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Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:29:02 -0500
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From: Ronald STEVENS <Ronald@sdc.com>
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Subject: What would you do (part 2)?
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Hello guys

Not long go I wrote about this fellow who owns a Lancair 4p with a lot =
of troubles and a pilot who has no high performance time, little retract =
time, and did not flew for 1 year now (he was thinking to do his =
bi-annual in a Cessna 172).  I was visiting him yesterday and did see =
the plane.=20

The plane itself looks like a project (never ending) and the stories =
well......they are pretty scary. The engine did not ran for a long time =
as he was waiting for another alternator, and now it is not doing =
anything as one of the screens from his OP technologies gave up.=20

The sad part is that he has a old version of this OP system with CRT =
screens and they do not have them anymore, so now he is waiting for OP =
to program his system to have it work with the newer LCD screens =
(well.......I did not want to tell him but that probably will never =
happen, a company will not spend manpower on something like this, as =
this would be very costly, the CRT has a different pixel count than the =
LCD screens.....etc etc)

The exhaust pipes of the plane (chromed) were showing weather, and it =
was already letting go of the chrome inside the cowling. He did told me =
that the engine was running pretty good (although it is a performance =
engine...engine...)

Charlie Kohler did inspect the plane twice and he did gave this =
gentleman a list of things that had to be repaired...but I also noticed =
in our conversation that he does not have a real big budget neither, so =
not sure how far he did go with Charlie's recommendations.=20

So it will not flying for a while and to be honest even if you would pay =
me 1000/hour I still would not climb into this plane right now. I gave =
him my opinion and told him that if I would be him I would try to sell =
the plane and put this money into a plane like a cirrus.

In my opinion the plane is about 50-70k away from being ready and safer =
(new avionics, paint, interior, charlie's list). The plane was built by =
a father/son in Fort Pierce (people who know them know how to avoid =
them), the plane had so many issues like Ailerons not working when flaps =
were deployed etc that I am still in awe about his. (he was not able to =
make left turns when he had the flaps down, right turns were working =
well lol

He also explained me about the engine out issue he had, the CFII wanted =
to show him what a 'real' high performance plane can do, and was banking =
45% while low on fuel, so he was so low on fuel that it ported out and =
the engine was sucking air. He than told him to level the plane, and =
tried first switching tanks, than tried the low boost pump and when that =
did not worked he used the high boost and it was cranking up again (I =
explained him to always have low boost pump on before switching tanks).=20=


Well the good news is that he will not be able to fly this plane for a =
while, the bad news is that he is still thinking to get it ready and =
than start flying it. Which than comes back to the question.....what =
would you do?

-- Ronald (112 hours and counting)