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Powerplant

 

 

Hello all! I have returned from a hectic and fun summer break. And I have returned to powerplant. I was going to have something written in July but when I was finished and trying to post it the internet died and deleted it all! So second times the charm...

 

 

First big announcement! We now have all of our wrenches!!! And not too soon, our first project was an engine overhaul.

 

 

Meet Matilda, my groups Continental TSIO-520-E8B. "TS" is for Turbosupercharged, "I" is for fuel injected, "O" is for opposed, 520 is the number of cubic inches of displacement the pistons have, and the E8B is the model number. An overhaul is where you disassemble the whole thing and then measure and inspect everything, reuse what is still in tolerance, (In our case was probably three screws and a washer) and put it all back together; correctly, with paperwork.

 

 

 

During this process we played a game P/N+$, or Part Number and Price. If you drop something from the engine that isn't a common bolt or nut or screw, everyone yells "part number and price!" Then you try and find the current part number (can be difficult sometimes) and look up the price of a new part. The "winning" team gets to clean the hanger by themselves. We also had fun making group drawings of chaos on the scoreboard as well.

 

 

"Birds aren't real." (also not our instructors dropped the Katana...and a CIA agent)

 

 

Up until this point my team with the TSIO-520 were barely staying alive, then we dropped this...

 

 

This, is an oil transfer collar that goes on the crankshaft (what the propeller mounts to) it takes oil through the little port on the side and forces it into the hollow crankshaft so that the oil can change the propeller pitch for a variable pitch propeller. It is a chunk of metal that costs $570. Aviation is expensive.

 

 

And now my team gets to clean the hangar! It's not that bad, we agreed to have a day of it and go get pizza afterwards. Note: Cale (our instructor) is jousting with a cracken while riding a seahorse. Also the valve train.

 

 

This week our neighbor Historic Flight put their airplanes out on the ramp so we had some fun looking at classic planes during lab break like this Spitfire (above) and Waco (below)!

 

 

 

Our next project was removing and installing an engine. This requires undoing all the controls, so we took lots of pictures to remember how and where they were attached and how many washers and such. Later we realized that the last person to rig them did it wrong so our pictures didn't end up being much help.

 

 

Draining the engine oil so that we can remove the oil temperature probe.

 

 

This project became exciting when I received my actual license in the mail with my certificate number, so that I could legally sign off this project. It was great too because this airplane is an airworthy one that could be flown so I was able to put it in the airplanes logbook.

 

Besides school I am now officially the part time worship leader and part time youth group leader at church. I also am studying a classic book on navigation in 1802 "New American Navigator" by Nat Bowditch. It has been a lot of fun.

 

Well, that's all I can think of for now 😁 until next time!

Stay strong,

Jonathan