A $5000 annual and I get to take my airplane home in pieces

[Eric Marsh]

Man, I so want to get my RV finished and be done with certified aircraft.

---- rant on ----- unhappy camper ---- you might want to skip this post ----

After jumping through the necessary hoops I got my PPL this spring. Last year I bought a '58 Piper Tripacer for $20k because the engine was supposed to have been gone through and the ADs taken care of. So I fly my Tripacer in for an owner assisted annual, a month and a half ago. I'm told that two cylinders have 40/45 psi compression. It might be true but she's been climbing out at 800 fpm. I tell the shop to do what is necessary but skip the engine work because it will break my budget. Having long experience in engine work I'd take a look at the engine myself.

A month and a half later I show up to reassemble the aircraft. I've filed the ferry permit paperwork with the FAA to make the 15 mile flight home (over a bunch of empty fields). They deny it.

I'm not going to anti up another $3000 to replace the two cylinders without seeing what's wrong for myself so I decide just to pull the wings from my bird and trailer her home. Time to settle up and my tab is $5300.

Ouch.

I'm not going to point fingers at the shop that did the work. They have certain rules that they are obligated to abide by. Yes there were value judgements made and they are the professionals so I'm not going to question them.

But the question keeps getting asked, why are there so few pilots? At this point my feeling is that the payoff for all the hoops it's necessary to jump through and the associated expenses may or may not be there. Right now it feels to me like the problem is not with aviation, it's with the system itself. The FAA has done a great job of keeping commercial flights in the air. But that bureaucracy doesn't exactly seem to be making it friendly for the little guy.

I like flying my Tripacer - the view is nice on a clear day but it's sure taken a lot of time and expense to enjoy that view. But I've got to ask myself is it really fun enough? It is too damn slow.

I guess that there is an up side. The up side is that almost all of my experiences with the certified aircraft strengthen my motivation that much more to get my RV6-A put together. After I post this I'm going to go out and see if everything is ready for me to start assembling the fuel tanks.

I've raced drag bikes on and off since the early 1970s. The nice thing about bike racing is that the track inspectors pretty much always gave us a pass because they didn't know what to look for on a bike. I was starting a front engine dragster project when I came upon the bureaucracy known as the National Hot Rod Association. Believe it or not, they may be worse than the FAA. Their drivers medical exam was worse than my flight physical anyway. That was what started my adventure as a pilot. (The rail is now hanging on my shop wall. Everybody should have at least one race car part hanging on their shop wall.) I'm hoping that ownership of a self built experimental will be more like the motorcycle experience than the dragster experience.

As for the Tripacer at this point I'm annoyed enough that I'm tempted to sell it. But the wife's requirement is four seats and high wings and I'll probably not do any better at those requirements on my budget so I'll be clearing out some space in the shop and taking a look at that engine.

I really want to be done with certified aircraft.

----- rant off -----