[Eric Parks]

Eric Parks on July 6, 2021 at 6:58 pm #20778

I finally got my first “fun” trip done in the Apache. By fun I mean a flight with no other purpose than than to go somewhere for the fun of it.

OK, true confession time. I had another trip planned, a LONG trip from Charlotte, NC to Dallas, TX. It was 3 legs to get there with about 6.5 hours air time. I had everything planned and filed for IFR. Got out to the airport and put all my bags and stuff in the plane and pulled it out of the hangar. Did my walk around and got in to start the engines and the entire electrical system died! Bummer! Found out I had a bad Master Relay. After 65 years it packed up right then (note: I actually found out later that the relay was made in JAN 1965 so it was “only” 56 years old!). I think all the engine runups with lots of cranking finally did it in. So that was the end of that trip.

Fast forward two weeks and a new relay (and brand new battery!) later and we have fixed several other electrical gremlins as well. The engines are cranking fast and starting easy. YEAH!

So Wifey and I flew to a little North Carolina town in the Western NC mountains called Franklin. They have a nice little airport, 1A5 (Macon County). We were treated GREAT. Very nice FBO and we took their courtesy car into town for a little restaurant and shopping time. Flying time was 1.0 going over and 1.1 coming back on the Hobbs meter from Shelby (KEHO). Fun first trip for the wife. She enjoyed her seating position much better in the Apache than she did in the Bonanza we rented a couple years ago. She can see better forward and liked getting in better as well as a more solid ride. So Wifey gives it a thumbs up!

Only glitch was the outside lock for the door handle didn’t work properly. So we will dive into that. But everything else was great.

Here are a few pics from the trip.

[Eric Parks]

Eric Parks on June 14, 2021 at 7:32 pm #20745

Today was a “work day” on the Apache but now work includes flying! Can you tell I’m excited? We took it out to check out the radios and make sure they are all working. I had not tried an ILS approach or double-checked how that all worked. I’m hoping to do a big (for me) trip next week so this is the final push to get ready in case I need to do IFR. I plan on only “lite IFR” but that can make a huge difference in getting a trip done. I took the plane to 8500′ and had AVL approach control check the altitude reporting. Also checked out the autopilot a bit more and everything is looking good there. All good on that so we went to a local uncontrolled airport (KSPA) to shoot an quick ILS in visual conditions to make sure all that that all worked. It was a complete failure. I couldn’t get the HSI to respond or work.

We went back to Shelby and started trouble-shooting by finding videos of how to set up the ILS with a Garmin 430 and G5. My friend suddenly gets off the phone and says he checked and the ILS we used at the little airport has been down for months. Oops! Didn’t check any NOTAMS since we were just messing around VFR.

I quickly checked the status on another ILS at another uncontrolled airport a bit further away (KUZA). It was OK so off we went. It all worked as advertised and I was VERY happy to see it all working so well.

So at this point I have loaded an ILS approach and flown it and gotten proper indications on both the G5 PFD and HSI. On the way back to home base I let the autopilot track the GPS in NAV and that worked great too.

We are now planning on what other changes we should make to the panel. Cost is important at this point so I’m looking for good “bang for the buck” but also trying to make the panel more attractive as well as functional. We have some nice things planned that I will post as we get them done.

[Eric Parks]

Eric Parks on June 5, 2021 at 12:51 pm #20719

The Apache hadn’t been washed since we got it as we had so much work to do it wasn’t worth it. However, since it was initially in a “shade hangar” the first few months it had more than it’s fair share of dust and bird droppings besides the greasy handprints. And of course bug guts all over the leading edges from recent flying!

I pulled the plane out of our hangar and used my golf cart tug to take it around to the “wash rack” by the larger hangars. Previous owner had obviously done a nice job of waxing it as the bug guts came off very easily (compared to my expectation). It still took a couple hours to wash, rinse and wipe it down. Suddenly a smaller plane makes more sense! 😛

The underneath of the engines and behind the exhaust really needed attention but the plane looked great when I was done. Waxing will be another day!

I’m starting to get the hang of how to use the tug to put the plane back in the hangar. Getting it out easy, getting it back in, not so easy!

[Eric Parks]

Eric Parks on May 27, 2021 at 7:30 pm #20677

Finally! We got to fly the Apache with a family member on board 🙂
My younger daughter wanted to experience flying in the much talked about Apache. Of course for a long time it was being “re-habbed” but finally it got out of rehab long enough to be flown a bit. My daughter can be a little up tight about flying although she is also very interested in it. So I wanted her to just have a quick, short (and hopefully positive!) experience. This was VERY short! Non-stop from Shelby, NC to Spartanburg, SC. A complete 27 nm distance! But she had an old college friend she wanted to meet. So off we went. The drive was way longer than the flight. It went well and she enjoyed the trip and I think she’ll be ready for more soon. Next to get Mom and the older daughter up so they can get used to it before a long trip.
BTW, daughters can take LOTS of pictures. This is just 3 of 106 pics and videos!

[Eric Parks]

Eric Parks on May 26, 2021 at 6:20 pm #20673

Had to go to work and then had a family vacay (courtesy the younger daughter!) to the beach. So finally got a little flying in the Apache. We had the left engine start running rich. Also, had to bleed the right brake down as it was not braking. So wanted to check all that and expand my “comfort zone” with the plane. Everything ran well except battery was low after all the engine runs lately. So I am trying to put a trickle charge on the battery. Filled the mains and put 5 gallons in the tips (I keep them pretty much dry). I was by myself and partial fuel load so fairly light weight.

Climbed to to 5,500′ with 24×2400 and got 156 mph.

Then at 9.500 ‘ with full throttle (20.25″) I got:
2300 rpm – 164
2200 rpm – 160

Up at 10,500’ and full throttle (19.5″):
2500 rpm – 157
2400 rpm – 155
2300 rpm – 154

These are all as good or better than I expected. I am really pleased with how little speed is lost with lower rpm. These are newer Hartzell props and they seem to really work well with the lower cruise revs. I also used the tip tanks for the first time in the air and that went just fine. No issues. It was a little hard to descend and leave my smooth cool air at 10,500 for the bumpy lower air!
Door interior is now re-installed. Door has been working great.

GDL-50 has a clip to hold it to the glareshield. This is the first time I used it.

GPS attaches nicely to the control wheel.

[Eric Parks]

Eric Parks on May 8, 2021 at 6:17 pm #20650

We took the Apache out after having to miss flying a few days (work and windy days). I had two things in mind. One, to test the door some more before we close it up. It did great and I think we have finally gotten past the door issues so now we will put the interior back into it.

Second, I wanted to do some speed checks as we have done a lot of work on the plane (especially the engines) and initially I thought it was a little down on speed. The air at the lower altitudes was a bit bumpy. We went to 8500′ on the last check to avoid bumps and to stay out of clouds. Each run was made to the West and then to the East. We then averaged the GPS ground speeds. Quick and dirty but it should give me a good idea of what the plane can do. This is with a fairly light weight plane, mains 3/4 full, no tip fuel and just two pax, no luggage. One of my “hangar buddies” flew with me and wrote everything down and that was a nice help. Notice it is all in MPH!
Results:
3500′ – 24″ x 2400 rpm, 151.5 mph
5500′ – 24″ x 2400 rpm, 156.5 mph
8500′ – 21″ x 2400 rpm, 155 mph
8500′ – 21″ x 2100 rpm, 152.5 mph
Obviously we aren’t accurate enough to be measuring in half mile an hour increments but we divided by two and that’s what we got! At any rate I am pretty happy with this as an initial set of numbers to start planning with. I’m really happy with the lower power setting at 8500′ as that should be about 58% power and that is about 15 gph when leaned out. I figure I can plan on around 130 kts (150 mph) pretty much any time at the normal cruising altitudes. I will try to get better figures as I fly more but this was a great start. It looks like the engines are doing pretty well and I’m really happy with the work my mechanic has done.
Pic is of the finished door with interior stripped out. You can see the reinforcements added as well as extra springs to make the latching mechanism work.

[Eric Parks]

Eric Parks on April 27, 2021 at 6:24 pm #20630

Today was slow and frustrating but eventually we got her done. We had to trouble shoot the loss of brakes on the right wheel. After checking lots of possibilities we narrowed it down to a caliper not sealing. We replace the O-ring and finally got brake pressure. After that we worked on a fuel drip from the right gascolator. That was tracked down to an elbow that was added but was not the right type of material. So we removed it and got that taken care of as well.

SO… we finally got to take the plane up for a couple quick trips around the pattern and were able to test the door… and it worked! It looks like we finally have the door issues beaten. So we will finish up the cosmetic work on the door and move on. We found the engines were idling a little low so we will bump them up a little higher RPM but otherwise everything seems to run well. Here are pics of the “offending door”! [

[Eric Parks]

Eric Parks on April 26, 2021 at 7:25 pm #20624

I started a topic named “Buying an Apache” and I *think* we have finally left the rehab stage and are more in the fly and enjoy stage. I decided to start a new topic named “Flying an Apache” since I hope we are now out of the buying stage!

Just a quick re-cap, I bought an Apache in SEP of 2019. I had hoped it would be a few months of quick fixes to make it a great little fun plane for myself and the family to enjoy. You can go read the other topic to get the details but we found plenty more to fix than we were first aware of. Then my father passed away, followed by me getting sick, followed by me losing my medical (which meant being on sick leave from my flying job) and finally COVID. After 11 and 1/2 months I finally got my medical back and now we are wrapping up the work to get my 1955 Apache reliably in the air.

The worst part was getting the passenger door working properly. That has been kicking us and taking our lunch. But it looks like today we finished the final work on the upper door latch. After *finally* getting the door done we put in the new Rosen sun visors, put in new rubber boots for the rudder pedal torque tubes, sealed up the cloth bag to reduce air flow in the nose gear bay and did a little cosmetic work with paint.

The picture was taken after we got the second visor installed. We need to bleed the right brake tomorrow and we will try out the door in flight.