207 Fuel selector overhaul

Fuel is crucial.  Ask any pilot.  Whether you are in the air and want fuel to flow to your engine, or on fire, wanting the fuel to STOP going to the engine, a properly working selector valve is pretty important.  So when you have a working valve, it makes one nervous to take it apart and replace O-rings.  Especially when one of the most experienced guys in the shop walks up, says, "wow, you are brave!" and walks away.  But I survived, and it passed leak tests.  The real test will be when it goes in the plane, but for now, I can be happy about actually succeeding.  And having pictures.

Fuel selector, lines marked, ready for removal

cleaning with acetone.  Making sure not to erase alignment marks!

Old O-rings. I think they were originally round. The sticker on the unit had a cure date from '69. Replacement is well overdue. 

All the parts and pieces lined up, just like the picture from the manual

I don't have a picture of it all back together, but rest assured that its no longer in 14 million little pieces.  My tips for anyone attempting this act:

1. read the instructions from the manual, copy pictures, take notes, cross off steps already completed, whatever it takes to make sure you do everything in order and don't miss a step.
2. Disassemble on a tray or something to help catch little pieces.  There are 6 springs, 2 little silver balls, and countless other pieces that are easy to lose and expensive to replace.  
3. Lubricate sparingly with fuel-lube.  DC-4 is much more likely to clog stuff up, and is not as compatible with fuel.  Or so they told me. 
4. make sure you have everything lined up exactly right when you put it together. I think I had to remove and install the last roll pin about 5 times, cause something wasn't lined up right, then i forgot the washer, then something else wasn't exact, then I forgot the washer again... rest assured that it is now perfect :)

Praise the Lord for Safety

http://www.ktva.com/home/top-stories/Two-Planes-Collide-Midair-Neither-Pilot-Saw-the-Other-Craft-Until-Collision-125388748.html

(sorry for not taking the time to figure out how to embed the video)

This happened yesterday afternoon, to a plane that I see in the hangar about every other week. The Lord is good.

not a how-to formula

6 months.

I realized at work today that I have been employed as a mechanic for 6 months. When I was in school, that was longer than a semester. Its twice as long as I was in Kenya, and half the amount of time I lived in Anchorage. I worked at the kitchen store in Anchorage for 6 months. All those things seemed to be significant chunks of my life. But when I compare it with the quick breath that has been my time here, it seems so short.

Of course, the majority of my time is spent working in the hangar. The first three months we were working on our major overhaul project: the navajo. After it went on the flight line, we slowly worked through some annuals, as well as events on our active fleet. Even slower than the pace of winter maintenance is my learning curve. Weeks went by where I would complete routine service items, simply because that is all I felt confident doing. Then I would decide to branch out into more interesting projects, and feel like I was wasting everyone else's time asking them questions. But slowly, ever so slowly, I have started to feel like I know what I am doing. Not that I am an expert, but a bit of confidence is dawning. It took 6 months. I am sure in another 6 months I will look back on this point and see how much more I understand. It's a process, and it comes to everyone in different amounts of time.

I still make lots of mistakes, and I am sure there are plenty more for me to make. I'm terribly slow. I drop tools all the time (especially when someone warns me against dropping them in that particular location). You should see the mess I make whenever I try to change the oil.

I am looking forward to what the next 6 months holds.

the on-demand lifestyle

A week ago, I was washing dishes and just chilling at home. As there are few dishwashers out here, its a process done by hand. The phone rang, which isn't entirely usual. I washed the soap off my hands and reached for the phone.

"Hey, Liz? If you hurry, you can fly down to Nondolton and back with Glen," the dispatcher told me.
"Uh, sounds good!" I respond. I turn off the water, grab my headset, and head out the door.

We head to the other runway and help unload the three passengers staying here, fuel up, and load up. We have one passenger to drop off, as well as a bunch of groceries for 3 or so different people. We will also be switching from the Bonanza to the 207. We leave a plane stationed there with our pilot who lives there.

When we get close (about 5 minutes after taking off) Glen calls on the local frequency, indicating landing time, groceries, and a passenger.

As we fly close to the airport environment, I can see the ripples on the water, indicating a strong northwind. I feel it too. Usually we land straight in at Nondolton, but the sun is low on the horizon, so a straight in landing would mean we wouldn't be able to see a thing. So we circle around and land back toward the east. When we land, several people are waiting for their groceries, as well as the pilot with wing covers for the bonanza.

Unloading was a fairly painless process, as we piled groceries in seperate piles. Everything going to Nondolton has bright yellow stickers on it with their names scribbled on in sharpie. After we got all the groceries off, we helped cover the plane and load up in the 207.

I crawled in the left seat, and Glen watched from the right. Take off was a little squirrely with a strong, slightly gusty left crosswind. He didn't have a headset on, so he shouted instructions into my right ear, and I tried to make radio calls and listen to the world outside the airplane in my left ear.

We arrived back in PA, tied the airplane to whatever we could, and headed home. All in all, the episode took about an hour, and I logged .2 in my logbook. While its not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, I didn't have to pay for that flight time. I am looking forward to more adventures of the same nature.

Float plane annuals

My company has 3 float planes, 2 206s, and a 180/185 cross breed. The operate part 91 (different rules than the other airplanes, less intense maintenance requirements) so during the busy summer, the often get the bare minimum so we can focus on the part 135 planes. So now that it is winter, we work through more thorough inspections, fix the problems that we discovered over the summer (instead of just preventing symptoms) and take extra time to show them some TLC.

The 180/185 was first in. We changed the struts this summer, but put on a loaner pair since we hadn't bought our own yet. They got painted, and then we realized that they weren't the same strut. The length was teh same, they were just a much wider, beefier, strut. So instead of wasting 1500 dollars worth of new parts, we called the FAA up to ask for approval to put them on. The inspector agreed, and we attached the new struts. We also re-painted the leading edges of the wings, and the front spreader bar. It wasn't to the point that the airworthiness was in question, but it prevents it from getting to that point. Plus passengers feel much more secure in a plane that looks pretty, regardless of its actual airworthiness.

Before we pushed that one out, we brought in the next one, a 206. Major projects on this one included a leaking fuel tank, and replacing seat rails, plus a couple spots that needed sheet metal work. I ended up working on the seat rails, and discovered the rollers on the seats were also really worn out.

The last one to come in needs the floats changed. I wasn't around when the issue happened this summer, but from what I hear, running a float plane up the shore tends to poke holes in the floats. I am looking forward to that project! We are waiting until its a little warmer outside, so planes don't need stored inside overnight.

The float planes are keeping us busy, but work is still slow. I am looking forward to this summer when it will be a bit more fast paced.

hangar happenings

A lot of what happens in the hangar is work. While expected, work tends toward the boring side. So last week, when things other than work happened, we were all really amused.

1) During break, a conversation happened between two of my co-workers. I wasn't listening too closely, but I heard something mentioned about 5 dollars, then one of the guys headed over to the 206 and started crawling into the belly pod. This guy is over 6 feet tall, and I wasn't sure that he could get all of his legs in there.

JAARS 206 in Waxhaw

Apparently he did, because the other guy snuck up and closed the door behind him. Next thing I know, our director of maintenance is headed over to the plane, saying, "You aren't doing it right!" before he hops on the tail and starts rocking the whole plane up and down. Eventually they unlock the door, and the guy begins asking about his 5 bucks as he crawls out.

2) The 99 was in for maintenance this week. Aside from the scheduled inspection, one of the antennas on top had vibrated enough to crack the metal surrounding it. One of my co-workers spent 3 days cowboy style on top of the plane, working on the fix. Its not a normal place to see a person, so it was kind of funny to have someone up there for 3 days. I wish we would have gotten a picture!

mail

Getting mail here is a little different. Of course, everything is different, so its really not surprising, right?

The most exciting thing is UPS and FedEx. I was actually kind of curious how that works, until someone explained it to me. I don't know if you have an idea of what the runway looks like here, but I just can't see a big Boeing jet landing on our humble 3000 ft dirt runway. FedEx has several Caravans, which wouldn't have a problem landing here, but I can't imagine it would be terribly ecenomic to stop off at EVERY village in this state with a few little packages on a regular basis.

First off, the packages check in to Anchorage. They sit at their respective facilities until someone takes them to the mail carrier (Illiamna Air Taxi for us). Everything, from FedEx to US mail piles onto the mail plane and lands here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Well, unless the weather is bad. Usually it comes the next day.

So, things get here... eventually. It takes a little extra time, but nothing has gotten lost yet!