Two Pilots & an LSW: Back to Ohio

It was sort of an annoying day. Originally I was going to go to Ft. Wayne and fly that T-6 with the owner, but fortunately I hadn't solidified it with him. Instead, I took the Conquest, after adding an entire can of oil, over to Ohio to the mechanic there, Steve F, who was going to look into the leak we had. Oil was streaming out of the left engine, which is not good. I added enough oil and monitored it all the way over there, ready to shut it down if I had to, but I didn't have to, and after I landed, it didn't leak at all. Super annoying. So he's looking for the leak, he's calling Don the expert in Florida. Don doesn't believe it's anything, and wants me to fly it down to Florida to him, which is over a 3 hour flight, in an airplane that has twice started puking oil after an hour's flight. Don says he can't come up here because he has a workman's comp injury on his back and he's not allowed to fly on airlines. I'm like...well that's too damn bad, I'm not flying 3 hours down there until I know what is wrong and how serious it is, but losing a lot of oil after an hour seems bad to me, even if I'm not a master mechanic. He kept blowing it off, "I don't see anything, there's nothing happening, it's fine to come on down", etc. He tried to tell me a little bit of oil looks like a lot and can make a big mess. No shit, sherlock, but it was pouring out of there, it wasn't just a drip or two. Steve F and I kept trying to make it leak. It did not. I offered to go fly it for an hour and see if that did it. We ran the unfeathering pump per Don's suggestion, and when nothing leaked the first time, Don said loud enough I could hear him over the phone, "There's nothing there! I think maybe that pilot just has a crush on you and wants to spend time with you". Now...I realize I am overly sensitive to not being taken seriously, but dude. I'm not crazy, I'm not stupid, I'm not making up a stream of oil coming out, and I'm not 'super sensitive' to any little thing. IT HAPPENED. Twice. So that sort of made me mad. We tried the unfeathering pump again, we're sitting there, I'm disgruntled because you can't fix what you can't find, and Don and Steve are on the phone again talking about how nothing is happening, and suddenly Steve yells "I SEE IT! I've got a bubble! I've got the leak! I see it!" He then had to convince Don that it was real. But now we know, it's in the gear box, and while the engine is running, it's not actually leaking much, because of a vacuum there, it's when you shut down that it starts bubbling and pouring out. Well, NOW I feel better about flying it down to Florida per both their say so. So that'll be something I do early next week. Mon-Wed. I'll "get" to stay down in Florida in July when it's hotter than Hades, and probably just stay indoors and drink cold drinks or something. And by the way. I Told you so.

There was another pilot there whose plane wasn't getting worked on because ours was. He was helping Steve out with this plane. Don had told us to hit the unfeathering pump, fill the gear box with oil, then if there's a leak, it'll show. Then when we're done, just motor the prop over without starting the engine, and the oil will go back to the case where it belongs. This guy did not believe me or Don that it could do that. He said "I have 200 hours in these planes and I don't remember anything about an unfeathering pump". I said "Well, it's there, it's how you do the NTS check, and how you put the props back on the start locks if you didn't shut it down properly". He totally didn't believe me. "I don't remember ever doing that". Okay, fine, maybe you always shut down properly and maybe you didn't do the NTS check like you're supposed to before first flight of every day. He's looking at the plumbing of the engine and muttering to Steve "I don't see how that would work. That can't be the case. It must just go back to the engine. No way." So we look for the leak, I demonstrated the unfeathering pump, how it changed the pitch of the blades, and sucked most of the oil out of the case so that when you look at the dipstick it's not showing any oil. Then I hand propped the plane for about 100 turns, and checked the dipstick, and the oil was back. He says "Huh. I guess that must be true". I guess so, buddy. Both the top Conquest mechanic in the country and the pilot flying it at the time tried to tell you so, but I'm sure you know better.

I spent the day trying to convince people of something that I know they didn't take me seriously on, and I freely admit I am no mechanic, but I do know what I know, what little that may be. People are so tiring sometimes.

Tomorrow I was supposed to take the Conquest to Ohio, but instead I'll be going more slowly in the 340, with Andy, for a meeting. Then I'm off until Friday. One evening Friday thing, then first thing Saturday I head to Oshkosh if weather and life holds out.

Steve said that the big "85" formation they did at Oshkosh today turned out really cool, and they announced the names of all 28 pilots, and had them take off on Runway 36L, the main showline runway instead of the out-of-sight 28 they usually have the warbirds depart from. They made a thing about it, and he said that was a time he wished I could have been up there and done it, that it would've been neat to hear my name called and see me get to fly in the big ole formation. But however you properly spell "say la vee". So it goes.

BOB also is having maintenance issues up there and won't be flying in the show, or flying again until we fly it home to do some work on it. Sad for Glenn and BOB both. But a lot of people have come up to it, recognize it, commented, one guy nobody knows said "But it's not very oily!", so whoever he was, knew what "BOB" stood for. That's kind of Cool! BOB is getting a following! :)

Now I need to go to bed so I can get up early on some of the hottest days of the year and sit in a 340 without air conditioning on the way to Ohio and then dodge thunderstorms all the way home in the hot afternoon. Fun fun. ;)