Tag Archives: maintenance

Home Just in Time for Maintenance

Posted on by

After the return trip from Palm Springs, I realized I had reached home “just in time” for some critical maintenance.

My final round trip journey was in excess of 4000 nm, as you can see below:

Before the trip I made sure all the maintenance was current and even had my mechanic go over the plane in detail.
Until the very last leg of the journey, everything was working flawlessly.  However, the last hour wasn’t so pleasant.  For starters, the A/C stopped working.  I know… I know … hardly a crisis … But it was Florida and rather warm out.  No worries, I pressed on.  Then a funny engine indicator popped up on the R9.  The Turbo Inlet Temperature spiked to 2000 degrees!

Yikes… I had never seen this before!  But surprisingly, everything else was looking, sounding and feeling normal.  Since I was less than 100 miles from home, I reduced power to about 50% and stared at the engine indicators the rest of the way.  I suspected a minor sensor problem because the turbo temp was fluctuating ~ 500 degrees up and down in a matter of seconds.  But I wouldn’t know for sure till I was on the ground and the cowling was off.
Later on the ground, my regular crew @ Leading Edge confirmed that the Turbo Inlet Temperate issue was indeed just a minor sensor issue.  However, with the cowling off, they found something else that was not apparent to me, yet quite serious:

There was not just a crack, but rather a serious separation in one of the exhaust pipes.  This could have been quite unpleasant for me at some point really soon. So I was glad that the sensor problem uncovered this!  I am even more pleased about how lucky I was that this didn’t cause a more serious issue during my long journey.
Now after a week, everything is fixed and the plane is back in the air… Time to plan the next journey!!

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Shaking Off the Rust / Test Flight

Posted on by
Last week I returned from China and was planning to go a for a joyride with a fellow pilot named Ron, who was visiting town from Atlanta.
This flight was a multi-purpose mission:
First, and most important, I wanted to “shake off the rust” after 2 1/2 weeks of zero hours in the logbook.
Second, it is always fun to go for a joyride over Tampa Bay with a fellow pilot.  I was planning to fly over Clearwater Beach and shoot some approaches @ Sarasota and St Petersburg.
Third, I wanted to test out the new Lopresti “Ice-Skates”.
No … the “Ice-Skates” don’t let me land on ice… However, they allegedly add a “few” knots to your cruise speed and they also provide a cool little door that lets you get access to your tires.  This is such a simple modification, I have always been surprised that Cirrus didn’t make this a standard feature of all SR22s.  You can see the finished product (sans decals) below:

Ron and I got to the airport shortly after lunch.  I called from the car to have the line guys pull the plane out and have it ready right in front of the terminal.  (I know that sounds lazy… But I usually do this when I have passengers)  When we arrived, the first important task was to update the R9 charts/GPS.  While that was running,  I conducted the usual preflight.  Everything looked in order and we climbed in ready to go…
Unfortunately, “Murphy” had other ideas!  The plane simply would not start!!
Ugg… The only good thing was that I was at home base and Jonathan from Leading Edge was able to come over and quickly diagnose that I had a bad Mag 🙁
So my test flight was delayed for a couple of days… 🙁
A few days later, I finally got to take the test flight.  This time I was alone and being even more cautious than usual.  On the ground, I did 2 full mag checks and everything checked out perfectly.  Then after a simple take off, I climbed north of Zephyr Hills and leveled off @ 3500 FT.  Winds were 210@22 and I decided to do an in-flight mag check, which also checked out fine!
Confident that the plane was in good working order, I decided to check out the Ice Skate performance.  I climbed up to ~ 11,500 FT and leveled off at a typical cruise configuration.  Usually, this would yield between 175 – 180 knots.  However, the winds were now 240 @ 34.  Given the winds, I couldn’t figure out if the Ice Skates really helped or not.  So I guess that will need to be another test flight on a calm wind day.
With all tests complete, it was time to practice a little… I did a couple of 360s, slow flight and then did a couple of GPS approaches into Lakeland.  This time I wanted to play with the GPS features of the Contour camera and I think I have finally figured it out!  Haven’t had to time to edit the video yet… But hopefully in the next couple of days.

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Annual Drama

Posted on by

After last week’s “heavy flying” week, this was a no flying week (except for JetBlue).  I needed to be in New York for some IBM business.  As usual, I felt the urge to multi-task and decided that this was the perfect week to get the annual inspection done on the Cirrus.  The annual is not due till next month … But since I was out of town anyway, I thought it was the perfect timing.  Besides… I would feel much more comfortable going to the WFIF event next month with a fresh annual.

Luckily, the folks at Leading Edge were able to accommodate my last minute request and said they “hoped” to finish by Friday “depending on what they find”.  Like many aircraft owners, the annual inspection usually strikes fear in my heart.  While the plane has no known squawks, who knows what they will find when they start taking things apart.  Worse yet, who knows how much will it cost!
So when I returned home to Tampa today, I called the folks at Leading Edge to see how it was going…
This is what they showed me:
While the picture was downright painful for me to see, they told me some gr8 news!!  After the complete annual inspection, the only material item that needed attention was the left main tire, which needed to be replaced.  As you can see, they were almost done with that today:

By tomorrow, they tell me that it will be washed and back in my hanger.
That is absolutely perfect timing…. On Saturday, I am planning to go to the EAA fly-in in Vero Beach and on Sunday I am planning to do an Angel Flight from Pensacola to Miami for 2 year old boy that needs to get to Miami Children’s Hospital.
So overall, my anxiety is greatly relieved and I can happily say … “Another year’s annual drama done!!”

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Avidyne R9 Upgrade Process

Posted on by
Many people have asked me about what was involved in doing my Avidyne R9 retrofit.  So I have finally gotten around to describing it.
First a little background/context….
Last year, I was the happy, proud owner of N-514TJ, which is a Cirrus SR-20, well equipped with the Avidyne R7 avionics suite. This was the first plane I owned and I was EXTREMELY happy with it.  However, it was missing a couple of features that got me thinking about upgrading.
My SR20 had dual Garmin 430s (but NO WAAS).  Being an IT guy this was perhaps the primary motivation for me to start to explore.  Since, upgrading to WAAS is a significant expense, I also considered “trading up” on the plane itself.

Here is a pic of the old plane

When I started to look for the “next” plane, I naturally looked at a new Cirrus SR22 w/perspective.   When I first took a demo flight in this plane, my initial reaction was WOW! … This plane is amazing.  (I didn’t really understand everything on the screen.  But the demo pilot/salesman that accompanied me assured me that was “normal” and with a little training, I would become proficient very quickly.)  At that point, I had heard of the Avidyne R9.  However, I had not seen it in person.  Then, by pure luck, Avidyne had a sales presentation at my home airport.  The salesman was a very charismatic guy, who showed me how to fly a typical FL flight, that is to say with DPs/STARs, enroute diversions, holds, etc on R9.  I was sooo impressed, I decided that day that R9 was for me.  I left a sizable deposit on R9, even though I didn’t have a plane that I wanted to put it in!
In my opinion, the R9 blows away the Garmin Perspective because it is so intuitive that after my demo flight, I felt like I knew how to use 75% of the system.  In contrast, after my demo flight with Perspective, I felt like I knew how to use 25% of the system.  Being a private pilot who typically flies once a week, this really appealed to me!
So I decided, I wouldn’t upgrade the SR20 with WAAS.  Instead, I would “find” an SR22 w/ WAAS and then do an R9 upgrade.
Then, with the help of the Jeff Ellston @ Leading Edge in Tampa, I found N-914AL.  This plane was the “perfect” canvas to put R9 onto.  It was a GTS Turbo with Air (a must in FL) + WAAS + Deice + Built in Oxygen, etc
Here is what I looked like when I bought it:

Here is the before picture before R9 and Tail Number change.

This is the “before” picture of the cockpit

Then the R9 upgrade began… Perhaps I was a bit naive… I had envisioned 2 screens come out ; 2 bigger better screens go in … Poof it is done.
The reality is not quite that easy.  In fact, it is major surgery.  The pix below show some of the work in progress.

This is the “during surgery” view

This is the “almost done” view

The entire process takes 4-6 weeks and it is one that you do NOT want to rush. I visited the work in progress several times a week.  In my opinion, the folks at Leading Edge Aviation and Sarasota Avionics, really went out of their way to do a gr8 job.  (I am extremely pleased with the finished product)
Here is what it looks like now:

I couldn’t resist the vanity and “had” to change the tail number to N346TJ

This is the “after” view of the cockpit

The finished product has totally exceeded my expectations!  Now that I have over 100 hours on R9, I plan to write some other posts soon that demonstrate what I love about this system .  But perhaps the “big picture win” for me is that I have a plane that is “better” than what comes off of the Cirrus production line for ~ $100k less.
Cheers,
== T.J.==