A Man and His Airplane

When it comes to protective coverings for light aircraft, one name appears to be by far the most well-known: Bruce's Custom Covers. They made the canvas cover that came with my plane (although it was originally made for a different plane, based on the N-number that's embroidered on it), and they made the engine cowl plugs and pitot tube cover that also came with the plane. They make an empennage cover as well, so I emailed them to see if they could make one for my plane. The big issue with mine is that it has the spin kit, so it has the extensions on the stabilator, and a ventral fin under the tail. Both of these would interfere with fitting a cover based on the pictures on their web site. They got back to me and said they agreed the extensions would be a problem. They asked me for some photos so, when I was out there yesterday dealing with the bird, I took some photos of the tail. I sent them to Bruce's this morning and they responded to me a short time ago. Well, the shor...

To be thorough, I went out to the airport again today after work. I wanted to look down the rest of the fuselage to see if there was anything further forward from the access panels I opened yesterday. In the event there was, and it was of the deceased avian persuasion, I took a pair of leather work gloves and a plastic bag. I opened the panel on the left side again and looked inside and forward. Well, I did see more stuff up there. There were some twigs, some grass, a few feathers. I couldn't really reach any of it so it will have to come out later. I opened up the baggage compartment and removed the panel that separates it from the rear. I shined my flashlight around and looked for anything. Then I looked down. It was right there, just inside the rear compartment. A deceased bird. I put on a glove, picked it up, and put it in the bag. It was still intact. It had probably been dead for several days, possibly a week or so, but it hadn't fallen apart yet. It was definitely the so...

One of the things about my plane is that the paint is... well... not great. I don't know if it's ever been painted since new, either by stripping it down to the metal and all new paint, or by simply sanding it down and painting over the existing coat. Painting an airplane the "right" way, by stripping it down to the bare metal, applying primer, and then new paint, is an expensive proposition. We're talking well over $10,000, and maybe even $20K. For this reason, a lot of owners are willing to get by on the existing paint even if it's pretty rough, as long as the plane is otherwise well maintained. When I bought this plane, I knew what condition the paint was in as I was able to see it in person prior to purchase. But when I was cleaning the bird crap off the stabilator yesterday there were some stains that weren't coming off. I don't know if they were new or had been there for a while. Either way, it was really noticeable how the paint had degraded ove...

 As they say, you're not really an airplane owner until you've cleaned a nest out of your plane. Actually, I don't know if anyone says that. But maybe they should. After work today, I went out to the airport to see if I could a) verify whether or not there was actually a nest in the tail of the plane and, b) clean it out if there was. Fortunately, my plane has two inspection panels on the sides of the fuselage just in front of the stabilator. I was able to remove them and, sure enough, there was a nest right there. It was mostly twigs and some soil. I pulled out what I could by hand, and made sure that there wasn't anything interfering with the stabilator cable and pulley. To clean it out thoroughly will require removing the tail cone and the aft ballast weight. This must be done by an A&P because the stabilator needs to be detached. Some Musketeers have a two-piece tail cone that can be removed without having to do that, but mine isn't so equipped. I'll ask...

Specifically, bird crap. Ever since the birth of aviation, birds have been a thorn in the sides of pilots and aircraft owners. For some reason, they just love aircraft. I mean, I can leave my car parked outside for a month, and it's unlikely a bird will do anything other than possibly decorate it a little bit. But an airplane? For some reason, birds think airplanes are just the best when it comes to setting up housekeeping. Based on the evidence that I've had to clean off a couple of times now, some birds have decided that the tail cone of my airplane is a really cool place to be. I suspect there's a nest in there, but I'm honestly at a loss how to get it out short of disassembling the tail assembly. The last time I went up, there was a funky odor in the plane, whose source I'm assuming is what the birds have left behind in the tail of the plane. There's a vent between the cabin and the rear fuselage. Air normally passes from the cabin to the rear through that v...

In earlier posts, I've written about an issue I had with the communication system. To recap, there have been times where I could not hear incoming transmissions in my headset, though they've always been audible over the cabin speaker. Things I've tried include turning off the intercom (which connects the pilot headset directly to the audio panel) and turning up the volume on the radio. One suggestion I was given by the mechanic at Harvey Field, when I was talking with him about this problem, was to turn off the cabin speaker. This is done on the audio panel. I did that and, well, it looks like that had an effect because I haven't had that behavior occur since. I did have that one issue where it appeared Whidbey Approach wasn't hearing my transmissions, but that's a different issue and I don't think it's actually a problem with my system. As far as I know, my transmissions have otherwise always been heard by the intended recipients. Assuming this really d...

I've been with my current employer for some time. One consequence is that I earn a significant amount of PTO every year. I have to make sure I use it because I can carry only so much over to the next year. So I occasionally do what I did this week, which is to take one or two days off and just do other stuff. Of course, "other stuff" includes flying if the weather's nice. Yesterday the weather was lovely, so I headed out to the airport to exercise the plane. I didn't have any particular timetable or destination. I took my time with the preflight inspection and with putting gas in the tanks. Once I took off I made a trip around the pattern, then made an acceptable landing. The wind was a bit squirrely on the approach but I'm getting better at dealing with it. I took off again and headed north. I flew inland from the cost a ways, then decided, what the heck, I'll head out to the San Juan Islands again. I ended up flying a course similar to the one I followed...

Ariel's last annual was performed on June 11 of last year. As I understand it, I have until the end of June this year to have the next annual performed and signed off. After June 30, if I haven't had this done yet, I can't fly the plane until I do. I'm still waiting for the shop at Harvey to have an opening to do the work that has been scheduled since I first purchased the plane. None of this work is required for airworthiness, so I've still been able to fly the plane while waiting. Well, there are a couple of things that are required if I want to fly at night, specifically replacing the landing light bulb and fixing the red cabin light (hopefully also just a bulb replacement). But I can fly during the day and I've been doing so about as often as I can. I spoke with the shop today and my annual is now scheduled. Unfortunately, the earliest they can get me in is the first full week of July, so there will be a few days where the plane will be out of annual and I w...

(Note the lower case letters in the title. Please don't sue me Amazon. Thx!) The weather of late has been variable. Spring has sprung in the Pacific Northwest and with that comes weather that can vary widely from day to day. But today was pretty nice so I took Ariel up for the first time in almost two weeks. Today I flew a sort of grand tour of the San Juan Islands. Earlier flights had been to Friday Harbor and Orcas Island, but this one was basically a large loop over the islands while staying at altitude. There weren't any landings during the trip so, even though I flew a relatively large distance, it didn't qualify as a cross-country flight. I took off from Harvey Field and headed north. My route stayed over the mainland until I reached Chuckanut Bay south of Bellingham, and then turned east. In fact, the first part of the flight mirrored my earlier flight to Orcas Island. This time, however, I flew over Orcas Island, then headed south to Friday Harbor. Once I got there,...