Fly for fun

Who of you in here has ever done something similar? You know, found a “little excuse” to take her out for a quick maintenance flight? I can neither confirm nor deny that I may or may not be guilty of such exact action working for an outfit which should remain nameless, yet strongly leaning towards “may”…

Lucky for me I finally ended up with a company that’s not stingy when it comes to non-revenue flights at all. Which is almost surprising considering the size of the aircraft. But I think it stems from the fact that both owners are still aviation fanatics after 40+ years of flying and rarely ever pass on an opportunity to take something around the patch themselves. It’s actually really great to work for aviation enthusiasts vs. a former manager of a yogurt factory, LOL. The only downside of flying these big aircraft is that you don’t get to just “jump in” like Chuck and Julio do in the Cessna or the Piper. There are a lot of people and work involved in firing one of those beasts up and capturing it again after the flight. I sometimes miss just “getting in and go”.

When I was working for the small flight school where most initial CW ideas came from, one of my job as CFI AND A&P was to verify squawks before the shop would go through the hassle of opening a work order and bringing the machine in the hangar. With pilots like Chuck and students like Jason, a lot of “problems” they came up with were simple fixes like switching a missed switch back into “ON” mode and such. Some flights were scary, when things were actually broken pretty good but went unnoticed by a student. It was a great experience spending so much time in my early career flying aircraft with issues and troubleshooting them. I’d totally do that one over again because I learned so much.

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4 comments on “Fly for fun
  1. Dopey says:

    Not quite the same, but similar. I had just gotten new tires for the old Cessna…ran out to the hangar after dinner to put them on. Once I got done with all 3 tires it was well after dark, and I was tired after working a full day and then working late on the airplane. I flew it anyway just to make sure they worked ok. (They did)

  2. Bernd says:

    Our Robin DR400 is about to come out of maintenance, and I look forward to doing some “test” flights with the new digital engine monitor and mogas STC. Unfortunately I’ll probably have to pay for it myself.

  3. Fbs says:

    I think mechanic should always be on board for test flights. Just to make sure they double-checked everything…..and that the job is well done.

    Except if Chuck is at the controls….

  4. Johsua says:

    The good old “Optical Field of Fire” switch. It is amazing how often it is missed. That and trying to start with the mags grounded.

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