Sighing the airplane ownership sigh
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2020 4:46 am
This is mostly a rant. Maybe there's some useful content here?
So, in late November, I am checking my airplane the day before participating in a Young Eagles flight, and — lo and behold — find what looks like a giant (to me) indentation in one of the propeller blades. Right at the edge of the blade, there is what looks like a bump from something strong that had forced not only the different layers at the tip to come apart but also for the metal leading edge of that blade to bend out. Eek. Well, the Young Eagles flight got canceled, and a local prop shop was consulted. Their opinion? Well, maybe it's fixable, but it's a big enough deal and by the way when did you last overhaul the prop?
It takes a bit of time to get someone to take the prop off and give it to the prop shop, and then for them to take a look at it and send it off somewhere else to get fixed. The other shop ran into some trouble too, then there was shipping, and getting someone to put the prop back on, and between everything it's not till late February that the propeller is on the airplane. Except that's past Jan 1 and I don't have ADS-B (was scheduled for before that but airplane was grounded). And it's Feb 26th and my annual is due in two days.
So then it's off to the annual at another airport, with a ADAPT waiver. They finish in record time! But — lo and behold again — there are squawks galore. We line item everything and call Diamond when necessary and figure out what's airworthiness related and what's not, but the shop has a new director of maintenance and he's attentive to detail and so what worked for the previous guy doesn't work for this one. It's all fixed in late March and..... Covid! My state goes on lockdown, and it's definitely not an essential thing to go somehow travel to the airport to pick up my plane.
We keep the airplane in the hangar for a month till it seems like it's fine to pick it up. It's early May and I pick up the airplane, test flight it around the pattern (with an ADAPT waiver), and it's off to the third airport for the ADS-B install. One thing leads to another, the shop has other people in line before me, and Covid means that not everyone there can work as effectively, so... it's now June 25th, and I finally have my airplane in its normal tie down spot.
I am not sure if this is a normal thing in the life of airplanes, or if I'd done something wrong. Certainly the stay-at-home aspect added to the pain, and maybe could have been circumvented, but for the rest I thought I was pretty much on top of the shops. We communicated every week or two, the explanations were always logical and made sense. But it's painful nonetheless: the pocketbook gets hit for both maintenance as well as all the normal stuff (tie down, insurance, various subscriptions), skills deteriorate, IFR currency goes away, etc.
Does anyone have any advice in general on how to deal with these kinds of situations? I am happy to call this an odd combination of weird problems, but also I wonder if I shouldn't think that it's my fault and that I could have managed this better somehow.
So, in late November, I am checking my airplane the day before participating in a Young Eagles flight, and — lo and behold — find what looks like a giant (to me) indentation in one of the propeller blades. Right at the edge of the blade, there is what looks like a bump from something strong that had forced not only the different layers at the tip to come apart but also for the metal leading edge of that blade to bend out. Eek. Well, the Young Eagles flight got canceled, and a local prop shop was consulted. Their opinion? Well, maybe it's fixable, but it's a big enough deal and by the way when did you last overhaul the prop?
It takes a bit of time to get someone to take the prop off and give it to the prop shop, and then for them to take a look at it and send it off somewhere else to get fixed. The other shop ran into some trouble too, then there was shipping, and getting someone to put the prop back on, and between everything it's not till late February that the propeller is on the airplane. Except that's past Jan 1 and I don't have ADS-B (was scheduled for before that but airplane was grounded). And it's Feb 26th and my annual is due in two days.
So then it's off to the annual at another airport, with a ADAPT waiver. They finish in record time! But — lo and behold again — there are squawks galore. We line item everything and call Diamond when necessary and figure out what's airworthiness related and what's not, but the shop has a new director of maintenance and he's attentive to detail and so what worked for the previous guy doesn't work for this one. It's all fixed in late March and..... Covid! My state goes on lockdown, and it's definitely not an essential thing to go somehow travel to the airport to pick up my plane.
We keep the airplane in the hangar for a month till it seems like it's fine to pick it up. It's early May and I pick up the airplane, test flight it around the pattern (with an ADAPT waiver), and it's off to the third airport for the ADS-B install. One thing leads to another, the shop has other people in line before me, and Covid means that not everyone there can work as effectively, so... it's now June 25th, and I finally have my airplane in its normal tie down spot.
I am not sure if this is a normal thing in the life of airplanes, or if I'd done something wrong. Certainly the stay-at-home aspect added to the pain, and maybe could have been circumvented, but for the rest I thought I was pretty much on top of the shops. We communicated every week or two, the explanations were always logical and made sense. But it's painful nonetheless: the pocketbook gets hit for both maintenance as well as all the normal stuff (tie down, insurance, various subscriptions), skills deteriorate, IFR currency goes away, etc.
Does anyone have any advice in general on how to deal with these kinds of situations? I am happy to call this an odd combination of weird problems, but also I wonder if I shouldn't think that it's my fault and that I could have managed this better somehow.