How long without starting plane?

[wings_level]

Just wondering here.  Since we are well in to winter, wondering how long has your plane ever just sit without starting.  I believe I have gone 6 weeks before, wondering if others out there let them sit during the winter months?  And if so, any problems with starting or something doesn’t work when you do get ready to take the next flight?

[PeteMc]

Not just starting, but flying the plane.  I've continually heard you really can't get the oil hot enough to get all the moisture out at a high idle.  You really need to fly the plane for a few minutes.  All the ground time does help warm up the oil, so you don't need to take a long flight, but you do need to go fly around with the engine at a higher power than you'd want to run it on the ground. 

Biggest maintenance issue I can think of after leaving the plane for an extended period would be the battery.  Hopefully the battery will not be totally dead, but if you have an older battery, it might be.  And then you should really trickle charge the battery.  Doing a full rate Alternator charge of a batter is pretty hard on it.  If it's not a sealed battery then there's a good chance it could boil over.

[N201MKTurbo]

 

This isn't the video I thought it was. The one I was looking for addressed these issues. I'll keep looking. Got to work at my day job for a while....

Edited February 17, 2021 by N201MKTurbo

[carusoam]

WL,

There is no answer to your question...

There are just best practices...

Letting machines sit, is not good for the health...

Letting pilots sit, isn’t all that good either...

But, let’s not get scared...

My M20C sat for two years unloved outside... call it lucky.

Flying weekly is a great idea...

Every other week is almost as good...

Only monthly? Not a great idea...

 

Some people go out of their way to use heaters and dehumidifiers...

Because they only have one forever-plane...

 

How much do you like your plane to be exactly the way you left it?

 

Depending where the plane is... the hazards can be different... corrosion, rats, birds, bugs, theft... visit planes that sit idle...

Best regards,

-a-

[wings_level]

Good responses.  Thanks.  My plane is in a newly built hangar and I fly about 150 hrs a year.  Just not during January and February.

[carusoam]

Worst case...

cam followers and cams are known to self destruct... (have you seen the pics?)

One or two engines every year around here fall victim....

There are plenty of discussions about a particular oil additive that helps...

 

We kind of get four choices...

1) fly often...

2) dehumidify...

3) pickle...

4) roll the dice...

By the time you get to three weeks with no activity, this is in the rolling the dice category...

The ill affects of sitting aren’t obvious... they show up a year later... they are a collective problem... adding up all the idle periods to get the lunar craters on the followers...

PP thoughts only, not a mechanic...

Best regards,

-a-

[StevenL757]

21 minutes ago, wings_level said:

Good responses.  Thanks.  My plane is in a newly built hangar and I fly about 150 hrs a year.  Just not during January and February.

May I ask why a hiatus during Jan and Feb?  Are these personal minimums/choices, geographical considerations, and/or other factors?  Asking from a maintenance-related perspective.

Steve

[wings_level]

Mainly personal choices.  Wife works a lot of overtime in January and first part of February.  I could get the plane out, but not much on just buzzing around.  We go to our place in Florida mostly throughout the year, but January and February seems to bog the wife down with her overtime.

[Andy95W]

Sounds like a great reason to go fly with an instructor to knock the rust off yourself as well as the camshaft.

[tmo]

5 minutes ago, wings_level said:

I could get the plane out, but not much on just buzzing around.

Do it. Or, better yet, do as @Andy95W suggested above.

[N201MKTurbo]

2 minutes ago, tmo said:

Do it. Or, better yet, do as @Andy95W suggested above.

How about some pictures of the Polish countryside? They gave me a coffee table book about Poland as a going away present the last time I worked there and you have a lot of interesting stuff.

[tmo]

I wish... The airfield has been NOTAMed "AD CLSD" pretty much since the year started - grass and snow don't mix well. As soon as the snow is gone...

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, tmo said:

I wish... The airfield has been NOTAMed "AD CLSD" pretty much since the year started - grass and snow don't mix well. As soon as the snow is gone...

You should get some pavement!

Are you in one of the hangars with the red and white roofs?

[kortopates]

After 6-8 weeks of no engine activity, before starting it, I'll pull the top plugs and run the starter to get the oil pressure into the yellow. Never running the starter for more than 30 sec at a time, some light weight starters should be less than that too. Then re-install pugs and fire up withough it going into high rpm right away. I wouldn't want to start it up till the oil pump was deliverying oil pressure right away after all that time.

[bradp]

Paul what would be the practical difference in just cranking with no fuel vs cranking with plugs out in terms of getting oil to the valve train? 

[kortopates]

The compression with the plugs typically prevents it from turning over fast enough to build up oil pressure into the yellow arc withough wearing down the battery; although you may get away with it on a 4 cyl engine.

[RJBrown]

5 hours ago, Andy95W said:

Sounds like a great reason to go fly with an instructor to knock the rust off yourself as well as the camshaft.

I used to schedule an annual flight with my CFI. Not with a young time builder looking for his first “real” pilot job but a committed CFII there for my flight every year. This was a standing appointment for the first week of October for us. 
That flight would always include a Biannual review and a Instrument Competency Check. 

In doing so I was never even close to an expired Biannual and it really helped keep me IFR safe, not just legal.

It sounds like late January would be a perfect time for you to brush up.

[V1VRV2]

7 hours ago, carusoam said:

WL,

There is no answer to your question...

There are just best practices...

Letting machines sit, is not good for the health...

Letting pilots sit, isn’t all that good either...

But, let’s not get scared...

My M20C sat for two years unloved outside... call it lucky.

Flying weekly is a great idea...

Every other week is almost as good...

Only monthly? Not a great idea...

 

Some people go out of their way to use heaters and dehumidifiers...

Because they only have one forever-plane...

 

How much do you like your plane to be exactly the way you left it?

 

Depending where the plane is... the hazards can be different... corrosion, rats, birds, bugs, theft... visit planes that sit idle...

Best regards,

-a-

Sailors and ships rot in port!

[tmo]

4 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

You should get some pavement!

Are you in one of the hangars with the red and white roofs?

Pavement is a no-go, both due to cost and paperwork / permits required - our FAA won't pay for anything, we'll be happy if they don't interfere. We hope to put in plastic reinforcements (Perfo / Novus) this spring, but still have to get the club's general assembly to approve. As in any club, there are more opinions than members, and not many want to even allow, much less participate, in the cost.

Yes, I'm in the last of the small hangars - Hangar 8. It's not much, but keeps the Mooney (and a Cessna) dry and sheltered.

[Ricky_231]

8 hours ago, wings_level said:

Just wondering here.  Since we are well in to winter, wondering how long has your plane ever just sit without starting.  I believe I have gone 6 weeks before, wondering if others out there let them sit during the winter months?  And if so, any problems with starting or something doesn’t work when you do get ready to take the next flight?

I try and go up once a week at least. Sometimes it's 10 days - plane sits outside and sometimes it's enclosed in ice :-). I bought a solar powered batteryminder that I leave hooked up to the battery - even with all the clouds and snow, battery is now always at a healthy 13.5+V when I switch on the master.

I hear you on the "just buzzing around" bit, but it beats letting the engine sit. The previous owner of my K flew maybe 30 hours a year - the oil analysis was all kinds of off. After I bought it and put 220 hours in one year, every sample just got better and better (even got a little shout out from the blackstone labs folks!).

Also there's something to be said about proficiency. I feel like the quality of my landings and overall flying degrade quickly after a long break. Simple things, like forgetting to turn off the landing light after take-off, only to catch it when running a checklist etc. The checklist takes care of these little slips, but it's indicative of something in my opinion.

 

[Ragsf15e]

My personal minimum is 2 weeks of sitting for the airplane.  It’s real tough to fly it every 2 weeks in the winter for me too just because of the typical low/icy clouds we enjoy from December through March, but I can usually do it.  I have had it sit for a month a couple times and two months one summer due to long lead time maintenance/parts.  I didn’t see any ill effects in the oil analysis. I do not run it on the ground, I will only run it if I’m planning to fly it.

Sightseeing and breakfast runs are still fun in the winter.  I went to Bonners Ferry Idaho (which is basically southern Canada) last week (9 degrees F) just because it’s a beautiful flight and they have $3.54 100LL vs the $5.54 I have to pay at my airport.  I use biweekly flights to keep the airplane full of cheap gas!

[N201MKTurbo]

5 hours ago, tmo said:

Pavement is a no-go, both due to cost and paperwork / permits required - our FAA won't pay for anything, we'll be happy if they don't interfere. We hope to put in plastic reinforcements (Perfo / Novus) this spring, but still have to get the club's general assembly to approve. As in any club, there are more opinions than members, and not many want to even allow, much less participate, in the cost.

Yes, I'm in the last of the small hangars - Hangar 8. It's not much, but keeps the Mooney (and a Cessna) dry and sheltered.

In 98 I was flying back from Warsaw to Chicago on LOT. I had a portable GPS and asked the FA if she would ask the captain for the LAT LON of Chicago, so I could track the flight on my GPS. She said the Captain said I had to wait.

About 15 minuets after departure, she came over to me and said the Captain was ready for me, and escorted me up to the flight deck. There I was in the jump seat of a 767-ER300 heading out to sea. The captain said he didn’t have the numbers I wanted. I asked for his Jepp binder and flipped to Chicago and wrote it down. He looked impressed. We talked for quite a while. He explained how everything worked in the cockpit. We were coming to a waypoint And he let me change the heading in the autopilot. The plane turned, and I got a thrill out of it. 
 

Anyway, we talked about my Mooney and all the places I had flown. He said there were less than 100 GA planes in all of Poland and most of those were for training. 
 

So I think it is cool that you are GA in Poland.

[carusoam]

Rich = Classic MSer...  

Ask a few questions out of interest... next thing you know you are invited to the front row!

Way to go Rich!

Best regards,

-a-

[Mufflerbearing]

This time of year is great to get a few IFR approaches done. 

The longest I have gone without flying is 2 weeks.  However, being very cold out, I would like to know a quick tip on how to keep my feet warm.  It's a little difficult to pull them back to the floor heater to thaw them out.

[tmo]

8 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Anyway, we talked about my Mooney and all the places I had flown. He said there were less than 100 GA planes in all of Poland and most of those were for training. 
 

So I think it is cool that you are GA in Poland.

That likely was quite a few years back As in any country within the Eastern Bloc most non-essential activities were more or less state sanctioned and state controlled - including leisure time. There was a network of aeroclubs, usually associated with the military, and sponsored by the state - have your members participate in the Worker's Day parade, get a free Wilga every few years kind of thing. Then the 80s come around and it all comes tumbling down with the associated disappearance of any state support, etc, etc. Fast forward 20 years, and most of the clubs are getting by, but hardly any are making any improvements, because most of the members are still used to the "old ways" where the state or some state owned company will eventually sponsor whatever is needed. So when they hear "the club needs to cough up $1m for a runway improvement" the response is "uuuuh".

So, our field is two parallel 1200m (~4000 ft) runways (powered + gliders), and things are slowly changing. We upgraded the gas station (adding Jet and UL this spring) because we proved it pays for itself. We have two relatively modern planes (Tecnam P2008JC - one bought new, one used), a ultralight plane (Aeroprakt A22 - bought new), and the usual C152 and a C172. The small new hangars were build with money paid up front by people who owned, or planned to own (like me) planes.

Apart from my M20K and my hangar buddy's C172 the other hangars house several Pipistrel airplanes, some one-off ultralights, there are two C182s, an Extra 330, a Wilga and a couple of Zlins, and even a Boeing Stearman; there also is a Seneca based here, and a PC12NGX in a private hangar. So yes, things have changed. We're not unique, there is a lot of interest and activity in GA in Poland these days.

Not far away there are smaller fields that cater to ultralight planes, which, as a rough approximation, are the European equivalent of homebuilts in the US.

As anything aviation related, stuff is expensive. A liter US gallon (edited) of 100LL costs close to $9.64 and the current rate for half of a small hangar is $415 per month. Granted, this is close (30 minutes by car for me) to one of the larger Polish cities, Kraków, but given that our minimum wage is $750/month ($4.68/hr), it still is expensive. And yes, all major airports charge landing and handling fees, some even charge for a low-pass.

Yes, inspired by @201er I want to attempt a series of flights that would include, within reason, all the Polish commuter airports before this COVID stuff blows over.