Tell me it gets better....

Jim K

Jim K

Final Approach
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Display name:
Richard Digits
Got my mail on the way to the airport, and finally got the bill for the magneto iran, going through the landing gear, and a few other little things..$7700, which is about what I expected.

Flew to lunch, the KCS 55 crapped the bed. The previous owner rebuilt it a little over a year ago, then it quit right before i bought it, so he had someone else go through it. About 5 hours into my ownership the glideslope quit, and I haven't even had that looked at yet. Now it appears the gyro is failing again. Don't think it's worth throwing any more money at, so probably going to do a g5. All hooked up to the autopilot, I guess I'm probably looking at another 7 amu.

Then it'll be reliable.... right.....RIGHT?

Well, except for the leaking fuel tank, and the prop due for overhaul, and.......
 
I coulda bought a new car with what I just paid. But I got a new audio panel, transponder and nav/com out of the deal at the same time.
 
This has basically been my entire 2020. First it was a faulty tachometer. Then the plane went in for paint for a few months. Then we overhauled the fuel flow divider, mechanical pump and servo because the engine would die below 1,000 RPM with the fuel pump off. Then it was overhaul the right magneto, and while we're at it might as well replace the spark plugs since a few of them weren't firing all that great. Was still chasing an ignition problem so we replaced the ignition harness. Then our Century HSI starting going out. Luckily I found a cheap one on eBay to save us from throwing down another $6k on a Garmin G5 or 275. Then it was a plugged injector and then a broken fuel line to one of the injectors. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I'm hoping we will soon run out of things to replace and end up with a brand new plane. Oh well.
 
Jim K said:
Don't think it's worth throwing any more money at, so probably going to do a g5. All hooked up to the autopilot, I guess I'm probably looking at another 7 amu.

Then it'll be reliable.... right.....RIGHT?
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You’re looking at it all wrong. Think of it as just 9 acres of corn. :)

I spent money fixing my old mechanical HSI when I first bought the plane. Broke again a year later and went with G5’s. They’ve been flawless the last 3 years. (Knock on wood.)

If you keep tackling everything that pops up and not deferring things, it does get better fairly quickly. Good luck breaking on through to the other side!

Say when on the breakfast meetup.
 
Jim K said:
Got my mail on the way to the airport, and finally got the bill for the magneto iran, going through the landing gear, and a few other little things..$7700, which is about what I expected.

Flew to lunch, the KCS 55 crapped the bed. The previous owner rebuilt it a little over a year ago, then it quit right before i bought it, so he had someone else go through it. About 5 hours into my ownership the glideslope quit, and I haven't even had that looked at yet. Now it appears the gyro is failing again. Don't think it's worth throwing any more money at, so probably going to do a g5. All hooked up to the autopilot, I guess I'm probably looking at another 7 amu.

Then it'll be reliable.... right.....RIGHT?

Well, except for the leaking fuel tank, and the prop due for overhaul, and.......
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I think you answered your question in the last sentence
 
Radar Contact said:
You’re looking at it all wrong. Think of it as just 9 acres of corn. :)

I spent money fixing my old mechanical HSI when I first bought the plane. Broke again a year later and went with G5’s. They’ve been flawless the last 3 years. (Knock on wood.)

If you keep tackling everything that pops up and not deferring things, it does get better fairly quickly. Good luck breaking on through to the other side!

Say when on the breakfast meetup.
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If I remember right, you broke it on purpose. Not sure if that counts or not. LOL!!
 
It does get better, if you don’t give up first (spending, that is).

At first it feels like whack-a-mole. Then it’s just keeping up with stuff. Then when you’re loopy from spending all that money, you start deciding “well that would be nice/useful/safe to have”.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
It does get better, if you don’t give up first (spending, that is).

At first it feels like whack-a-mole. Then it’s just keeping up with stuff. Then when you’re loopy from spending all that money, you start deciding “well that would be nice/useful/safe to have”.
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I have a bad case of "while you're in there", and this thing is giving me too many opportunities lol. I promised myself I wouldn't spend money on upgrades for two years, but it would be stupid to put money into the king hsi, wouldn't it?

I should probably try wiggling the connectors before I get too far ahead of myself. But 20 pounds more useful load.....
 
Same thing about a 20 year old motorhome, a fuse was blown, it is approaching $10, grand. and it isn't fixed yet.
 
Lot of KCS 55 systems getting pulled for upgrades, could probably pick one up on the cheap to get by for now if you aren't ready to drop the $$ on an upgrade. A complete system (KG102A, KI525A, KMT112, KA51B) just sold on Beechtalk for $750. I even have one I just pulled out of a Malibu if you need.

Totally understand the frustration though, sometimes when it rains, it pours.
 
Jim K said:
I have a bad case of "while you're in there", and this thing is giving me too many opportunities lol. I promised myself I wouldn't spend money on upgrades for two years, but it would be stupid to put money into the king hsi, wouldn't it?

I should probably try wiggling the connectors before I get too far ahead of myself. But 20 pounds more useful load.....
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I'm not a big fan of wiggle wire solutions. Because those wires keep wiggling and eventually break themselves again.
 
Me: * Opens PoA to read a few posts after a crappy day to brighten up the mood.... **

Jim K said:
Got my mail on the way to the airport, and finally got the bill for the magneto iran, going through the landing gear, and a few other little things..$7700, which is about what I expected.
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Me: * Covers eyes and closes laptop lid and vows never to look at PoA ever ever ever again.............. *

Also Me: *.... wonder what's going on over in the chat???...*
 
Tantalum said:
What's the problem? Pilots are rich, right?
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Much like my venture into BMW motorcycles, I am finding that the cheapest thing about an airplane is the owner...hopefully I will soon be including myself in that observation (currently in the market for my first).
 
I dunno, without jinxing myself, I feel like there are many different ways and many different expense levels of aircraft maintenance. It looks like you have a Lance/Saratoga in your avatar? That says to me it doesn’t need anything special, so my rules for managing aircraft maintenance expense apply:

1) if your maintenance facility has an epoxy-floored hangar, you’re getting gouged.
2) learn how to buy used instruments and parts
3) buy as many of the parts as you can yourself because A) you will work harder to find good deals, and B) you won’t pay an upcharge.
4) to the greatest degree possible, resist the “while we’re in there urge”.
5) don’t take things apart that you don’t already want to/plan to spend money on. Be very very careful about which cans of worms you open!
6) do as much of your own maintenance as possible.
7) do owner-assisted annuals if possible. They go waaaay faster.
8) double the time and money component of any estimate and then decide if you still want to proceed. Be happy if you only overpay a little, but they will (almost) never come out on time!

I think the biggest ones up there are choosing your facility and running away... fast... from the epoxy-floor type places, being involved in your maintenance and annuals, and being super strict/careful about what you take apart go a really long way toward managing expenses.
 
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Jim K said:
...Then it'll be reliable.... right.....RIGHT?

Well, except for the leaking fuel tank, and the prop due for overhaul, and.......
Click to expand...

I tend to look at my airplanes as a collection of systems. On my airplanes, including the Aztec, each year I tackled whichever system was causing the most downtime and brought it up to spec. Gradually I bring the plane up to the point where everything works nicely and the reliability is excellent.

The pleasure comes from the flying. I won't give that up until they pull my medical some day.



Tantalum said:
What's the problem? Pilots are rich, right?
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LOL. The only way to cut your net worth in half faster than owning an airplane is getting a divorce...
 
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Either you're having some bad luck or I've had some particularly good luck. I've owned 2 airplanes over the past 6 years or so, current one is a Lance. The most I ever spent at one time was about $7k for a planned ADS-B upgrade. Beyond that I've never had an annual over $3k or an individual repair over $1k.
 
My flaps pump has been taken apart for the second time this year. I've spent more on maintenance this year than the previous 5. The hits keep coming. These are all old machines, and they break.
 
More frustrating than the money is the time. If I could get this hsi fixed or replaced in a couple days I'd put it in the shop today, but I want to fly the dang thing and I'm guessing it'll be down for a week or two either way. Aviation moves at a different speed than the rest of the world, ironically.

I've been spoiled by my farm equipment which is just as expensive to repair (eating a $20k transmission last year makes 7k bills not seem so bad), but the parts are usually on the shelf, and the mechanics work as long of days as we do, so it's pretty rare to have a machine down for more than a day. When that happens, they find you a loaner. Of course there are a lot more tractors around here than Lances. And the tractors are actually making money.... the flight school planes do enjoy a stockpile of parts and priority service, which to some extent benefits all of the local piper fleet.

To be fair, that first bill included 1500 for the flightstream and 1500 for the mag overhaul. Only about 2000 was unexpected repairs to the landing gear after we didn't get 3 greens. When we got to looking closer there was a lot of wear that we fixed which massively improved the steering as well as my peace of mind. Unfortunate that the prebuy missed it.
 
i think this is why some smart person way back invented the "AMU" term. Yes i bought a 1965 182H, and i've spent quite a bit since i've owned it in the last 2 years. And my on field shop has an epoxy floor...hmmm.
 
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Jim K said:
To be fair, that first bill included 1500 for the flightstream and 1500 for the mag overhaul. Only about 2000 was unexpected repairs to the landing gear after we didn't get 3 greens. When we got to looking closer there was a lot of wear that we fixed which massively improved the steering as well as my peace of mind. Unfortunate that the prebuy missed it.
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And the other $2,700?

Barry said:
And my on field shop has an epoxy floor...hmmm.
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I said that tongue-in-cheek, but also, kind of *not* tongue-in-cheek. I really got hip to this after an oil change included 3 hours of labor (vs doing it myself as an idiot in 45 minutes), and a battery change got a full hour of labor (while I stood there with the technician and got it done in 15). I don’t mean to denigrate FBO operators, but I definitely think there are those that take advantage of the unaware/uninvolved owners. Oh, that same epoxy-floor company estimated 40 hours to install an FP-5 fuel flow device.

Getting involved in your own maintenance and annuals will greatly improve things, as you’ll have a sense for what things actually entail. For instance, when I started doing owner-assisted annuals I remember feeling like “uhh... that’s it!?” and realizing how dead simple these things are (this is for a Cessna, YMMV).
 
AA5Bman said:
And the other $2,700?
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Complied with a couple ad's I found (missed by prebuy shop), rebushed both maingear, r&r said mag, fixed a loose egt probe, charged mg struts, updated the gtn, elt inspection (also missed), repaired a hydraulic leak under the floor, and dressed a nick in the prop.

I was actually really impressed in that the mechanic who was doing the work was happy to have me in the shop and show me how to do things like charge the struts. He also was happy to let me reinstall the floor & seats and I helped him do the gear swings. They do have epoxy coated floors, but they're flaking in places.

That said, just got the quote back to do the G5 HSI....$9500 :eek2::eek2::eek2:

Needless to say I'll be soliciting other quotes.
 
Ooof. That strikes me as just a touch steep...
 
Jim K said:
Complied with a couple ad's I found (missed by prebuy shop), rebushed both maingear, r&r said mag, fixed a loose egt probe, charged mg struts, updated the gtn, elt inspection (also missed), repaired a hydraulic leak under the floor, and dressed a nick in the prop.

I was actually really impressed in that the mechanic who was doing the work was happy to have me in the shop and show me how to do things like charge the struts. He also was happy to let me reinstall the floor & seats and I helped him do the gear swings. They do have epoxy coated floors, but they're flaking in places.

That said, just got the quote back to do the G5 HSI....$9500 :eek2::eek2::eek2:

Needless to say I'll be soliciting other quotes.
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Pretty sure Byerly quotes $7k on those but still not cheap. Having to put the GMU and that other thing takes time and money. HSI is the more expensive G5 to do.
 
Wait, 9500 for only the HSI? Get different quotes. Mine was less than 8k both installed with GMU and GAD29b.

Hang in there, it gets better and you can’t put a price on this (after things get better)

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