Fixin the Old Girl
“Hey Darren, could you take five minutes and help me figure out what’s wrong with my trim control on my airplane.”
That was the first domino that set off a chain reaction which put the airplane on ground for a little over three weeks. My trim control had completely locked up, forcing me to manually fight the controls to fly the airplane. Any pilot out there will quickly affirm that this is not a fun way to fly!
As five minutes turned into ten minutes and then fifteen minutes it became apparent that "the issue" was going to take much more time to address than we anticipated. As we began exploring how my horizontal stabilizer trim control really worked, it slowly dawned on us that the only way to get at the problem was to remove the entire tail, elevator controls, and the horizontal stabilizer.
Darren and I looked at each and asked the obvious question. “Uhhh…. Do we really want to dig into this now?” There were missionaries out in the field that needed air support, and there was (and currently is) only one airplane. But the alternative was to continue flying the airplane manually, which was a real chore. After much discussion and prayer we decided that now was the best time to dig into the problem. Pastor David Gates was scheduled to fly down through Guyana in a week or so, and if we needed parts, now was the best time to buy them.
So with a deep breath we decided to take the plunge. Five and a half hours later the tail, horizontal stabilizer, and elevators were completely off and we were able to get unfettered access to the trim jacks.
By this time the Ogle mosquitos were out in full force so we decided to wrap it up for the night.
The next day Darren and I were able to remove the jacks and disassemble them so we could see what was the matter. The right hand jack had lost all it's grease, and had bound up. With much WD40 and and patient work we were finally able to get it completely off.
Our great concern was that the jacks would be severely worn and would need to be replaced, but much to our relief they looked to be in very good condition. One had just lost it’s lubrication and had locked up. So after working on both the whole day we were able to clean them up, re-pack them with grease, and reinstall them back in the airplane.
Then it was that we faced our second tough decision. There were some Teflon bushings that desperately needed to be replaced. Unfortunately these were specialty items that could only come from the States. So… the question was whether to put “humpty dumpty” back together again and fly for a week, only to take her back apart. Or... would it not be better to keep the airplane on the ground for a little longer so we could dig into other snags, and then put everything back correctly, once and for all.
After more discussion and prayer, we concluded that if we were going to do the job, we might as well do it right the first time.
At this point, I was bound and determined to fix a whole slew of issues that had been a thorn in my flesh. I reasoned that if the airplane was going to be down anyway, it was time to knock out all those issues on the back burner.
The first and most obvious issues was the spider-like filiform corrosion that was slowly spreading out underneath the aircraft paint. Evidently the previous aircraft paint shop hadn’t fully prepped the airplane before they shot the paint, leaving micro amounts of paint stripper residue in the cracks between the overlapping aluminum skin. Now, I decided, was the ideal time to hit it with a vengeance since it would be easier to deal with on a bench instead of a ladder.
I also had a chronic issue with a slow fuel tank leak that needed to be fixed. It would only leak when the fuel reached the very top of the tank, but I had fought with this issue for over a year, and enough was enough! So in one day I completely disconnected and removed my right fuel bladder. Sure enough! Right near the top there was a crack around the fuel cross-feed vent. Unfortunately the maintenance manual stated that it wasn’t repairable. So that evening I shelled out $930 for a new fuel bladder. Ouch!!!
Daily I would come into the airport and work on the airplane. Sometimes alone, sometimes with other mechanics.
One of my work buddies that helped me quite a bit was a young aviation maintenance student, by the name of Matthias. Usually when 4pm would roll around, everyone was packing up and ready to head home. But not Matthias. He would work together with me (slapping mosquitoes) until 7:00 or 7:30pm.
Between the two of us we were able to set up and paint our entire tail section. It was a little hit and miss at the beginning, but by the end we were getting the hang of it, and I could see that Matthias had a real knack for it.
By the time David arrived with the much-needed parts, everything was ready for reassembly.
Little by little, we began reassembling the tail section, careful to follow the maintenance manual.
One of the things we wanted to do was replace corroded bolts and nuts, with brand new hardware. I honestly didn’t know when I would pull the tail section apart like this, and I thought it would be good to start fresh.
At one point, late on a Friday afternoon, as we were hurrying to get everything wrapped up before Sabbath, one of the few structural bolts that I had chosen to reused, which was to hold the tail in place, snapped when we tried to torque it. I stared in disbelief and shock. My high hopes plummeted like a rock. By this time it was 5pm, there was absolutely nothing I could do but to pack up for the weekend. I was pretty discouraged because I knew that we may not be able to find another bolt that size.
Very early Sunday morning I scoured our little cardboard box of structural bolts, but all my searching turned up nothing. Things were looking real bleak.
"Lord, you're going to have to help me with this one..." I breathed.
In a desperate moment I called my good Muslim friend “Faz” at Guysuco and poured out all my woes. I told him that I had sick volunteers in the interior that really needed the airplane, and asked if he might be able to come to the airport to see if they had any bolts like this. He was so gracious, that on his day off he dropped by the airport just to check for me.
My cell phone rang a short time later and when I answered, Faz quietly asked, “How many do you need?” My heart leaped for joy. “Just two!!!” I nearly shouted into the phone. There was a short pause, “You can come down and pick them up.” I didn’t walk across the ramp, I floated across the ramp to the Guysuco hangar.
By now we had been on the ground for three weeks and missionaries were running out of food in the interior, and everyone was anxious to see the airplane. The race was on to get everything back together again.
The next big task was wrestling the new fuel tank into position. After much coaxing, and effort I was able to waffle the flimsy tank through the small hole in the top of the wing and get it positioned correctly.
Now came the hard part. To install the button hangers. This was where my 6'9" reach really came into play!!! Even so, I must have spent close to 2 hours with my arm shoved completely in the wing, installing these button hangers by braille. Oh the fun times!
Hooking up the fuel sender unit was also fun. There were all these gaskets that had to be perfectly aligned with the inner bracket had to line up perfectly. This was clearly a two-man job since someone had to reach in through the top to position the tank just right. Our first attempt was a miserable failure. Gaskets were twisting around in all the wrong positions, and screws were falling out of the holes and getting lost under the airplane. Finally someone had a bright idea, and suggested that I hold the gaskets temporarily in place with masking tape. Brilliant!!! A short while later everything was connected and I was able to close up the top of the tank.
My day had started out at 5:30am, and as the last bit of sun was highlighting the western sky, we started wrapping up our airplane. Thirteen straight hours working on the airplane! I was dog tired, but thoroughly elated. We were back online once again.
The next morning, after a short test flight, I flew out to Paruima Village and stayed the night. Just in time, too, because one of the missionary families had just run out of some staple food supplies.
