but I always let him know the projects on the roster to ensure he has the time to inspect the work or be available for any hurdles I run across. I know of several who have similar arrangements with their mechanics after rapport has been developed. In the end, he writes the sticker for the logbooks.

In fewer words, the forums don't always paint the full picture. That said we all know there are people in every group that don't engage their mechanics for things that are required. It's not just Mooneys.

Fun catch 22 -- We can't change brakes under owner maintenance, but we can change our tires, which require removal of our brakes. Do I need an A&P for this?

 

[skydvrboy]

Meh... When I asked if I could do some work on my plane under my IA's supervision, he told me "I find that owners do much better work than newly minted A&P's, probably because it's their life on the line."

I know what I'm capable of working on and what I'm not.  Most of my repairs go straight to the A&P.  However, if I know I have the skills, knowledge, and expertise... I see no problem doing the work with my IA checking it when I'm done.

Also, what you see on the internet, does not always reflect reality... I know, shocker right!  I ask a lot of questions about how to repair various items and then end up taking it to my A&P anyway, sometimes checking his work and catching issues only because someone on MS pointed out to watch for that pitfall.

[smwash02]

13 minutes ago, skydvrboy said:

Meh... When I asked if I could do some work on my plane under my IA's supervision, he told me "I find that owners do much better work than newly minted A&P's, probably because it's their life on the line."

Mine made the same comment. We have more invested in the outcome than they do.

[Oldguy]

18 minutes ago, smwash02 said:

Mine made the same comment. We have more invested in the outcome than they do.

Except after my annual. He goes for the post-maintenance check ride with me. 

[Ned Gravel]

7 hours ago, Oldguy said:

Except after my annual. He goes for the post-maintenance check ride with me. 

Or, they are competent enough to do a test flight themselves, before you show up.  Then it is your turn. 

I like having a cook that eats their own cooking.  Sometimes he lets me hold a screwdriver for something complicated.  But he certainly expects me to be able to take off the cowls and do an oil change even if I don't normally do them myself.

[skydvrboy]

20 hours ago, Oldguy said:

He goes for the post-maintenance check ride with me.

Not my A&P, though my IA probably would.  My F was terribly out of alignment and needed rigged.  I talked to D-Max about it at Oshkosh and he gave me 3 steps to take, in order, with a test flight in between.  I told my A&P to do the first step and he looked at me like I was nuts, because it didn't involve using the travel boards.  When it was complete I asked him if he wanted to test fly it with me to see how it handled.  His response... "NO WAY!!!, it might roll over right after takeoff."  So, I took the test flight solo.  It flew beautifully, hands off, steps 2 & 3 were not required.  Thanks D-Max!

I think this is a lot like owner maintenance in general.  I didn't know what to do, so I reached out to an expert to learn, but I sure wasn't going to blindly trust the A&P with limited Mooney experience.

[PT20J]

4 minutes ago, skydvrboy said:

 I talked to D-Max about it at Oshkosh and he gave me 3 steps to take, in order, with a test flight in between. 

Are you going to share the three steps, or keep us all in suspense? 

[Oldguy]

12 hours ago, Ned Gravel said:

Or, they are competent enough to do a test flight themselves, before you show up.  Then it is your turn. 

I like having a cook that eats their own cooking.  Sometimes he lets me hold a screwdriver for something complicated.  But he certainly expects me to be able to take off the cowls and do an oil change even if I don't normally do them myself.

In all fairness to him, he just got his Basic Med last year, so he would fly it by himself if I wanted him to do so, but I prefer to do it with him to see if I find anything out of order or just different from when I took it to him. But prior to him getting a medical, he would not fly it by himself due to insurance/liability concerns, so we just got used to doing it the way we do.

[skydvrboy]

1 minute ago, PT20J said:

Are you going to share the three steps, or keep us all in suspense? 

You would be better off asking Don yourself rather than getting the info second hand. 

I know for certain that step one was reset flaps back to zero and ailerons so that both are neutral to the wings when the yoke is level.  That's all we had to do and it flew great.

If I remember right, the next step was to hold the wings level with the aileron and adjust the rudder until the ball was centered.

Again, if I remember correctly, the final step was to slightly bend the back edges of the ailerons, like a trim tab, until it flew hands free.

If you need to tackle this project, call Don first to make sure I understood him correctly and still remember correctly.

[PT20J]

Here's a good article on rigging.

Shoptalk - rigging.pdf

[skydvrboy]

When I first got the plane, all of the control surfaces were out of spec for the travel range.  First annual, my A&P rigged all the surfaces to match the travel limits.  At that point, it has a hard right roll... like 25 degrees per second the moment you let go of the yoke.  My A&P compensated for that by dropping the right flap, which helped some.  I'd also fly with a full right tank and empty left tank, which helped more.

After resetting the flaps to zero and aligning the ailerons, it now flies straight and level for 5 seconds or more and then slowly starts a roll to one side or the other.  It will not recover from this roll on it's own, but rather will progress into a spiral, which I think is normal.  At any rate, I'm quite happy with the rigging now... and it flies about 5 mph faster.

[Yetti]

11 minutes ago, skydvrboy said:

When I first got the plane, all of the control surfaces were out of spec for the travel range.  First annual, my A&P rigged all the surfaces to match the travel limits.  At that point, it has a hard right roll... like 25 degrees per second the moment you let go of the yoke.  My A&P compensated for that by dropping the right flap, which helped some.  I'd also fly with a full right tank and empty left tank, which helped more.

After resetting the flaps to zero and aligning the ailerons, it now flies straight and level for 5 seconds or more and then slowly starts a roll to one side or the other.  It will not recover from this roll on it's own, but rather will progress into a spiral, which I think is normal.  At any rate, I'm quite happy with the rigging now... and it flies about 5 mph faster.

Nope.  When I am sure the plane will not fall out of the sky when I let go of the yoke....  my issue not the planes. It was quite bumpy last wed and I let go for a good minute or so just to let the wing leveler do it's thing for fun.   I have flown for 5 or 10 minutes with my hands in my lap.

[PT20J]

Properly rigged, the J (should be the same with others, but I haven't tried it) will fly straight and level hands off trimmed to 90 KIAS for several seconds. Eventually it will roll off to one side. As it does the nose will drop, the airspeed will increase and the bank will steepen. At some point though, the longitudinal stability takes over and the nose will rise and the airspeed will drop. It makes about 2-1/2 cycles of this phugoid and then settles into a constant airspeed, constant descent rate, approximately 45-deg bank descending spiral.

Skip

[Yetti]

On simplicity of the machine, a couple 3/8 and 7/16 along with #2 screwdriver and you can take the whole plane apart.  Not that everyone could or should put it back together.   Wed we were taking one of the bumper markers off the big fire truck.  I walked up someone asked me to help I reached over to the socket set and grabbed the proper size socket.   The other guy needed a wrench to back me up.   He said what size socket?   I did not know, I just grabbed the right size.  It's an art to be a good mechanic.   Sitting behind a keyboard you lose part of the art.  But still try to keep those skills sharp.

[N201MKTurbo]

Before I got my A&P, the IA that signed off my annuals always said “you are the one who is going to die, not me”