February has come and gone, and I have another statement from Trade Winds in my hand. The Bay Area continued to be cold and wet, and N194SP didn’t see very many hours as a result. Maybe starting my leaseback adventure in the wettest winter the Bay Area has seen in many years wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.
One bright spot in the month: N194SP got a new Vertical Card Compass! The TFR for the president gave us some downtime. That allowed the new compass to be installed and swung. $700 later, there’s a shiny new compass on glareshield. Also, $75 replaced the illegible control lock placard. No more worrying that a DPE will argue with that placard!
Some stuff got fixed. The heading bug should now actually point directly where the plane is heading. The error should be corrected. The CDI and the GPS stopped being friends for a while, but it turned out to just be that the GPS had unseated itself a little bit. All-in-all, the most trouble-free month the plane has had so far.
25 hours were flown on the aircraft in 18 flights. That translated to 17.5 hours of tach time. It consumed 170.5 gallons of fuel and burned up $1550 in repairs. I got a check for $75. Well, not really…checks less than $500 don’t get sent out, so it’ll sit on account. Of course, $650 of the repairs came directly out of my pocket, so I’m still hurting pretty badly in loss department. Estimated losses in three months are about $10,000. I’m trying not to think about it too much. Summer will be better, right?
March won’t be, unfortunately. The 100-hour inspection will show up in March, to the tune of $1320. Also, the seats will finally get repaired! That’s good, but slow usage has made timing the 100-hour and the seat repair together very difficult. It looks like they may have to happen separately. That means the aircraft may be down for a week or more for these repairs.
N194SP is still a terrific aircraft. From a flying perspective, she’s been incredible. There have only been two times that she didn’t dispatch for a planned flight that I’m aware of. Once was due to a flatspotted tire. The other was the recent CDI issue. So, N194SP has been reliable. It’s just been expensive keeping her that way.
Enjoy flying N194SP!
N194SP 