by bob pastusek The 2016 LOBO/Lancair Landing Maintenance Clinic will be held at Sonny Callahan Airport (KCQF) on Thursday, 29 September. You'll need to arrive before 0830 on Thursday morning to take full advantage of the material and hands-on demonstrations being offered. Expect to receive hand-outs with inspection and reference information you can use directly when you get back home.
We plan to structure the presentations for new/second-owners; specifically those who did not build their own aircraft and may not know about or have access to design and maintenance material used by the original builder. Not to worry, however, there will be plenty for original builders as well!
We have invited selected industry experts (some of whom will also be presenting forums on Friday and Saturday) to join in both the classroom presentations and the hands-on, model-specific, demonstrations. This will be a great opportunity for some one-on-one time with the experts, and you can continue the discussion through dinner on Thursday evening--especially if you are buying dinner…
For more information on the engines that power most of the Lancair fleet our hosts, Continental Motors, will present a forum, as well as offer factory tours later in the week. In addition, we’ve planned Thursday presentations and demonstrations by John Cook (Walter turbines) and Jacob Fruhling (Pratt & Whitney) for our turbine-powered members.
We'll focus our Thursday clinic on Lancair airframes and engine interfaces, including turbine inspections. Something new by Matt Collier and Paul Brown of Fibercraft, Inc. you won't want to miss is a demonstration on inspecting composite structures—to detect flaws, missing parts and repaired structures—using thermal imaging. We plan to use a IV-P for this demonstration, but the inspection technology demonstrated is applicable to any composite structure. Think "thermal x-ray;" pretty impressive!
We'll also show off the four engine tune-up/inspection kits—purchased with your membership and Landing registration fees—available for use by LOBO members. Three kits are specialized for tuning gasoline-powered engines (including one for our Australian members); the fourth is a high-resolution borescope kit for inspecting turbine engines. Experts will be there with pointers on best practices for using this equipment.
Who's who?
The following attendees have agreed to present/demonstrate/discuss as indicated:
- Jeff Edwards: Continued Airworthiness Rules/Regulations--required vs prudent
- Chris Zavatson: 200/300-series airframe deficiencies, wear, failures & defects
- Steve Colwell/Valin Thorn: Legacy inspection and maintenance
- Bill Harrelson/Bob Pastusek: IV-series inspection and maintenance
- Brad Simmons: Building, maintenance & structural repair (except EVO)
- Matt Collier: Building & performance improvements (all models; focus on EVOs)
- John Cook: Walter turbine inspection and maintenance
- Jacob Furhling: Pratt & Whitney turbine Inspection and maintenance
Jeff Edwards will start Thursday morning with inspections and continued airworthiness information that is applicable to all models. We'll then review information (e.g. nose strut maintenance/servicing and thermal image inspection) applicable to all models. After lunch, we’ll split up for model-specific, hands-on demonstrations. Continental is emptying their large hangar at Sonny Callahan to provide the space we’ll need to un-cowl and remove inspection panels from one of each model of Lancair inside the hangar. For safety and time considerations, we won't be able to undertake any tuning or maintenance work, but we plan to demonstrate/discuss the procedures in detail.
If you expect to attend the maintenance clinic at this year’s Landing but have not yet registered, it's critical that you do so right away. Why? Well first, because you can save money on registration fees; late payment pricing goes into effect August 28. But more importantly, we won’t conduct a maintenance review for specific Lancair models if none of the registered clinic attendees fly or own that model, especially since we need to prepare in advance model-specific handouts/reference information.
Additionally, this coming Thursday, August 18 the Hampton Inn, our host hotel, will release the block of rooms we’ve reserved for the Landing. And for those planning to attend a factory tour, you must pay Landing registration fees for at least Friday, and Continental’s security requirements do not permit last minute sign-ups.
Lastly, if you have any maintenance/inspection/airworthiness-related questions that you'd like addressed at this clinic, or if you have information you would like presented to the group, please contact me not later than 15 September. With Evolution Aircraft's announced intention to sell the "legacy" Lancair assets the active participation of our membership in the information sharing process has become essential to keeping our fleet of "Magic Carpets" flying into the future!
>>CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW FOR THE 2016 LOBO/LANCAIR LANDING<<