Flying Again!

After a grueling 5 month wait...I'm flying again! My flying buddy Ron sold his Cherokee 140 just after I completed my IFR cross country flight (that was back on July 29, 2009) and bought a Comanche 250. The Comanche needed a lot of work to get it back in flying shape as it had been sitting for 12 years.

The airplane has been repainted, had a new leather interior installed, the panel retooled, new fuel cells installed, and much more. I will be presenting N7720P as soon as I shoot some beauty shots of her.

My first flight was just the other day and it was with my CFII Steven Wilson to begin the familiarization process and get signed off to fly a Complex and High Performance airplane. That should take somewhere between 5 and 10 hours...but Ron's insurance company wants me to get 10 hours of instruction logged before they will let me fly the airplane anyway so we're going to have some fun and do some learning at the same time.

After the Complex and High Performance instruction is complete I will get back into the IFR training and finish that up as soon as possible.

FlightPrep ChartCase

My flying buddy Ron bought the FlightPrep ChartCase Electronic Fight Bag with GPS and XM weather to use in his Cherokee 140 but the learning curve proved to be too much.

Ron is used to the Lowrance Airmap 1000 GPS and that’s a pretty simple to use GPS. The Chartcase is PC-based and runs on a tablet computer. After turning it on, you have to start the XM. Then you have to open up the ChartCase software. Then you have to turn on the GPS and make sure the computer is reading it. Then you have to go back to the XM weather and tell it what weather information you want downloaded. Then you can choose a flight path (like El Monte to Fullerton, for example). Then you go into the InFlight mode. Then you choose what charts you want to use (Sectional, Terminal, Low Enroute were what he had paid for and, thus, were available for selection). If you want weather info you click a couple more buttons to check that.

I took the unit with me for 3 days to try and get it all figured out and to be able to make it seem simple for him, but the bottom line is that it’s not simple. I can’t say that it’s extremely complicated, but there’s certainly a lot more to do to get ready than when using the Lowrance.

In the end...Ron’s head was spinning. Too much stuff to do in order to get it ready to go flying. He’s going to return it on Monday.

Might be ordering a 696, but I’ve encouraged him to find someone on the field who has one and see how it works before buying one.

(The photo was taken when I was using the GPS in my car to get used to it.)

Replacing Fuel and Brake Lines on the Cherokee 140

It has been awhile since I last posted on the Flying37 blog. Some time off after my dad's death was apparently needed. I have been flying a lot and hiking a lot and I'm going to get back into the swing of blogging starting today. First, my flying buddy Ron decided to replace the rubber fuel lines on the Cherokee 140 just because. He also figured that while the tanks were out it would be a good time to replace the brake lines. Nothing indicated that either of these lines needed to be replaced but since they were original factory items from 1968 it certainly wouldn't be a bad idea. There's a lot of screws to be undone to get the tanks out but with a powered screwdriver it's not such a bad job.

After getting the tanks off it became evident that the fuel sensors had been leaking at the seal for quite some time. Not a big leak, but who wants Av Gas in their wing? The fuel lines were pretty shabby. The rubber was rotten (the steel inside was fine) and they looked worse for the wear. The brake lines looked fine, but it felt right to replace them. The local A&P made up new fuel and brake lines and the fuel sensors were sent away to be rebuilt.

With everything else checking out okay, the airplane was put back together when the sensors returned just a few days later. That first test flight after maintenance is always a bit of a nervous time, but N6794J performed flawlessly.

Here's our landing at Riverside for our Saturday breakfast. Ron came in a little fast so it bounced j u s t a little bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxpqsHhMVA0&eurl=http://uk.youtube.com/my_videos_edit2&feature=player_embedded