Well, WIXers, another week come and gone, and the maintenance crew has done its thing for another couple of Maintenance Days, and so here comes the Maintenance Report.
This was an odd week for IndyJen, because I only vaguely retain any ability to have a life outside of an old freakin' Harpoon, and while that isn't any sort of complaint at all, it does make it feel strange when I do get to go off on a spree.
This weekend you see was the weekend for the annual St. Louis Tionol (pronounced "chunnel"), the first Irish traditional music festival of the year, and my own favorite for years now. IndyJen is herself an enthusiastic proponent of the Irish tradition, and will inflict the jigs and reels upon you with her fiddle and banjo, and leave you liking it.
A friend and I flew over there in the beloved Grumman Traveler of IndyJen. The very first thing that happened to us upon landing at St. Louis Downtown was that Todd the Line Guy began hearing all about Hot Stuff the Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon--from fiddlin' friend Kate, mind you; I was busy tying down. Kate, however, has heard endless tales of Hot Stuff, as you may imagine. Anyhow, ol' Todd has a liking for historic old birds, and he took us around to see his local treasures. These included a Lodestar tucked in back in the old Curtiss-Wright company hangar. There are some MIGs on the field, too, and somebody's dark blue T-28 in the FBO hangar, waiting on a fuel boost pump.
The Curtiss-Wright hangar was an art deco delight itself, and the Lodestar is a lovely example, wearing a high-gloss warbird paint scheme with invasion stripes.
We could only peer through the locked hangar-door windows at it, but I hope they fly that plane from time to time, and I'd love to get in there and see her better some time. There are some nice planes there at St. Louis Downtown, Cahokia IL.
The Tionol starts about Wednesday and rages on till Sunday, and it is as mighty as all get out for the many musicians and punters (onlookers) who attend, but there was a Harpoon awaiting me back at MQJ, so all I had was the Friday night sessions, and I got all I could get of 'em, too.
I staggered out to the plane early Saturday and launched for home, heading straight to Mount Comfort. The AMHF crew, alerted to the fact that I wouldn't be there to annoy them, had a a brass band and acrobatic clown acts, according to PJ, who also claimed other misdeeds and malfeasances for herself, just to get my goat. I believe she is embellishing, however, because when I taxied up, all I saw was a bunch of work going on.
There's the beloved Traveler: that tiny thing back behind the Harpoon. I've been thinking about giving her a new paint job, and now I think of it, I think she would look great in a Harpoon scheme.
First thing I saw, upon parking, was the starboard empennage all de-paneled. With that side done, that completes the empennage inspection overall. One discrepancy left to fix and sign off there.
Another item receiving a lot of attention was the ground power cart, an old surplus generator that gets a lot of use. The boys were in there tearing it down far enough to determine what suddenly began causing the horrible noise last Wednesday. (Doesn't it figure? Right when it's near to Engine Running Day, too. But it is what it is.) There's potential to have it going again come Saturday, which is what we're shooting for for engine running.
Thanks to PJ for all these photos, too.
Rich No. 2 was part of the GPU repair team, but here he's shown wrapping up a repair in the cockpit. That GPU team , which included also Hot Rod Steve and Rich no 1, the Official Dad of IndyJen, just got together and attacked that problem.
There's Hot Rod Steve with the power cart. When they were done, the engine was out and cylinder heads pulled.
Up there on the right engine, quietly working away all day long cleaning it up, is Bob the new guy. He ran into PJ at the drugstore one day, and heard all about Hot Stuff the Harpoon standing in line with her. Next thing you know he's out on the MQJ ramp.
Bob's an old tanker jet engine mechanic, and understands about caring for an old bird. I hope to see more of him out there.
Our maintenance team has added a bunch of good people in the last couple years, and John FedEx is not the least invaluable one of those folks. He has become our goto guy for sheet metal work, and he has pretty much wrapped up his repair of the co-pilot's floor structure. I'll try to get some pics of that on Wednesday's work day.
Ol' FedEx had the benefit of the Official AMHF Giant Extension Reel, which Machine Shop Gaylon and Roy the Electrical Guru concocted a little while back in a fit of creativity.
That's about it for this week's report. The Return to Flight countown continues, and there'll be more about that presently ...
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