Skip to main content

Scheduling my first annual inspection

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 won't be able to fly it... including the first weekend in July. But that's the reality of the situation and it won't be long before I'll be able to fly it again, provided nothing major is found during the annual.

I did add another item to the list of work needing to be done: The last time I went flying my primer was really stiff. It's always been pretty stiff, but it seems to have worsened over the last couple of flights. I haven't researched this much yet, but it appears to be a relatively easy and inexpensive issue to address.

I'm hopeful that it will come through with little or no maintenance required beyond what we already know about. It was pretty thoroughly inspected last year, and I also had the pre-buy inspection performed back in January, so it's unlikely anything big has cropped up since then. But anything's possible, and I have to be prepared to spend some bucks if necessary. That's the reality of owning an airplane that's almost 50 years old.

Comments

  1. Wishing you a speedy and cost effective annual. My Commander is still down, waiting on a muffler rebuild to be returned. I had a few surprises this year and had a few things done that I wanted upgraded. I can't wait to see my final bill. Yikes!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Approaching the annual

I know I haven't been posting much, but that's mainly because nothing much of note has been happening. I've been flying, but not really going anywhere in particular. The engine continues to run very well, and the plane is still solid. I was hoping to do more "destination" flying this year but, for whatever reason(s), it didn't really happen. Next year, hopefully.... On the horizon, though, is the annual inspection. It's already scheduled for mid-December, since the last annual is good to the end of that month. I've also arranged for it to be an owner-assisted annual. I'm told that every airplane owner should do this at least once and I can certainly understand why that is the case, even before I do it. I will be learning about my airplane in a way that nothing else will match and, incidentally, save some money at the same time. I'm looking forward to it. Leading up to the annual, I have been compiling a list of squawks that I want to take care ...

First Oil Change

It's been a while since my last post here. I've been flying, but the flights have been intended simply to put time on the plane and most have been pretty uneventful. However, the last two flight have been particularly nice because my wife came with me. I had enough hours on the engine that I felt I could trust it enough to take a passenger. I've now put over 25 hours on the engine since the overhaul and it's time for its first oil change. That was just completed, and the Aeroshell mineral oil used for break-in has been replaced with Phillips XC ashless-dispersant oil. The plan is to run it another 25 hours, at which point we'll change the oil again. At that time, we'll send a sample to Blackstone for analysis, and I will also resume adding Camguard. I also had the shop take care of a few other squawks while they had it in. The biggest of these is its tendency to pull to the left in the air and on the ground. I suspected that it was due to the nosewheel centering...

Precipitation

The weather was rather nice yesterday and I was able to get up in the air in the afternoon. The flight was pretty uneventful, essentially another jaunt up to the north and back. There were two things that were a bit different from the norm. First, on the way back to Harvey Field, I ran at full power. I've done full power runs before; it's a part of the break-in process for an overhauled engine. And I did another good long one yesterday. I was doing a bit better than 110 knots on the airspeed indicator, and that's with the built-in calibrator for true airspeed set for the temperature and altitude so it should be pretty close to what I was actually doing. Yep, still not a fast plane, but I still think the roomy cabin and large fuel capacity make up for that. Second, as I was flying back to Harvey, I decided not to straight back but rather to take a quick detour off to the east to prolong my full-power run. I turned east, then headed back north for a bit. I saw a couple of clo...