As indicated by the flag, airplane ownership inevitably involves learning some lessons the hard way.
THE NEW OWNER 5 Things I Wish I Had Known Before Buying My First Airplane Some aircraft ownership lessons are learned the hard way.
by Jason McDowell
A s someone who tends to spend several weeks analyz- ing the purchase of items as mundane as a toaster or blender, I like to think my purchases are relatively well-informed. So it’s a rare state of affairs for me to be caught off guard by a new purchase. Still, looking back on nearly three years of airplane ownership, I can identify a handful of things I wish I had known from the beginning. 1. Beware of homemade parts and accessories. My airplane’s previous owner was a retired rocket engineer who had it for roughly 40 years. He spent his career working in various facets of aviation and aero- space. His work is literally aboard the Voyager space probes at this very moment. If ever there was a guy who could properly care for a single-engine Cessna, I rea- soned, this was the guy. And he did indeed take good care of it…and he also fab- ricated a few things himself, like custom cowl plugs to prevent birds from nesting in the engine. The plugs were well-made and easily utilized by any reasonably in- telligent individual. However, the cowl plugs were not idiot-proof. More specifically, they lacked any obvious visual indication that they were in place. I learned this during my very first
lesson in my airplane when I neglected to remove them, overheated the engine, cracked multiple cylinders, and was forced to have a top overhaul done on the engine. It was entirely my fault. But had I used a mass-produced cowl plug that was de- signed with idiots in mind, I would almost certainly have spotted the red flags or streamers from the cockpit, removed them prior to engine start, and avoided an embarrassing and costly mistake. The lesson? Beware of amateur-built items like cowl plugs, wheel chocks, gust locks, and similar accessories. Determine what makes them different from mass-produced versions, and consider whether these differences could be the first link in a chain of events leading toward an unfortunate incident. 2. A good engine monitor is an extremely worthwhile investment. Prior to the panel upgrade I made last year, my airplane had a variety of anti- quated engine gauges, including a digital cylinder head temperature (CHT) read- out that only ever displayed the temperature of one of my six cylinders. The other gauges were all positioned on the far side of my panel, well outside the normal field of vision. When I installed a Garmin GI 275 EIS engine monitoring display, this single unit replaced nine individual gauges while bringing far more engine infor- mation into my field of view. It also logs and stores engine data to help mechanics diagnose tricky engine issues.
4 Aircraft For Sale | June 2024
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