Skip to main content

Never regret

The weather was nice and clear today, although it was rather cold. But it wasn't below freezing so I took the plane up for about an hour and a half this afternoon.

There are times when I'm not sure that I really want to go flying. But something I've noticed is that I've never put my plane away after a flight and thought to myself, "I wish I hadn't gone flying today." There are times when I've decided not to go, either because I'm not feeling well or because I'm not sure the weather conditions will remain VFR, but whenever I have gone, I've always, always, been glad I did it.

Before my last flight a couple weeks ago, I put a quart of oil in because it was down to about 6.25 quarts as measured on the dipstick. I flew for two hours that day. Today, when I checked the oil during my preflight, it read 7 quarts. So I lost about a quarter quart of oil in two hours. And based on the oil consumption rate I'd been seeing recently, it's very likely that some of that loss was not due to burning, but rather it being blown out of the engine. The conventional wisdom for Musketeers with O-360 engines is that anything over a certain amount will be blown out, which is why you never fill it up to the 8-quart maximum.

All this is to say that break-in continues to go well, and oil consumption is about where I expect it to be at this point. I've also now put exactly 12 hours on the engine since I got the plane back from the shop, according to the Hobbs meter. At 20 to 25 hours, I'll have the oil changed and we'll likely switch from mineral oil to regular ashless dispersant oil. Then, at the following oil change, I expect we'll resume sending samples to Blackstone for analysis.

No pictures from today's flight as I just wanted to enjoy being in the air.

Comments

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

April showers....

I haven't been flying in a few weeks due to the weather. It has been a rather wet April and the alignment of rain showers with the weekend has been exquisite. I have nineteen hours on the engine so far. The plan is to run it to 25 hours, then do the first oil change. At that point we'll most likely switch to regular oil. I do have Camguard that I intend to use but my understanding is that, with a new or overhauled engine, you should run at least one oil change interval on regular oil without Camguard before starting to use it. If the weather is nice at some point during this next week, I may just take a half day off from work and go flying, then make up the time later.
Post a Comment
Read more

Not much going on right now

I've put about ten hours on the plane since I got it back from the shop last December. The weather has been generally poor so flying regularly hasn't been possible. For now, I'm focusing on putting time on the engine to continue breaking it in and get to the first oil change. Oil consumption has already dropped to normal, or near normal levels so it looks like break-in is going well so far. And that's pretty much it for now. I am looking forward to more regular VFR conditions as we move into spring and summer. I'm also looking forward to flying to other places for fly-ins and other get-togethers since I missed most of them last year.
Post a Comment
Read more