 |
|
|
Attend a maintenance symposium to be a better pilot.
|
At a local FAA "Wings" safety seminar, the Columbus, Ohio, FSDO manager of airworthiness safety, Roger Olson, recommended that we pilots attend the maintenance symposium at the Columbus State Community College aviation facility. So I did. I am glad that I did. It made me a better pilot.
Every March, the FAA Flight Standards District Offices work with local aviation businesses to host symposiums for Airframe & Powerplant mechanics and Inspection & Authorization mechanics. The classroom sessions allow A&P and I/A mechanics to be recertified. FAA representatives from Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati met us as we left each class and put their stamps on our schedules to validate our attendance. To be recertified, the mechanics had to attend eight hours of training over two days, selecting their interest areas from over 20 separate presentations. Among the topics were propeller maintenance, fuel injection systems, human factors, batteries, hoses, starters and lubrication. Between lectures, mechanics met with over 20 vendors who displayed their wares. Vendors also supported the symposium by donating door prizes from the usual caps and t-shirts to tools and complete sets of Airworthiness Directives on CD-ROM.
The Federal Aviation Regulations (now called 14CFR) Part 43.3(g) allows private pilots to perform certain preventive maintenance items listed in 14FCR 43 Appendix A(2) as long as the plane is not used for commercial purposes. Generally, these are items that do not require complex disassembly, such as air and oil filters, landing gear tires, upholstery, and some cowlings. Even if you do not own your own airplane, knowing the options and limitations in maintenance makes you a better pilot.
I attended a session about propeller maintenance. The instructor was Jon Geissler of Aircraft Propeller Service of Ohio. He cited a nationwide study conducted in nine major regions that identified 2950 propellers condemned as unfit. Of them, 2071 had damage not typically visible to the pilot, such as internal corrosion, wear, deviations in thickness and microscopic cracks. The typical 4-cylinder GA engine puts 25 tons of centrifugal force on a propeller. When a propeller fails, the result is always dramatic and sometimes catastrophic. Any pilot who buys a used plane must remember that a GA aircraft might see only a few thousand hours of recorded use in 20, 25 or 50 years. Hobbs time does not account for the time that a propeller sits exposed to wind, sunlight, humidity, and salt. Professional inspection of the propeller is a prerequisite to peace of mind. Geissler cautioned against the common practice of pulling and pushing an airplane by its prop. The propeller is designed to take centrifugal forces, not lateral forces and torsion.
In the vendor area, Charles Rocco was representing a new line of air filters. These products were originally developed for race cars and are now authorized for airplanes. The engineered materials deliver superior air flow compared to paper filters and they can be cleaned, refurbished, and reused up to 25 times at an initial cost that is competitive with most paper filters.
Phillip Scadden of Brookville, Ohio, repairs and overhauls cylinders. He said that pilots who like to fly lean are a steady source of work for him. "The valve train is a weak link in any engine because it stays in the fire," he said. When he rebores a cylinder, he prefers to plate it with Cerminil, a nickel alloy. "It seats like steel and wears better than chrome."
Paul Royko from Aeroshell had a lot to say about lubricants. Touting his company's product line, his advice was an eye-opener. In the midwest, we live in a weather environment that changes rapidly through a broad range of temperatures. He said that you need to know the operating ranges of the oil you use and you need to understand the trade-offs in grades and weights of synthetic and mineral oils. In the late spring and late summer, daytime temperatures will range in the mid-80s F and before dawn, they will dip toward freezing. Freezing is a winter condition, regardless of what the calendar says, and that means cold starting conditions for the engine. Of course, Royko pointed out, flying from Chicago to Phoenix also will determine the grade and weight of oil your plane needs. He also said that a flight school's planes will operate continuously and therefore demand a different lubricant than the one needed by a pilot who flies 50 to 100 hours a year.
Advantext sells Airworthiness Directives on CD-ROM. In the training seminar on electronic databases and filings, Bob Hansel spoke to 50 mechanics, not one of whom still uses paper or microfiche. Computerized ADs not only make the mechanic's life easier, they deliver more complete assurance to owners and pilots. Last October, planning a cross country, my CFI and I sat down with our plane's maintenance logs following an annual inspection. Laserjet printouts on standard paper would have been much easier to read -- and would have instilled a sense of confidence that the log was complete and that our plane satisfied all of the ADs, not just the ones a series of mechanics found flipping through books since 1965. Bob Hansel said that the airframe, powerplant and propeller are easy enough to track. "What about Appliances?" he asked rhetorically. "What if you need to replace a windshield and your customer wants a single where there was a two-piece?" He suggested that the mechanics generate a checklist of appliances and then inventory the plane against it. This narrows the search for appliance ADs and their owners.
We pilots are generally the kind of people who take responsibility for our situations. On the other hand, we were all raised in an authoritarian culture that trained us early to trust and obey our parents and teachers. Student pilots especially tend to feel unsure about asking to see the maintenance logs for a plane -- and then calling them into question. That discomfort is nothing compared to the feeling you get when the engine quits because the wrong oil failed to compensate for long hours of running lean with an air filter that met only minimum specifications. Having the engine fail is nothing compared to having the propeller come apart. As pilots, we want to hop in the left seat and top the windswept heights with easy grace. Oddly enough, we sometimes forget that in order to do that, you need an airplane. |
Michael E. Marotta
mercury7@newsguy.com
Technical Writer
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
