25 Laps

Today was the long awaited first break-in flight of the newly overhauled O-470. We had attempted to get a flight in yesterday, but during the run-up there was an issue with the prop control so we had to taxi back and call it a day. With the prop control fixed we taxied out and made a request to the tower to circle over the airport at 1500'. The tower approved the request, and we climbed to 1500' and entered the pattern. The break-in instructions say to fly at 75% power for one hour, so once at altitude, the power was set at 23"/2450 and we went around an around and around, overall 25 laps.

At the end of the first hour, we landed and returned to the shop for another inspection to make sure that things were ok with the engine and to verify that there were no leaks. After getting the ok, we departed again for another hour in the air and after the hour stopped at KBVS to get something to eat. After lunch, repeated the same thing and put another hour on the engine before returning to KRNT.

Next up will be an oil change/inspection and then we'll be good to go for another 12 hours until the next oil change.

Back in the Air Soon

The freshly overhauled engine was delivered last week and the mechanics started the installation. We're hoping to make the first break-in flight by the end of the week. We opted for factory TCM cylinders this time around since we had three ECI cylinders fail within a 200 hour interval. Two had the cross-hatching wear down resulting in loss of compression and another experienced a broken valve guide. At the time, we also went ahead and replaced the remaining good four cylinders (when the first two failed), so who knows if they would have eventually succumbed to failure. (Previous post on the engine).

The engine shop did their best to help us with some of the costs, but in the end it was ECI that didn't stand behind their product and in my opinion manufactured three faulty cylinders. That's a 50% defect rate.

So moving forward with the cylinder problems behind us, we should have another 1500 hours or so of smooth and relatively maintenance free flying.

iPad in the Cockpit

I bought an iPad back in October have been evaluating various flying apps and electronic charts. So far, I like ForeFlight and JeppTC. Since I already subscribe to Jepp View the chart downloads are free and Foreflight costs $75/year for its download service. I've taken the iPad along in the cockpit for the last few flights and tried using it for instrument approaches in the Frasca. So far the device is useful and provides added benefit as a pilot, but I still haven't found a descent way to mount or keep the tablet accessible in the cockpit. I've see some yoke and dash mounts and a few iPad knee boards, but so far the knee board from http://mygoflight.com/ looks promising. I'm currently using a Speck case which works as a lapboard when opened up. Also, with IOS 4.3, the switch on the side of the iPad can now be configured to lock the screen. A few times with IOS 4.2, if I moved my leg, the Jepp charts would rotate and not be easily readable.

Here's the Foreflight and Jepp displays:

The Early Days of Flight

I'm in D.C. this week and had a free day to see the sights so my first destination was the National Air and Space Museum. This place is packed with all kinds of goodies, but my objective was to see the Wright Flyer. With the exception of new skins put on in 1985, the craft is the original. Another interesting artifact I saw was an early AI and this thing is about the size of the entire Cessna six-pack.

There is also another part of the museum located near KIAD which houses a space shuttle and the Enola Gay. I'm hoping to find a few free hours to take a trip out there. Being able to see an airplane that dropped an A-bomb is an opportunity not to be missed.

More 182 Woes

As I've written in previous posts, the alternator belt on the 182 has been periodically coming off during various phases of flight and we have been seeing traces of metal in the oil filter after oil changes. First the belt issue; we've recently tried a few more attempts at getting the pulleys in perfect alignment by making an alignment tool as recommended by a tech person at TCM so now the two pulleys are nearly perfectly aligned. So with everything lined up, the engine was run with the cowling off and the observation is that the belt is bowing up and down at around 2300 RPM (see video below). So even if the pulleys are aligned, the belt will eventually jump since its not remaining taught. There appears to be a vibration coming from the engine or propeller and after making some queries of the Cessna Owners Assoc., some others have seen this problem when there were bad crankshaft weights. Another owner had some missing pins for the alternator bracket, but these pins were airframe specific and our particular model of 182 doesn't require the pins.

Issue number two is the metal particles showing up in the oil filter. The first thought is that the metal is a remnant from the last cylinder failure that we had. But after changing the oil every 10 hours for the last few times, that metal should have worked its way out of the engine.

The question on everyone's mind is: are the belt/vibration issues and the metal in the oil related? No one knows for sure, but we don't have confidence in the airplane anymore and have decided to pull the engine and send it to the engine shop to be torn down and inspected. The shop is going to do something called an "IRAN" inspection. This inspection isn't cheap, but they will be able to get to the bottom of why the engine is producing metal and let us know if the crankshaft or something else is causing the vibration.

The engine was pulled on Wednesday and the engine shop will pick up the engine next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

A New $100 Hamburger Spot at KBVS

I had a student call me up and ask if I would fly with him up to the new restaurant (Kitty Hawk Cafe) that recently opened at KBVS. The Puget Sound skies had been nothing but rain and overcast the last few weeks, but today was an exception with clear skies. So we launched from KRNT and headed up to Skagit. I had recently attended a mountain flying seminar and the instructor mentioned that you should always bring your camera along because you never know what you will see. As we departed I noticed a perfect specimen of a lenticular cloud hovering over Mount Rainier. And wouldn't you know it, I went to snap the picture and the camera battery was dead. Ah! In any case, the food was was good and the portions quite large at the Kitty Hawk Cafe.

Weekend In Portland

We didn't have any plans to fly this past weekend, but one of the 182 partners cancelled his trip so the airplane became available. On a whim we packed the overnight bags and launched for KHIO on Friday after work. We ended up staying a couple of nights and visited the Oregon Zoo and did some exploring in downtown portland. The flight back was mostly IMC in an out of the clouds at 6000'.