It arrives!
Finally, everything was set up and Brad left for KY on the 15th of May. He was to call when he finished his inspection and give me the go-no-go. He called early afternoon and said it passed and if anything, the plane looked better than the pictures. I okayed the transfer and told him to get on his horse. I knew that the weather in KY was bad, and it would take him about 10 hours in the air to get here.
About 10 that evening, the phone rang. Both radios had failed and the weather had closed in. Brad was at Lexington, KY and had to be at work in Dallas the next afternoon so could not wait for the radios to be fixed. But he had some friends who also did ferrying and would set it up with one of them. He loved the airplane and was sure that the radio problem was something simple when the radio shop could get to it. After all, they were working when he left Richmond-Madison.
The next day, the radio shop determined that the problem was deeper than a quick fix. If I could arrange a loaner or a portable, then we could get it down here and fix it at our leisure. Johnny volunteered a portable, Dave volunteered a portable and Chris in the radio shop at Lexington volunteered a loaner. We were set.
Todd Bellindir left for Lexington on the Friday morning redeye. Sandra was in Arlington for the weekend with Special Olympics so I waited alone, and waited, and waited. Todd left LEX on Friday afternoon and called from outside Memphis Friday night. The weather between there and here was bad and getting worse, so he was going to put it to bed for the night. He would be in Saturday before noon.
I was scheduled to fly with Dave at 11:00 so I went to the hangar, just in case. Dave as usual was running behind for the morning, but would have time in the aft. I waited and I waited. Finally around one, I went home for lunch. At 2:00 Dave called and said there was a good looking Musketeer parked in front of his hangar!
I took Todd home to Arlington and bought him lunch. We swapped flying stories and he went on at length on the merits of our "new" plane. But by now the storm was all over the area like ugly on an ape, so I went home.
It was Memorial Day weekend and Dave was going somewhere Sunday-Monday but might be back late Monday Afternoon. Sandra got back Sunday night and we were excited, among other things. Monday about 4, we picked up fried chicken and fixin's and had a picnic at the hangar, hoping Dave would return. He didn't, but the Redhead liked the plane. We sat in it like 2 kids sitting in the front seat of Dad's car. The cabin was big enough that we sat side by side and I could easily reach the flap handle and trim wheel without her hips and legs interfering.
Finally, Friday, June 2, I got a chance to fly it for real. We went to Denton for gas and couldn't get it restarted until they brought a jumper cart out. The Mouse has a fuel injected engine. They are notoriously hard to start when hot. Dave opines that each of them has it's own quirks as every one he is familiar with, and there are 2 on his 310, requires you to hold your mouth differently. This problem is to bite me 2 more times before I learn the trick.
But we made some T&Gs at Frisco anyway on the way back. On Saturday, Sandra hoped to go along while we flew, but the weather was atrocious. I had my head under the Instrument panel installing new hoses for the cabin vents when Dave came out and said, "If we want to fly today, we better go now." The radar picture he had in his hand confirmed that as bad as it looked then it was going to get worse.
We grabbed 3 headsets and fired it up. As I got to pattern altitude, I was at the bottom of the clouds. Talk about marginal weather! We flew over to Frisco and made a touch and go and flew back home. Now, the Redhead was feeling even better about the investment.
The Mouse has a pedigree and some quirks.
A pilot has a logbook in which every flight should be recorded. This record is used to prove proficiency and currency. An airplane also has a set of logbooks, one for the plane, one for the engine and sometimes one for the propeller (required for constant speed props, optional on fixed pitch).I had had a full search done by AOPA prior to purchase. This included title, registered modifications and incident reports. With the logbooks and these reports, I could piece together a reasonably complete picture of the entire life of our Musketeer.
Beechcraft Musketeer serial number M-594 was born October 1964 at Wichita, Kansas. It was assigned FAA registration number N8858M and purchased by a flight school in Niagara Falls, NY. Between then and February 5, 1967, it had flown 1052 hours. On that date, apparently someone (probably a student) porpoised a landing. This is normally from touching down on the nose wheel. This begins a series of bounces which if not stopped by an immediate abort, will result in serious damage to the front of the airplane. This one required new engine mounts, cowling and propeller.
The plane apparently remained with that organization for a long time as all of the inspections and maintenance continue to be signed off by the same IA, one Milton Lenier. In July, 74, the airplane was involved in another accident at Clarks Summit, PA. The NTSB report only relates : "Pilot landed long ran off end of runway and struck brush.". Aircraft time at the inspection on 6/1/74 was 4695 hours. The next entry is by Milton Lenier at 4713 hours on 12/02/78 when the wing is repaired. An annual is recorded on 11/1/79 at 4720 hours. This is signed by Melvin Finch, the man who signed the annual on 7/24/74.
My inference is that the airplane was sold in July 74 and Melvin became the new mechanic. That Milton Lenier signed off the accident repair in 78 is coincidence as the next two entries are signed by Melvin Finch and reflect very low use. These are an annual on the same date as the wing repair and the next annual with only 7 hours on the clock.
The next entry is October and December of 1980, when new radios and some other equipment are installed by a shop in Florida. A new annual is signed off 12/10/80 at 4736 hours by a new mechanic whose name appears on the inspections until 5/7/84. The time recorded then is 4747, so the plane was flown only 50 hours from July 74 to May 84 after flying 4700 hours in it's first 10 years.
The next 10 years see 600 hours flown and most of the maintenance and inspections signed off by a company in Minnesota. At some point in this time, the registration was changed to N594JF.
In March of 95, a company name in Ohio appears in the books and the owner is a man named Les Benson. The plane is used apparently for company business and is flown regularly and in June 96, the registration number is changed to N594LB.
In October 96, the plane was sold to Johnny Bullens in Kentucky with 5476 hours. Until the engine change in 2000 with 5558 hours, only normal inspections are recorded. We received the plane with 5566 hours on the tach.
In "debriefing" Todd, we discussed fuel consumption. He was dismayed by the level of usage, especially from the right tank. It would use up to 15gph while the left tank was less than 10gph. The wise old man (Dave) solved this one quickly. In carburetted engines, the float stops the flow of gas when the float bowls are full. This engine is fuel injected which means that the engine driven fuel pump supplies a constant pressure to the injectors. The excess is returned to the left tank.
The plane is placarded in two places and the operating handbook in says several places that you should run 1.5 hours on the left tank before switching to the right tank. This is to insure that there will be room in the left tank for the overflow fuel when drawing from the right tank.
And now some words about fuel management. Accident reports use 2 terms to describe accidents where the engine quit from lack of fuel: fuel exhaustion and fuel starvation. If the accident was caused by fuel exhaustion, the pilot used all of the fuel on board before reaching his destination. Fuel starvation means that there was usable fuel in at least one tank but the pilot did not switch to that tank. Unbelievably, the two causes rank about equal in frequency.
Most texts recommend running an hour on each tank, but the placards on the mouse take precedence over that recommendation. As the fuel pump delivers about 15gph and the engine, properly leaned, will burn about 8gph, if you burn 1 hour from the left and then anything over an hour from the right, you will be venting fuel overboard.
The other part of this is when you are planning fuel management approaching empty status. You obviously do not plan to run to empty (although just as obviously, some pilots do). But you want to plan to empty the right tank as nearly as is prudent and then your final leg is on the tank which receives the overflow.
The trap I will fall into is to look in the right tank and see about 10 gallons. Then I will say with the 3 gallons unusable, that should run 30 minutes (using the normal 10gph). It won't run that long because the right tank uses about 15gph, the engine uses about 10.
Solo in the mouse
I soon discovered that the Musketeer was much easier to fly than the Cherokee, but landings were still giving me problems. In addition, now there was the problem of making a fuel run periodically. There is no gas at Aero Country.
Avgas is probably one of the commodities with the largest price spread there is. At this time (Jun-Aug 2000), the spread, as far as I knew it, was 2.05 in Denton and 2.45 at McKinney. At Denton, it was self serve but at McKinney they brought the truck to you. I have since learned that this is only the tip of the iceberg. On May 8, 01 I bought gas at Denton for 2.59 self serve. On May 9, I bought gas at Gainesville for 1.84 self serve. On June 9, 01, we bought gas at Ardmore, OK for 2.40 and they brought the truck to us. Go figure!
The first week in June, I scheduled my FAA written exam. The place was at Addison airport, about 2 miles from where I work. As I was backing out at work, the truck that had been empty when I walked by it to get to the car backed into me. To make it worse, I was driving the Redhead's baby, the Thunderbird. To get an idea of how bad this is, it is only my third accident in 42 years of driving. We exchange information and I go to take the test. I passed, in spite of the circumstances. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but what do you call the person who is last in class at med. school graduation?
Practice, practice, practice. Then, they decided to repave the taxiways and the plane was landlocked the last week of June. The first 2 weeks of July, was time for my first annual. There was one AD that hadn't been complied with by previous owners, but mostly, the Mouse came through well. Back in the saddle again on July 14.
On July 15, we make a fuel run to Denton. For the first time, the right tank/left tank booboo bites me. I had about an hour's fuel in the right tank and 1.5 in the left. I was running on the right and as we entered the pattern at DTO, the engine sputtered. Dave took over, switched tanks and went to full throttle and full rich. The engine came back to life and he handed the plane back to me.
Finally on July, 24, after 13.7 hours in the Mouse, Dave let me solo in our plane. I wasn't wholly satisfied with my landings, but I was getting a level of confidence in them.
I can now fly by myself, but the directional gyro has begun being highly erratic. I cannot begin my solo cross country until I get it replaced. There is a shop in Lewisville where you can take yours in and exchange it for a rebuilt one. Dave is gone to Osh Kosh. I could fly local, but it is more important to get the DG replaced, so we go out after work one evening and I literally sweat over it for 45 minutes and cannot get it out of the panel. We go eat and home to lick my wounds and think about it. Two nights later, we go back out and in 10 minutes I am walking back out of the hangar with the DG in my hand. Exchange in Lewisville is painless except to the wallet, and on Aug 3, I take the new one back out and have it in in less than 20 minutes. Then a check flight, it works fine!
Over the next 2 weeks, I get 3 hours of practice solo. The landings are holding up pretty good. Now it's time to begin my solo cross country. The requirements are 5 hours total including one flight with 2 stops containing one leg of greater than 100 nautical miles. Many students make the time by repeating solo at least one of the dual XCs and the long one is on the order of home to Longview with a stop at Sulphur Springs on the return. If you get your map, you can see that you were close enough to Sulphur Springs to see it on your way from McKinney to Longview. How much navigation is that going to teach you? We intended to put many strange miles and airfields under the mouse, so I wanted my obligatory XC work to be meaningful.
