Mountain Flying

Cody was able to take the Cherokee on it's longest trip to date.  All the way to the mountains of East Tennessee from KEQY to 6A4 to enjoy the beautiful scenery and to practice a little mountain flying. 

Annual Complete

So we finally wrapped up the first "flying" annual and it went about how I expected. I had said all along that the first 2 years of flight would be about making sure the plane was operating at 100% and that safety was always paramount. That being said, I knew going into this annual that I would be replacing some parts.

I opted to pull the mags off and send them off to be checked and refreshed. I wanted the points inspected since as best we could tell these were the original 1972 mags.
The impulse coupler on the left mag was indeed about to fail and could not be repaired so I opted to replace the left mag completely. The right mag was repairable and was fully overhauled with new points and given a fresh paint job and cleaning.


We removed the non-working ADF and that damn antenna (I hated that thing) and fabricated a very nice blank plate for that space. Now my iFly can mount there and be out of the way.

We removed and repaired some of the fiberglass on the front nose cowling and did some touch up paint on that as well. Also repaired the 'swoopy' part on the tail fin.
I also installed a new fire extinguisher and the guys over at www.arrow4graphics.com reached out and donated a full set of placards for PA-28 140. I will wait and install those when I get it painted...
The total bill for the mags, 3 full days of labor and the annual itself came up to $3,674. I know that's a big number but to be honest I'm not shocked by it at all.

I swear to you I can hear the plane run smoother. Everyone says I'm crazy but it 'sounds' more even like it's a more even spark. I can only assume that the new mags are not only timed more precisely but are producing a hotter spark. We shall see if that translates to better performance.  The first flight back went great and she performed just fine.