airplaneengines – Airplane Owner Maintenance

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This is what Josh discovered recently in his Beechcraft Debonair while getting some training in his airplane with an instructor as part of the Bonanza Pilot Proficiency Program (BPPP.) The gear motor was the culprit.

Josh’s story is the main feature in today’s episode, but first I want to thank PilotWorkshops for sponsoring the podcast.

The more I learn about PilotWorkshops, the more impressed I am. The team led by Mark Robidoux is producing all kinds of valuable resources to help us as pilots go beyond being legal and certified, to becoming proficient and safe.

And I’ve discovered when we are proficient and safe, it’s a lot more fun to fly!

So I encourage you to do two things:

ONE: Go to PilotWorkshops.com and sign up for the “Tip of the Week.” It’s a short, 2 minute or less, valuable lesson for pilots, both in print and audio form… there’s a question, followed by an expert answer, along with a fun quiz at the end about “what you would do” in that scenario.

TWO: Grab a copy of the new engine book… “Airplane Engines: A Pilot-Friendly Manual.” Check it out here: https://pilotworkshop.com/products/airplane-engines/

I had the privilege of helping to edit the engine book and provide photos, and I can say with confidence it’s a GREAT resource for pilots!

Now back to Josh and his gear motor.

Sometimes the gear would retract and extend, and sometimes not.

Listen to the story in today’s episode to find out how things turned out with Josh’s instructor that day, as well as why they ended up carefully towing the airplane back to the hangar by hand, and how the aircraft finally ended up on jacks in the shop at Classic Aviation LLC at KSHD, where the landing gear motor could be removed for repair.

The gear motor is on its way to Kevin O’Halloran for repair. I was totally impressed with the procedure he uses to repair these 12 volt “Lamb” gear motors. (Those are the only ones he works on.)

We’re also changing all 3 nose gear rod ends, hardware, down spring, and shear pin at this time (as recommended by ABS.)

Here’s the existing nose gear down spring, shear pin, idler arm rod end and hardware…a portion of the parts we’ll be replacing (looks like they’ve been there for a LONG TIME.)

Josh will be good to go for a long time as far as the landing gear goes.

I found a sketchy-looking entry about the gear motor in the airframe log from 1996. The best I can tell, here’s what it says:

“Removed landing gear motor, cut armature, new brushes, new bearings, replaced overhauled motor, retract tested.”

Sorry, but for me, sloppy maintenance entries makes me wonder if the work was also sloppy.

It’s always best to type maintenance record entries.

And one last thing that’s not a big deal, but it indicates the maintenance manual procedure was not quite finished, is the shimmy dampener. The cotter pin should be slightly spread apart to allow inserting a small measuring rod or wire to determine when the fluid is low.

If you’d like me to travel to your airport for some very specific maintenance oriented training with you, then send me an email: dean@airplaneownermaintenance.com

Or, to set up a virtual call:

Schedule a FaceTime call with me in 2 simple steps