I went to Florida last weekend. It was a 5 hour flight. I landed at Titusville at 2100 hrs just as the tower controller was going home. I asked him if he knew where I could rent a car. He said to go part under the Chevron sign. After I parked and looked around, I saw that everything was closed except for a helicopter school about 1,000 ft south. The school was very helpful and said to call the hotel and tell them I was there for HEI training. That was great it saved me 1/3 of the hotel bill.

The plane was parked quite a ways away so I decided to taxi it over to the school. When I tried to start the plane it backfired once and again before it started. It almost felt like the starter disengaged early. It just didn't feel right so I grounded the plane until I could look under the hood. Sure enough, the one starter bolt had fallen off and the other 3 nuts were loose.

The school gave me the bolt and new lock washers. They happened to use O-320 engines. I always carry Lock-Tite. I think the nuts and bolts should stay on longer this time. From now on I will check them at the annual. The starter, a Sky-Tec, was put on new in about 2000 and, I'm sure, was taken off in a tear-down in 04/2003.
--
Lorn H. 'Feathers' Olsen, MAA, DynaComm, Corp.
248-345-0500, mailto:lorn@dynacomm.ws
LNC2, O-320-D1F, 1,100 hrs, N31161, Y47, SE Michigan