AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2020 - 18

WAYPOINTS

Trying to find trust

BY THOMAS B. HAINES
Editor in Chief

Seeking harmony with an overhauled engine

Editor in Chief
TOM HAINES bought
his 1972 Beechcraft
Bonanza A36 in
1999.

MY HEADSET SLAMMED into the Bonanza's side window as the iPad on the passenger seat levitated. It was
a rough day in the lee of the Appalachian Mountains.
I needed to slow the old airplane down, but needed
to keep the power high in what was Hour Two of the
newly overhauled engine's life. The overhauler's recommendation was to alternate between 65 percent and
75 percent power for that second hour as part of the
break-in process. I continued eastward, remaining low
and in the bumps in order to maintain that high manifold pressure-attempting to do the right thing for the
big investment I had just made.
I was monitoring the engine closely: fuel flow and
pressure, cylinder and exhaust gas temperatures, rpm,
manifold pressure, oil pressure and temperature. And,
of course, listening and feeling for anything unusual.
Really, what I was doing was attempting to build
trust in this young engine. Would it carry me, my family, friends, and colleagues safely for the next couple of
thousand hours as the previous run of the engine had?
That previous run lasted some 18 years and by
my estimation nearly 300,000 nautical miles (see
"Ownership: How an Airplane is Like a Kitchen," p. 91).
By the way, that's a trip to the moon and halfway back.
The propeller had delivered some 330 million revolutions during that time period. Aside from one finicky
exhaust valve, all of it was trouble free from an engine
core standpoint.
I had a lot of trust in that engine. We flew more than
100 photo missions-fast and slow with everything from
tiny trainers and warbirds to flashy business jets off its
wing. The engine carried colleagues and me on 18 trips
to EAA AirVenture-across Lake Michigan-and to dozens of states. I flew it solo to the Bahamas once. My family
and I explored everything from Chicago's lakeshore to
Maine's rocky seacoast and Florida's Disney World
behind that engine, with lots of stop-offs all along. It's
landed back at Beech Field in Wichita, where the airframe made its maiden flight in late 1971, and we've
prowled around the Midwest from Texas to Minnesota-
even up into Canada a few times. We've plowed through
challenging weather and soared over amazing vistas
together. Yes, I literally trusted it with my life.
But somewhere along the way, in the back of my
mind, the trust began to erode just a little as I pushed
past the published time between overhauls of 1,700
hours. I know the engine can't read the calendar or the

18 | AOPA PILOT September 2020

tachometer time. But I can and I wondered, how long
is long enough? At what point have I gotten out of this
engine what I paid for it? When does it owe me nothing?
I have lots of aviation friends. Some with expertise.
All with opinions. Some thought I was crazy for flying
an hour beyond TBO. Others wondered why I would
question an engine that was still running great. Thanks
to help and advice from some of those expert friends,
I was monitoring the internals carefully with regular
digital borescopes, compression checks, oil trend analysis, and oil consumption. Everything was fine.
But there was still that nagging question of how far
is far enough? As the tach rolled past 500 hours beyond
TBO even some of my "keep on truckin'" friends began
to suggest that maybe it was time to make some plans.
So I did. I began looking around at overhaul shops, cylinder manufacturers, and shops that might take the
engine out and put it back in for me.
I was extolling the wonders of my engine longevity
to a trusted friend and aviation expert at AirVenture
2019. He smiled thoughtfully and basically said, "Don't
be that guy who goes too far and ends up in a cornfield, or worse."
I'd been putting money aside each flight hour for
the past 18 years, so funds for the overhaul were available-although I had plenty of other ideas for ways to
use that dough. But last September I felt like I received a
clear sign that it was time. A bird strike punched a small
hole in the leading edge of the right wing, surrounded
by a good-sized dent. The repair would require several
weeks of downtime. Rather than risk another prolonged
grounding some months later for an engine and prop
overhaul, I decided to get all of it taken care of together.
So a few days before Christmas I handed the keys to
a technician at Royal Aircraft Services in Hagerstown,
Maryland; patted the airplane on the spinner; and
walked away.
A few weeks turned into a few months (thank you,
COVID-19-not) and I finally got the call that it was
done. I fired the money cannon and made my way to
Hagerstown for the pickup. And so that's how I ended
up sprinting across northern Maryland on a bumpy
spring day behind a shiny "new" engine, trying to build
trust once again.
AOPA
EMAIL thomas.haines@aopa.org

@tomhaines29

AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2020

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