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

My engine is so pretty

I went out to the shop today to take a few pictures of my engine and plane before the engine is remounted. The baffling and some other stuff has already been attached to the engine. The engine mount is not back yet. Since the nose gear is attached to the engine mount, the plane is currently sitting on the main gear, and a couple of supports just behind the firewall, and under the tail. Here are a few of the photos I took. The engine looks lovely, to me at any rate, especially since I know those are new cylinders.

She flies again!

It's been a long and sometimes difficult road to get to this point but today I flew Ariel for the first time since last March. It is difficult to describe the emotions I felt after I stopped in front of the hangar and shut her down after the flight. I about broke down crying. I've waited for this for so long, and had to deal with so many frustrating setbacks that it sometimes felt like I'd never fly her again. Following the instructions from Preston, I flew her for half an hour at 3000' feet over the airport in case something went wrong. I ran the engine at 75% power (maybe a bit more, but that's okay) for as much of the flight as I could. The engine started right up, and I thought it sounded better than it had before. It seemed smoother, somehow. When I took off, I had one notch of flaps in, and she flew off the runway on her own without me having to pull back on the yoke. It was as if she was eager to get back into the sky. The flight was completely uneventful, as...

The family that flies together...

The weather wasn't great today, but it was nice enough to go for a local flight, and my wife went with me for the first time since 2004, shortly after I got my private pilot license. It was a bit windy, but there was little crosswind so we had no problem taking off from Harvey's relatively short runway. As we climbed, it became rather bumpy, with the wind changing direction several times. It was a bit better when we got to 3000' MSL, but still not very smooth. I kept the flight short. I headed southeast for a ways, then turned north, then came around the north side of the airport to the west, and finally headed back in to land on runway 15. Despite it being a bit windy and gusty, I made a landing that I'm very proud of, touching down smoothly and slowing in plenty of time to exit at the taxiway, instead of having to go to the end of the runway. Overall, Ariel performed beautifully. I love that plane more every time I fly it. The flight was only about 25 minutes, but I w...