Just some interesting tidbits from this morning’s go-round with my favorite obession:
The airplane I rented wasn’t in the expected hangar. This is bizarre, when you show up with your flight gear in hand (in bag, actually), get the line guy to let you into the hangar (now locked to keep foreign terrorists from stealing clapped-out Cessna trainers), and hunt around for 20 minutes before realizing hey, my airplane isn’t in this place. I spent 30 minutes wandering around the airport knocking on hangars saying in my best plaintive, pitiful voice “Mister, have you seen my airplane…?”
Found the airplane. Due to high winds in the vicinity it hasn’t been flown much lately. Found a spider egg case in the ailerons (that’s part of the wing) and cobwebs. Oh boy…
Anyhow, wound up choosing a different airplane to fly (wont’ go into details, it’s boring stuff). While checking out the airplane I notice a half-full bottle of Pepsi rolling around under the co-pilot’s seat. That’s weird. It’s still fizzy. Which is also weird, since according to the paperwork no one’s flown this puppy for a couple days.
Go up, fly around, come back down. Go to the Little Pilot’s Room afterward. Go to wash up after doing my business. There is a container of applesauce on the counter by the sink.
OK, this is just a little weird. So, of course, I march out into the lobby of the building there and make a big deal of it. I mean, that IS weird, leaving food and beverages scattered around a place of business.
Anyhow, flight instructors being typcially chornically underfed I donated the food to the airport kitchen where I’m sure it will be happily consumed by future airline captains.
Well, it’s definitely an indication the bird hasn’t flown for awhile. The cobwebs aren’t the problem so much as what ELSE might have taken up housekeeping in the meanwhile. Very strange to see an airplane take off and have a mouse or squirrel fall out of some odd corner. In the summer time you have to be concerned not only about rodents and birds but also such stowaways as wasps, for instance, which get very perturbed when the location they chose for their nest suddenly gets up and moves. Critter invasions in airframes, in addition to leading to amusing stories about pilot-animal interactions, can also result in chewed hoses, chewed insulation, chewed wiring, airvents stuffed with nesting material, and fouling of the control cables and hinges from either the inhabitants or their furnishings.
I also found water condensation in the gas tanks and engine oil on that one, also common when it’s been sitting awhile. Not serious, if you do a proper pre-flight and I’m pretty anal about that. Potentially very bad if you just get in and go.
This reminds me of a time I rented a Citabra (to go do some aerobatics) the plane had just been flown by someone else, and the engine was still warm. I spotted a little twig poking out of a seam near the firewall, and started pulling. I got about 6 inches worth before it snapped off. Figuring this warrented investigation, I got someone to open the cowl. We found a good double handful of bird’s nest stuff in and around the oil cooler.
