Oh Great. Or, Why You Shouldn't Annual Your Aerobatic Airplane in the Spring

First the good news: I received three inspection plate covers this morning from American Champion Aircraft to replace the one that I graciously donated to someone’s yard in Tiverton. The other two are going on the shelf waiting for the next time I lose one. ACA parts are relatively cheap. These were only $10 each.  I just need to paint them up and we are back in business.   

Now the bad news: Airplanes have to have an annual inspection done each year…hence the term “getting annualed.” N317SD is due for her annual in June so the owner decided to have it done now and get it out of the way. There is an old saying in flying that its better to find a problem on the ground than in the air. And, while overwhelmingly true, the timing of finding a major problem is still horrible.

Brian, our beloved, capable and brilliantly hilarious mechanic came over to my desk holding a magnet. On that magnet were minute metal shavings. The metal shavings came from the oil that he had just removed from the engine. In other words some part of the engine is slowly grinding itself apart or as we lovingly call, its “making metal.” This is bad. Not catastrophic bad like its going to blow up, but points to a big time repair that you should do to avoid a bigger problem later. The source of the metal ranges from the “okay, that’s annoying but not that bad” to the “oh God why have you forsaken me?” Our problem lies in the “Oh God” column.

The camshaft is a doohickey in the engine that runs the entire length from front to back. It rotates around with little lifters on it that open and close the valves on the cylinders allowing fuel and air in, and then exhaust out. In the photo of this split engine, the camshaft is the almost reddish looking rod towards the bottom of the engine. They have a tendency to ware over time and ours has started to do that. To repair it, the engine needs to be disassembled completely. This is going to take several weeks to do, when my first contest is only 7 weeks ago. Needless to say, I am less than a happy camper at the moment.




I’m immediately resorting to emergency mode and figuring out what else I can do. This might mean that I have to drive two hours to rent another Decathlon for almost $300/h. I don’t know that my budget can handle it. Ugh. I have based my entire year around competing; still live at home, set aside all my spending money, even lost 15lbs to do this. I cant let a little thing like not having an airplane get in the way of…competing in…an..airplane. What?

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’m gonna go watch Million Dollar Baby and take notes. (if you’ve seen it, you’ll get it. If not…go watch it.)