Inspection Time!

This week, we have my baby, N827DG, in for a 200hour inspection.  As many of you recall from the beginning days of this blog, 7DG was the first major job that I did here at AIM AIR.  It still has a special place in my heart for that reason.  It has just about 400hours on it since we did the airframe overhaul and things have been looking good and it's been flying really well.  The pilots really like the IO-550-N strapped on the front; much relief from the old dogged out IO-520-Fs.  So this week, we've jumped in full steam and are well into an inspection with it. 

Opening panels and otherwise getting it all ready for the inspection.

Jospeh Tavasi, one of our staff here at AIM AIR, helping to open wing panels on 7DG.

I caught some of the short termers gathering around my toolbox, so I thought I would snap a shot.  Left to right is Justin Bethany (LETU), John Holtz (Moody, and future AIM AIR maintenance specialist), and Michael Felts (LETU). 

We are also doing some heavy maintenance on 5Y-SIL as well.  Below are some pictures of what we've been doing.  The main work is with the landing gear.  We found a crack in the left hand outboard main gear casting, so had to replace that.  We've also removed the nose gear and disassembled, cleaned, painted, and will reassmble and re-install in the next couple days.  Below are pictures of SIL. 

Caleb getting ready to do some work with SIL. 

This is Nicholas Pool and Michael Felts, both from LETU, working on brake assemblies for SIL. 

Robert Wiens, from neither LETU or Moody, working on overhauling SIL's shimmy dampener.

This like open heart surgery.  You have to peel open all this floor skin to get access to the gear casting. 

This is the new casting, being fit into place.  The entire gear casting replacement is about a 2-3 day job.  What a pain. 

This is currently how SIL looks right now...sort like a taildragger!  We have it on its tail to facilitate removal of the nose gear for overhaul. 

Marko, one of our staff, doing the painting of the nose gear pieces.  He did a really nice job. 

Leading Edge Repair

If you recall a couple months ago, I went into the DRC to patch up an airplane so that it could fly home.  Well, we finally received the parts needed to finish the repair.  We are replacing the leading edge of the right wing, as well as the Horton STOL leading edge cuff.  It is a delicate process, as the installer needs to ensure that all parts are aligned properly and that the sheetmetal will lay down well.  This ensures that there will be no wrinkles in the skin once it's time to rivet.  I have a friend of mine who is doing the work on it while I am busy with other work in the hangar.  It's been great to have him down doing that...he's really a meticulous guy, and he's been doing a fantastic job.  Enjoy some of the progress pictures...

We also replaced the outboard rib. 

Getting it fitted into place. 

Held in by clecos...it's coming slowly...

I thought this was a neat picture...

At the same time of the leading edge repair, we are also changing the registration number.  Farewell to N4790U...hello to...oh, you'll just have to wait and see!