Another update from the very frontline of dinosaur twin ownership.
Remember how I said that her maintenance was now over the hump and how her annual this time would be a walk in the park (Kasansky), as everything that could possibly cost money or break had been fixed? Well, you guessed it.
I was dead wrong. I'd barely touched down at HHR and left them the keys before the first bad call came.
"Did you know there's a 250hr recurring inspection on the props as well as the 500hr one?".
"No".
"Well, the 250hr is overdue and the 500hr is almost due".
OK - how bad could it be, right? Bad, as it turned out. I won't go into all the details, but suffice to say that Hartzell is the embodiment of the devil on this earth. They force more SB's into AD's than anyone else so they can hold a gun to owners heads and sell new props. Not only that, they make all their retailers and overhaul shops not honour SB's (SB's they themselves issued!) if they want to stay Hartzell retailers and certified. The results is that my prop hubs - that are affected by this 250hr and 500hr SB - hard to get signed off by prop shops unless they're not affiliated with Hartzell. Which doesn't leave all that many. Finally Santa Monica Propeller stepped up and did a great job, but they insisted on an O/H of the hubs, not just an inspection. Fine, I didn't have much choice. Cost about
$10K for that little excursion.
Before the props and hubs were sent off for inspection and overhaul.
Next the magnetos had not been O/H since she was new, or at least we couldn't find any logbook entry saying they had. Which is a damn long time. Cost?
$3400/magneto pair..... I couldn't believe it when I heard it. How can a magneto cost that much to do, but apparently they do. On top of this there were tons of fuel lines, hydraulic lines, flap inspections, eddy current main spar inspection etc do be done. Time drags on with airplanes and before I knew it almost 3 months had gone by and I was gagging to go flying. Then as I'm in Europe for work, expecting her to be ready when I get back, a new phone call.
"Yeah, we inspected inside the tail cone and the rudder bell crank is deformed. Not only that, she seems to have had a tail strike at some point and the repair is very shoddy - a couple of stringers are broken and there's all sorts of missing rivets etc".
I lost it at this point, I'm ashamed to say. They find serious sheet metal work to be done and structural problems after she'd been in the shop for almost 3 months? Why the hell hadn't they opened the tail up before? Why the hell hadn't my previous mechanic seen that at last annual? I slip her constantly - what if they tail had come off? They're stellar mechanics these guys and never miss a beat, so that's what caught me off guard. I hadn't expected structural problems that late in the game. My less than happy email did the trick however, and they did all the repairs by the time I got back. Good people.
Colonic irrigation? The old girl getting groped in the a** getting her stringers fixed...
Finally, after 3 loooooong months of not flying I took the chief mechanic/IA up for a short test ride. She spun like a cat and was so happy to be up in the air again in the late afternoon sun. It was soothing for both man and machine. My previous mechanic always says:
"What airplanes need more than anything is to go flying".
It's true. Old airplanes start peeing sitting around idle and sh*t breaks. When they fly, stuff works better.
Last screws, then she's ready for first flight in over 3 months... She looked as happy as I was.
Cost? A terrifying
$21K annual. It cleaned me out, I can say that. But I suppose it could be worse - my other obsessive drool plane is the Aerostar and those guys get happy when they get change back on a
$50K annual... Next? Engines both near TBO and just prohibitive to O/H. But I have two new pickled engines on the go in Arizona from a guy who's retiring and parting out his 520. Fingers crossed...
First longer trip was to Big Bear to get some of their cheap fuel that they truck over the mountains and up to 6700ft.....
All in all, though, despite some high maintenance costs, I still have a few cents left over in the till compared to renting. Especially compared to other twins. I just took a ride with a friend who rents a 182 with a G1000 panel out of Camarillo for
$220/hr, and that's close in cost. Sure, this is ancient steam stuff compared and the paint is peeling - but they won't outrun, outclimb or outrange me anytime soon. Costs about the same.
Safe flying in 2013! Fly a lot, because (everybody now): Time spent flying is not subtracted from one's lifespan!