Finally, a good month. I didn’t post last month, as I was tired of posting negative things about the experience. Repairs and weather had been keeping the plane from flying and also had been racking up the expenses. May saw an easing to that with a full month of flying and relatively minor repairs.
The squawks page has been updated with the items from this month and is up-to-date. The only maintenance drama this month was the turn coordinator. It had been replaced last month, as it was beginning to fail. This came right on the heels of the attitude indicator failing, so it was a bit of a one-two punch. Each ran about $1000 to replace with overhauled units. But, the turn coordinator was bad out of the box, sometimes taking five minutes to spin up or more. TGH Aviation in Auburn honored their warranty and replaced the item. It did result in some downtime for the plane, several pilots squawking it (including myself), and $110 in labor to swap again.
The plane flew just short of 50 hours, the most it’s ever flown in a month on the line at Trade Winds. It actually turned a small monthly profit for the first time. Of course, it’s still a long way from turning a profit overall, but it’s a step in the right direction. This will help build up the funds available for avionics upgrades that need to come. ADS-B is around the corner and a WAAS GPS would be very nice at KRHV!
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