Two Men and a Toolbox

aA little update on the project. The wing is ready to come out, the wings have been emptied of 4000lbs of fuel, the entire guts of the wheel wells have been stripped out, a two truck loads of panels are off and the engines are coming apart. Hydraulic pumps are out, control systems cabling and pulleys for the wings are out, deice stuff unhooked, fuel lines disconnected, electrical unhooked, a large pile of hydraulic lines, over a dozen large panels, speed break lines, some fire extinguishing piping removed, turbine fan shrouds are off, fuel controls are out. We’ve been busy.

Where we started on Saturday.                  Where we are today.
We got a lift in today so we can start taking the horizontal stabilizer off so the fuselage can be moved down the road on the trailer. The plan is to pull the two engines completely off, then the tail, then lift the whole thing up with a series of jacks, drop the one piece wing and slide it out the side. Then we’ll truck the whole project 10 miles down the road to the bone yard.
 
We just started on the engines today. Everything coming off gets bagged and tagged, parts to be sold later.
Yes up until this afternoon, its just been me and one other guy working on it. We got a 3rd guy for half a day today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Something a bit different

Saturday I got offered a job, sort of. I’ve been looking for a way to get into the airplane mechanic industry but I have no experience. I did find a local company that does world wide business who agreed to give me a try. I interviewed on Friday lunch, later in the afternoon I got a call and they wanted me to start on Saturday at 8am, they would “take a look at me”.
My project, disassemble as much of this as plane as we need to in preparation to pull the one piece wing off of it.

The landing gear is already off of it, the owner is parting it out. So two of us got it to this point after day one (both sides done). Almost all the wiring is disconnected, the deicing mechanics, the sheet metal of course and the fuel tanks are emptied.  Monday I expect we’ll depressurize the hydraulic systems, there’s a crane nowhere in sight so that must be coming from the yard. We’ll have to raise the fuselage high enough to clear the wing, then the wing will have to slide out one side or the other. Should be an interesting week, lots to learn.

Windy Flying

A bit late getting this in, Friday went flying in the Cessna 150. It was a very challenging flight, 35kt wind at 3000ft, tons of turbulence under 1600ft which made any pattern work out of the question. We did stalls, which went just fine and dutch rolls, which I didn’t quite get the hang of. I want to practice the dutch rolls more another day. One the way to the practice area the GPS said our ground speed was 32knots, indicated airspeed was 80, on the way back we were doing 111knots with an indicated 80. We only got in .7, we were going to do some landings but I had to quit early due to the turbulence, it was just too much.

Turns, Turns and more Turns

Turns around a square, turns around a point, half turns here and half turn there, today I went flying and did turns.
It almost didn’t happen, it was about 45 degrees this morning when I went to preflight, first thing that happened was when I turned on the master, the flaps wouldn’t go down. Dad said don’t worry about it we’re not going to use them today anyway, all lights worked fine and so did everything else… almost. Preflight done, CLEAR, nothing. The starter would not even engage, almost brand new starter too. Back in the hanger it goes and we go back to the FBO and do some ground school work.
A couple hours later, the sun is up and its warming up, dad decided to go try the starter again, it cranked right over, still tied down in the hanger :|
So out it came and off we went. About 4 times around a pattern square, about 4 times around a point and about 4 S-Turns on a road later we head back. Dad’s satisfied I have a grasp of the concepts and can hold altitude within 50 feet on the maneuvers so we head back. I found my way back to the airport without help, shot 3 landings, not real pretty, but we can still use the airplane so they were ok.
Good things, maneuvers went well, my flares are about right, Need to Improve approaches, speed/accuracy on checklists (I’m a bit slow and forgot to dip the tanks). As a boost he said he was confident I could find my way home and get it on the ground in one piece if he passed out and I had to do it myself.  Winds were calm to 5 knots, a little bumpy in spots but not bad. The Cessna 150 logged 1.0 hours and 3 landings.
Next time, more slow flight and stalls, oh and something called Dutch Rolls, gonna have to google that one.