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Rite of passage

 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 the mechanic to do that when it goes in for annual.

Fortunately, there were no birds, eggs, babies, or even eggshells. Either the female hadn't yet laid any eggs, or the babies had already left the nest and the shells had been cleaned up. I'm not an expert on bird behavior, but a cursory search of the interwebz indicates that birds do remove eggshells from their nests so either possibility could be true.

When I put the plane away after flying it this past Saturday, I left the stabilator in the full pitch up position, rather than in the full pitch down position as normal. This reduces the size of the openings on either side of the tail cone where the stabilator passes through, and through which the birds had been passing. There were droppings on the top of the stabilator, but it did appear that the birds hadn't gone through that opening. They might have gone through underneath, but I couldn't tell one way or the other. After cleaning out the nest, I left it in the full up position again. I may go out there later this week with my off-brand shop vacuum and see if I can pull any more stuff out of there. I also have some anti-corrosion spray coming from the big A which I can spray in there which will hopefully arrest any corrosion that might be occurring. I don't know how effective it will be without having fully cleaned everything out, but it can't hurt. I'll ask the A&P to spray some more in there during the annual. I'm hoping that some sort of anti-corrosion substance or coating had already been applied before I bought the plane.

It also appeared that the birds hadn't left many, if any droppings inside the plane. I was hoping that would be case, thinking they wouldn't want to foul their own nest. I think what I was smelling in the cabin on Saturday was the soil that they'd brought in rather than guano. Next time I go out there, I may bring a can of air freshener and spray some in the cabin.

I know I should have taken some pictures, but I was so focused on getting the job done and going home that I didn't think about it until I'd removed most of the material. Oh well.


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