Loooooooooong Annual Inspection

[Bill Greenwood]

My annual from last year expired Oct 31 so I delivered the plane to the shop in Boulder. And now this morning, 2 months and 23 days later I just received a phone call that it is ready!
The big delay was that we had a slight looseness in one prop blade last year and this year all were definitely loose, so they removed the prop assembly. Then came the sticking point, one prop shop had closed down and others were just too busy. Finally one at the closest airport agreed to do the O H., but it took awhile to get work started. Then they found corrosion in the hub, and even though it didn't look like much to me, you can't take a chance with a critical part. So a week to look for an overhauled one, then Christmas break, then a week to order a new hub, and it about another three to get it reassembled. The good news was the blades were ok.
I was fortunate to borrow a nice Vtail Bonanza to fly, but glad mine it finally done. The bill is going to be a whopper, not only the new hub, but 2 new mags ( sent them out for OH, and got the corrosion result also) but also all the labor.
Hope I can remember how to fly it.
And thankfully it is a VFR day, and looks good for the next few, for some test flying!

[Joe Delene]

I've owned my current Piper about 4 years now. The annuals have gotten less expensive as I went along. I did have a few 'elective' things done at a few. Since I'm the only one that flies it, once something is taken care of it usually stays that way.

Hopefully you can get by easier($$) next time. Peace of mind during flight is worth some too.

[skyfixer8]

Why the overhaul on the magnetos ? Doesn t anyone work on those anymore ? I do that here quite a bit. pretty basic stuff.

[Bill Greenwood]

There is a Continental service bulletin, not an AD that recommend mag check or O H at 500 hours. We didn't do this last year, so now it was 600 hours. We had an oil leak from the gasket under one magneto, so since that had to be removed to change the gasket, I said to send the mags in to be inspected. No, the shop here does not do them, which I was a little surprised at. I thought we were going to use a nearby shop, but they may have closed, so they went to Witchita and the word came back that there was corrosion inside so bought two new ones. I would have like to see them, but wasn't going to ICT. These are pressurized mags for high altitude as this is a turbo, TSIO 520 UB engine with a service ceiling of 25,000 feet, so more than a simple mag on a 172 or similar.

And when you say I do that quite a bit here, I don't have any idea where "here" is. If you are a mag service shop or O H shop, do you often see corrosion in these types?