About Annuals

[drseti]

The problem came from switching to Mobil 1 in quart bottles instead of liters I am guessing (human error).

aha! This was covered in my EAA webinar "care and feeding of the Rotax 912" a few months ago ( and available online).

I am told the extra oil is not a problem and will be corrected when I bring the plane in for the other four problems I also experienced.

i concur - but now I'm curious what those other four squawks are.

Part of the annual is the requirement to dump the ECU logs with the Rotax dongle.

one of the reasons I have not yet done an annual on a 912iS.

[FastEddieB]

I've had my share of post-annual issues.

After an annual by a reputable shop, I went to fly my Cirrus home from Florida and had a large mag drop. Got it fixed pretty quickly (a "whisker" across a spark plug electrode) but it delayed my departure and caused all sorts of hassles getting back home (Copperhill has no lights and I arrived well after sunset, which led to a diversion to Dalton, GA, and a very cold several hours waiting for a friend to pick me up.) Left me wondering how well they had ground run the plane post-annual.

Similarly, my Sky Arrow came out of annuals by a reputable shop with several deficiencies. The ones I can think of are a missing "safety pin" on a cowling latch (twice!), an unapproved battery installed, and the worst - the passenger seat hinge pins left with their cotter pins unsecured. Fortunately the seat waited to come completely adrift until Karen was deplaning at a stop. Had it come loose in the air, at the very least it could have been quite scary for her.

Lots and lots of anecdotes posted to the Cirrus Owner's website. Mike Busch's acronym is MIF's - "Maintenance Induced Failures". Some of the worst involve fuel spiders to injectors left loose, which can have fatal consequences.

Again, best advice is to NOT be on a tight schedule, to take a long, long time preflighting/inspecting, and to fly for a finite time over the airport after extensive maintenance. Roger Lee will confirm I did do that after the hose change he did on my Sky Arrow. It is in no way a reflection on the mechanic or the shop - anyone can make mistakes and its best to find those mistakes either before takeoff or with an airport right below you.

[SportPilot]

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[drseti]

Unless an accident had resulted, or he/she was a repeat offender, I would never fire an employee for that. This was a teachable moment.

[3Dreaming]

The people who do annuals and work on cars are human, they make mistakes. I know I have made mistakes before. I am fortunate that there has never been any serious issues. I run a small operation, in the fact that I take care of everything for the FBO and airport. I have to be extra careful when working on things, because I get all kinds of interruptions from answering the phone to people walking in the door. It is real easy to miss something when this happens. That is the reason you are supposed to use a checklist.

[SportPilot]

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[MrMorden]

On a similiar note, I had a 2000 Mustang drag car that was street legal until I finally crossed the line with modifications trying to run 8's. I picked the car up from the shop in Woodstock, Ga and was driving to my daughter's house about 5 miles away when the right rear wheel came off. The shop had new hire who they told to put the wheels back on and he didn't tighten the lug nuts on that wheel. As soon as I called the shop to come and get me, he was fired.

I used to do light drag racing in my daily driver 2001 Mustang GT with a Novi 2000 supercharger. Fun cars, you can do anything you want with those cars if you pump enough money into them.

[SportPilot]

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[MrMorden]

On a similiar note, I had a 2000 Mustang drag car that was street legal until I finally crossed the line with modifications trying to run 8's. I picked the car up from the shop in Woodstock, Ga and was driving to my daughter's house about 5 miles away when the right rear wheel came off. The shop had new hire who they told to put the wheels back on and he didn't tighten the lug nuts on that wheel. As soon as I called the shop to come and get me, he was fired.

I used to do light drag racing in my daily driver 2001 Mustang GT with a Novi 2000 supercharger. Fun cars, you can do anything you want with those cars if you pump enough money into them.

I know that's true. I think I remember you from some of the forums. I had a Novi 2000 for a while before the Kenne Bell. I ran a best of 9.15 @ 150 mph before I gave up chasing 8's with a 2v.

I should have used a KB. My car never really lived up to potential, it needed a forged lower and an intercooler to get to big numbers. I could only go to 429hp at the wheels because of the weak stock lower. Well, I could have gone higher...for a brief period.

[SportPilot]

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[CTLSi]

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[drseti]

No, but we're all motorheads at heart.

[SportPilot]

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[Merlinspop]

I had an aluminum Cobra block and aluminum heads. Kept blowing spark plugs out. Had Oliver billet rods and forged pistons (forgot brand). It was a 281 stroked to 302. Made 800 rwhp through C4 tranny. That's approximately 1000 hp at the crank. The blower was a 2.8 KB making 30 pounds of boost with Mammoth intake and 100 shot of nitrous. I'll find a pic. This is all I have on this computer.

drseti, you might want to change the name of your site to MotorHeadTalk.com... does this look like an airplane to anyone?

When you sit around the hangar talking with friends, does the conversation ever stray from airplanes?

[drseti]

Paul, didn't you post a picture of your Boxster?

Guilty as charged. After all, it has more horsepower than any plane I've ever owned (and about the same acceleration rate as the best of our planes).