AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

I started my aviation maintenance career watching Navy mechanics work on Wright 1820s. They weren’t too worried about oil leaks, I learned. Later, I worked for Aero Dyne out of the Renton, Washington airport on their fleet of Pratt and Whitney powered DC-3s. One of the junior co-pilots always walked around the nacelles of our “Dougasaurases” because he didn’t want to get any drops of that nasty “BMEP” on his epaulets. I sneered at his wimpiness. Oil is good and 60 weight is the best.

However, the oil leak that has developed under the cowling of my faithful Comanche has finally grown beyond the “BMEP” catagory into an “OIL LEAK!” So I pulled the cowling, looked around and decided that the source of my Exxon Valdez-like oil slick was the oil cooler.  I  sent it to Pacific Oil Cooler service. They sent it back with a clean bill of health. That wasn’t it.

Next step is to get rid of the age-unknown fittings between the cooler and the flexible oil hoses and install new fittings with perfect 37 degree flares. Should have the new parts and pieces tomorrow. In the meantime I’ll be cleaning the oil off the belly.  One thing I know for sure–none of the safety wire cuts I suffered on my hands and arms during my years working on airplane engines ever got infected. It must have been the 60 weight.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 9:20 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.