By Vic Syracuse, EAA Lifetime 180848
This piece originally ran in Vic’s Checkpoints column in the July 2020 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
As I write this column, the majority of us have been under some sort of shelter-in-place order due to the COVID-19 virus. Lucky for me, I happen to live in a fly-in community, so I’ve been able to commute to the business via airplane when the weather permits and pretty much keep the business running — albeit a little slower. It’s ironic to me that, during this time frame as we are being inundated with all kinds of guidance pertaining to personal protective equipment (PPE), we had an RV-8 come to the shop for a condition inspection that has extreme damage to it due to the improper use of safety equipment. So, I thought it might be important to address this subject with our members to preclude it from inadvertently happening to someone else.
We were at the point of the inspection where we needed to check to see if all of the spar bolts were installed. There are four particular spar bolts that have been left out of so many RVs that Van’s Aircraft published a service bulletin in 2012, SB 12-08-14, that addresses this issue. In case you missed it, I am going to repeat the date again — 2012. That’s almost eight years ago, and we still see more than two dozen aircraft a year in which they are missing. I catch a fair number of them on prebuys, too. Yes, we can argue all day as to the pertinence of SBs in amateur-built aircraft, but it seems to me that spar bolts in aerobatic aircraft are pretty important. This particular aircraft was less than a year old and had been assembled by a “pro” shop for this particular owner. The owner was at least astute enough to have someone else look at it for its first condition inspection, even though the pro shop was much closer.
Sure enough, the spar bolts were missing — all four of them. However, what really caught our eyes was the horrendous amount of corrosion on everything underneath the pilot’s seat, especially the rod-end bearings, metal bolts, and nuts. Earlier during the inspection, we had noticed fine, powder-like dust throughout the fuselage interior, especially in the baggage compartment. It looked like the dust you would find from sanding fiberglass and perhaps overspray from paint. In this particular area, there was a lot of dust, sometimes piles of it in corners. In all honesty, I still didn’t connect the dust to the corrosion. It looked to me like someone had spilled something acidic, perhaps while prepping for paint. I asked the owner if he was aware of anything or if there was something corrosive about his hangar since it was based in Florida. I also asked if the airplane had ever been flooded. I had noticed corrosion on the rear spar bolts, which are outside the cabin, so that’s why I was thinking water corrosion. The owner was just as puzzled. I recommended he contact the pro shop to see if it could shed any light on the situation.
Well, it turns out, during the first engine start, there was some kind of fuel leak due to a fuel line being left disconnected in the cabin area, and the aircraft caught fire. I can only imagine how scary that must have been for the occupant! The fire was quenched with a fire extinguisher, the ABC type. Oops! The wrong type of extinguisher for aircraft. The chemical in an ABC fire extinguisher reacts with the fire and then creates a fine dust-like powder that is extremely corrosive. Now that we understood the cause, with a more critical eye we could see more extensive damage throughout the aircraft.
I had not had any experience with this type of corrosion, so I sought advice from fire investigators and insurance companies. No one gave me any good news or hope for the aircraft. The consistent comments were that the dust is so fine that there is no doubt it has now swirled and spread throughout the aircraft. Every insurance company said that the aircraft should be assumed to be totaled. The really sad thing is that neither the owner nor the pro shop had any insurance. Clearly, it is not in a condition for safe operation, so I was also unable to sign off the condition inspection. A ferry permit was granted to get it back home.
I’ve always carried a halon extinguisher in my airplane, as it does not leave any residue that could lead to corrosion. It depletes the fire of oxygen, which means there also isn’t any air for humans if it is activated, so you have to remember to immediately open up the air vents. Most data centers used halon when I was in that field. If I remember correctly, alarms went off prior to the halon being dispersed to give people time to evacuate the area.
By the way, it is a great practice to have a fire extinguisher available during the first engine starts, whether it’s a new airplane or just a new engine installation. We always have a halon extinguisher in the cockpit and one outside with an observer.
I carry one other piece of safety equipment in the cockpit in case I have to extricate myself after a forced landing. It is a SOG combination axe and striker tool. I know many pilots carry a striker tool or center punch to crack the canopy, but I want something with a little more force that I could swing with either arm if needed and, hopefully, the extra mass would help in case I or other cabin occupants were injured. I brief everyone on its location before takeoff.
There are two other items I thought I would mention this month that seem to be commonplace on the aircraft that come into our shop. The first has to do with the fuel tank quick drains that are just about on every aircraft out there, not just our amateur-built ones. Ever notice how they seem to constantly drip? I do, because they leave nice blue circles of fuel on our painted shop floor. As pesky as they can be, they are really easy to fix. The cause is usually just some gunk or a piece of aluminum or fiberglass leftover from construction that has lodged between the O-ring and the seal.
There are two ways to fix this. The simplest way is to carry a spare quick drain in your airplane. It’s a quick swap out with a 1/2-inch socket or wrench, and you will lose very little fuel. I usually place a small bucket underneath the drain, but the amount of fuel spilled is usually so small that it evaporates before I get a chance to empty it.
The second way is to remove the quick drain and quickly place a small plug in the hole. By the time you finish building an airplane, you’ll have plenty of the 1/8-inch NPT plugs around, both plastic and metal, which you can carry instead of a spare quick drain. The disadvantage to this method is that you will have to swap in and out twice, thereby spilling a little more fuel. On the off chance the O-ring is damaged, you won’t be able to reinstall the quick drain. However, all is not lost. You can properly tighten a metal plug and just continue to your destination and replace the quick drain before the next refueling.
The other pesky maintenance item has to do with flat tires, which always happen at the most inopportune time, like on vacation and at another airport other than your home base. First, if the tire is going flat or has gone flat, try not to taxi or roll on the tire at all. It will damage the cords on the inside of the tire. That is the one mistake I see happening all too often — replacing the tube without carefully inspecting the inside of the tire. If the cords are damaged, they will eventually rub through the tube and cause another flat. If you taxi on that flat tire, it’s best to assume you will need a new one. See the picture for a good look at damaged cords.
While it’s easy to pinch the tubes in the two-part aircraft wheels, if you take your time and lather the tube with lots of talcum powder or baby powder, you should be able to slide the two halves of the wheel together and hear a satisfying metal-to-metal contact. If you don’t, there’s a good chance you are pinching the tube, and it will go flat within a couple of days. Once you are assured you have the wheel properly together and the bolts properly torqued, inflate and deflate it a couple of times at half-pressure before the final filling. It allows the tube to move around if necessary and seat itself inside the tire.
No flat tires and no leaking fuel drains make for more fun when it’s time to go flying!
Vic Syracuse, EAA Lifetime 180848 and chair of EAA’s Homebuilt Advisory Council, is a commercial pilot, A&P/IA, DAR, and EAA flight advisor and technical counselor. He has built 11 aircraft and has logged more 9,500 hours in 72 different types. Vic also founded Base Leg Aviation and volunteers as a Young Eagles pilot and an Angel Flight pilot. For more from Vic, see his Checkpoints column each month in EAA Sport Aviation.