From maintaining aircraft records to dealing with bad advice and sub-standard parts, Mike, Paul, and Colleen say being an aircraft owner is one of the hardest jobs in aviation.
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Full notes below:
Randy wants to know if circuit breakers have a life limit. He has a Mooney with about 3,000 hours. He had one that was acting up, and was wondering if he should intentionally exercise or change them on some interval. Paul said he recommends to all his clients that they exercise their breakers every few years, since they do tend to corrode. Just tripping it breaks oxidation off the contacts, he said. If you check the resistance before and after the resistance often goes down. Colleen said she replaces a few breakers during each annual.
Gary owns a Lake Amphibian with a IO-360 and he runs with fine wire plugs. At the last annual he found four of his Champion plugs had infinite resistance. They otherwise seemed to function normally. He’s wondering what the implications are? Paul said he has boxes old boxes of new Champion plugs that he can’t force himself to throw away, but he refuses to give them away either because he doesn’t trust them. The hosts said they’ve seen many problems with Champion fire wire plugs and the insulators. So they’ve stopped using them and suggest others do as well. They all endorse the massive electrode Champions are just fine, however.
Chris helps clients establish aircraft logbooks after they buy their first airplane. Paul said: You should keep as much of the maintenance records as possible for value. Old invoices he puts in a bag and sets them aside. He keeps weight and balance history and it’s nice to have a 337 record. Only the current equipment list is necessary. He’ll recommend customers organize their own logbooks and not pay him to do it. Colleen also keeps a separate spreadsheet for time in service of all the airplane’s components. That makes it easy for inspection, replacement, and for ADs. Mike’s records include a big Word doc that includes all his maintenance records and a spreadsheet with the weight and balance, equipment list, and so on. Paul suggests only giving your maintenance provider a thumb drive so they can’t hold your logbooks hostage, nor do anything else you don’t approve of. Then when you’re ready to leave, you get the thumb drive and the sticker to go in the logbook when you get home.
Paul read an article that advised against leaning too quickly and leading to washboarding of cylinders. Mike thinks that came from an old service bulletin. He said it needs to be taken in context. They were talking about heating the cylinder too fast. They weren’t talking about the transition from rich of peak to lean of peak, but rather a very rich mixture to a slightly less rich mixture. The piston heats faster than the cylinder barrel, and it expands faster than the cylinder. The piston could potentially cause metal to metal contact.
Published on 1 day, 12 hours ago
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