A Maintenance Oriented Podcast For Airplane Owners, Pilots, and Mechanics

Month: December 2020

164 – Airplanes, Motorcycles, and Bob’s Grass Runway

Bob Shenk (right) is a huge fan of Luscombes… this beautifully restored aircraft was among the airplanes I got to see when I visited Bob’s place a week ago… what a pleasure that visit was!

Donnie Simmons (left) is a good friend of Bob’s, and often spends his Fridays at Bob’s place, both helping with Bob’s projects, as well as some of his own.

In addition to airplanes, Bob also likes motorcycles…

He owned a Honda dealership years ago, and has some pretty cool two-wheeled machines… and can you guess what that airplane in the background is?

That is an Acroduster… one more fascinating airplane!

Another Luscombe, and an Aeronca Champ:

Here’s the runway, as viewed from the approach end:

I’d been wanting to visit Bob’s place for awhile, and one reason was to show Bob my borescope, and how it works.

He liked it, and I think he might buy one.

We didn’t see anything startling in Bob’s engines.

Donnie’s Piper Cub engine, however, was a different story…

The cub was over in another building, so we took the borescope over there to take a look.

Donnie purchased the Piper Cub project after it was in a landing incident more than a year ago:

It startled both of us when we saw the terrible rust on the cylinder walls:

I hated to see what had happened to Donnie’s cylinders, but he took quick action after consulting an engine guy. He removed all four cylinders the next day, hoping they could be salvaged by honing them.

The visit to Bob’s place was fantastic! I came away with some thoughts. Here are two:

  • If you have a local aviation friend you’ve wanted to go visit, do it! It will probably make your day, and theirs as well!
  • If you have an inactive engine, find a way to preserve it.

Thanks Bob and Donnie, for showing me around… you are both a real inspiration!


Thanks to PilotWorkshops.com for sponsoring this episode.

To check out the book on Airplane Engines, click here.

Also, be sure to sign up for the “Tip of the Week.” It’s free and really practical.


Here’s a new service I’m offering:

Evaluation of borescope pictures:

4 cylinder engine: $50

6 cylinder engine: $70

Twin engine: $100

  • Click here to make a payment.
  • Send me an email with your borescope pictures attached. (dean{at}airplaneownermaintenance{dot}com.
  • Within two days, I’ll send you a typed document with evaluations of all the pictures.
  • If you have questions, shoot me an email!

God bless you my friends, and Merry Christmas to you all!


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163 – Gear Warning Light Mystery

I recently did an annual inspection on a Rockwell Commander, and the gear warning light was not working.


Before we tell that story, I want to thank our sponsor, PilotWorkshops.com

This week’s “Tip of the Week” was about emergency checklist memorization… a very interesting lesson by Sarah Fritts, a West Point graduate and Army combat aviator.

These short, practical, free tips are sent out every Wednesday, and are totally worthwhile. Click here to sign up.


I also discovered Sarah Fritts has a website with fantastic training resources at ThinkAviation.net

She writes on topics that pilots really want to know about… topics you often hear debated among pilots, like which medical certificate you need and how long it’s good for, and many more.


Now back to the gear warning light… after some troubleshooting, I discovered there was proper voltage at the light assembly and the ground connection was good, so it had to be the bulbs.

Sure enough, those little mini bulbs with soldered wire strands were the culprit… there are two of them.

I was super excited to find a batch of 7 or so of these on eBay, only to discover they were not working… how frustrating! Back to the drawing board.

I finally found some appropriate bulbs from another source, soldered them in the light socket, and they worked perfectly!

Another mystery with this Commander 114 landing gear system was solved a couple years ago after the owner had a huge yaw in flight… it turned out the landing gear was extending during flight. Since the gear is hydraulic, the one with least resistance came down first, and created a yaw effect.

It turned out the emergency extension valve was leaking internally past a worn o-ring, and causing the gear to extend.

Here’s the knob near the pilot’s right knee… the knob is connected to a hydraulic valve.

This issue was perhaps more difficult to troubleshoot since the gear warning light was also not working.

Now, both squawks have been fixed, (the valve was replaced a couple years ago, and the light was fixed during the most recent annual inspection.) Now, hopefully the system will operate normally for a long time.


One last item for today… check out an exhaust valve I recently lapped in a TSIO-550 cylinder for an owner… it showed very early signs of burning, but was still in good condition:

We lapped the valve and installed a new rotator, hopefully extending the life of this cylinder.


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