Two Pilots & an LSW: Oh, Orlando

WHAT a day. Again!

I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, woke up at 3:30 am. Last night I went to bed around 11:30, and woke up at 4:50 am, super heavily asleep. I could've used another couple of hours. This is way too early.

My left wrist and arm are still kinda sore, but nothing is broken, it's not a sharp pain for the most part. Just gets me if I try to lift my arm too high, or bend my wrist very far or in the wrong direction in particular. I landed on it, I pulled somethin', but it's not terrible, and it'll be fine shortly I'm sure.

So I get out to the airport at 6:10 am, and I am pulling in with 3 other cars in a row. Most of the six people going with me were early, and coming in at the same time I was. I preflight, and go to pull the Cheyenne out, and the tug won't move. The belt came off the tug and is on the floor. I don't remember how to put it back on, it's been years. I try. I can see the large pulley it goes over but can't figure out the rest. It's 6 am and nobody else is out there. I try to call Steve for verbal guidance but he's not awake yet. It's amazingly cold and the big door is already open. It's somewhere in the single digits. One of the other guys who is going along was able to help me figure it out the rest of the way, and I get the Cheyenne out. Stop, and the belt falls right back off. Fortunately I had the plane out far enough, and I put the tug in neutral and just pushed it back into the hangar, put the belt on the floor next to it, and texted Steve that somebody needed to pretty please fix it before I got back this afternoon and needed to put the plane away.

At 6 am, everyone there was chatty and chipper. I was tired, cold, it's dark, it's 6 am, the tug had problems, I'm freezing, and I'm not very thrilled. But finally I got everyone loaded up, and I brought along Morgan to get some more multi time and spend a couple hours in Orlando, Florida.

We are at 33,000', and Morgan says "Is that normal?" I look out her window, and there is oil streaming back from behind the spinner and down the engine. No, in fact, that is not normal, not in this plane anyway. I watch as we go, and the oil goes all the way down the back of the engine, thins out, spreads out, and is pretty messy. But it doesn't look like it got any worse, and it didn't continue, it's like it blurped some out and then held steady. But still, not great, and I mentally reviewed shut down procedures just in case. Didn't need them.

Landed, and as we're getting out of the plane, I see hydraulic fluid on the flap, too. It's on the other flap too. I walk around, crawl under the belly, look in the wheel wells, I've never seen hydraulic fluid on the flaps before. I've never seen that much oil on the engine before either. I very closely verify that they are indeed two separate fluids, not one that is in both places. I text Nathan. He texts me the info to the Cheyenne maintenance shop in Pennsylvania. They text me, and we go back and forth. I send them photos, we talk on the phone, and they give me a plan of action. I am to take a panel off of the Cheyenne, and check the hydraulic fluid. That doesn't sound hard, does it? It was. I only had a dzus tool in my purse, and my phone. I couldn't reach the top dzus fasteners so I had to wait 20 minutes for a fueler to bring me a ladder. I get all the dzus fasteners undone, and I can't get that panel off. I jiggle it, I shake it, I try to pry it open with my fingernails, I try to pry it off with the dzus tool. Nothing. I text Nathan and ask him what the friggin' secret is on that panel. He says he uses a flat thin screwdriver and I'm like...I have a dzus tool. It took me 20-30 minutes to finally get that dumb panel off, but I made it. Next up I call Pennsylvania again, and ask how to check the hydraulic fluid. I take a photo and they say "It looks full, that's good. But sometimes those can be stained and look full when they aren't, so try to verify the fluid". I can't tell how I'm supposed to tell. He says to shine a bright light on it. I'm in the sun on a ramp in FL and the only light I have is my cellphone flashlight and it's not so bright. I can't see the fluid. So I'm standing on the ladder, slamming into the side of the airplane, trying to get it to jiggle enough to move the fluid in the reservoir to see if I can see it, and finally I get it. It wasn't at the top. It was almost at the bottom. I put my finger on the spot and sent them a photo of where the level is, and he texted right back and said "Oh, that's not good."

The oil, they feel, is probably a prop seal, exacerbated by the fact that it was -45, -50 degrees up at 33,000'. The photos I showed them, the condition of the props, where it came from, etc., they were pretty confident about that. So the issue that looked the worst, wasn't. That's the good news.

The hydraulic fluid loss, I wasn't THAT worried about it at first, because I haven't seen any visible loss prior to this. I assumed I'd have enough for awhile, until I got in there and looked. I asked the Pennsylvania mechanics if I could get back home, and he said that with where the fluid level was, I would likely have enough fluid left to put the gear up one more time, and then I may not get it back down again. If I couldn't get it down again, I'd have to blow the nitrogen "squibs", which blow the gear down, after which you can't bring the gear back up again, it has to go to the shop, replace those, reset everything, and it's $10,000 to replace plus labor. I was one cycle away from having a big gear issue in the airplane and had no idea. The issue that looked the simplest, wasn't. The good news is that the frigid temps exacerbated the leakage issues and made it so it was visible enough to make me look at it. Later when I went back to the plane, the hydraulic fluid had dried fairly clearly, and you couldn't even really see it any more.

I was grounded until I got some hydraulic fluid in the plane. There was an on-field mechanic. He had worked on Cheyenne 400s ten years ago. Didn't remember much but at least he knew them. He had the right hydraulic fluid. He came out and serviced it, topped it off, and put the panel back on for me, left my tool in the baggage compartment. He got done right when we were supposed to be leaving anyway. I went out and preflighted, everything was back and good, I filed a flight plan, and I took everyone home, and everything was fine.

A lot of circumstances aligned to make today not nearly as bad as it could have been. I got there only 20 minutes later than planned thanks to the Cheyenne tug belt coming off at 6 am, and I got home right on time. I had Nathan, the Pennsylvania mechanics who were amazing and helpful, and the local mechanic who got right on it, right then, and fixed me up so we could head back. It's a good thing it was so cold that it made it leak noticeably and made me look. It was a good thing I was at a field that had a mechanic with tools, fluid and familiarity. He charge like $250 total to do it, and I'm glad for that, too. The whole thing was non-stop busy, I was on the phone from the time I landed to the time it was time to take off, so 9 am until almost 2 pm, non-stop on the ramp, taking photos, taking off panels, checking wheel wells, checking hydraulic fluid, talking to four different people about two different issues, and it was tiring and annoying, but at the end of the day, it all worked out the way it's supposed to, and I'm glad.

While the mechanic was filling up the reservoir, Morgan and I finally grabbed a courtesy car and went into town and had lunch. I had a "fresh catch of the day BLT" with "parmesan truffle fries" and man, that was good stuff. DEEElicious, and worth taking the time to do. We drove down there with our windows rolled down, in the sunshine. I was on the ramp, or in the sun, for several hours, and it was a great jolt of real world Vitamin D not in a bottle. The warm breeze coming in through the car window was wonderful.

The flight home was longer, about 3 hours, because of the high headwinds. I stayed down low, both because of the strong headwinds, and because of the cold temps up high. I had cleaned off the cowlings so we could see if there was any new oil leakage on the trip home. There was not. No hydraulic fluid visible on the flaps, no oil visible on the engine. It looked like it always looks. Totally normal. And nothing was fixed, just fluid added. Had I gone down there lower altitude, would it have shown up? While it was a hassle, I learned a few things about the airplane maintenance-wise, and everything worked out just how it needed to, and all is safe and fine.

Tomorrow is Flint, Michigan and Janesville, Wisconsin in the Conquest with Shelbe, one of our new instructors. NOT early in the morning, fortunately. :)