Protecting the seaplane from birds

We have three kinds of critters that attack our plane. We will take them on one at a time.




Birds like planes. They have lots of places to perch. Planes have many orifices in which build nests. Planes are generally tougher for bird predators to get into. Birds are experts at building nests. They pick a spot and they start bringing in materials. In our neck of the woods, pine straw is the chosen building material.




Hangar doors are pretty good at keeping out most birds, assuming that they are closed and attached to a fairly secure hangar. The next best bet is a set of cowl plugs. I purchased a set from Bruce's Custom Covers http://www.aircraftcovers.com/ for less than $100. These are nicely made to fit your plane and generally have your N-Number embroidered into the cover. They even have little idiot flags that stick up beyond the cowling to signal that you should not start the engine with them installed. I imagine the spinner would catch on the string that holds the plugs together and it would rip them out and toss them aside, before they could let the aircooled engine cook itself, but I know of instances where pilots have taken off with the plugs intalled only to cook the engine. So use these during a post flight and don't forget to remove them during the preflight.




I have still had one bird nest problem even when using the plugs. The bird went in through the hole in the bottom of the cowling where the hot air gets out of the engine and the nose wheel would protrude, if I had one. I am very happy with my plugs and I use them religously. My only issue with them now is they matched the old paint scheme and they have the old N-Number on them. I can live with it. The plugs that came with my plane were just cut out pieces of foam that someone drilled a hole in for the rope that tied them together. The vinyl covered plugs are much nicer and neater to work with. Do a thorough preflight. Look for telltale pieces of pine straw around and on the plane. If you find some, investigate thoroughly.

The other problem planes have with birds is the droppings. These are corrosive to aluminum and at best they can stain your paint. I had bird stain all over the wings of my Cub from where the previous owner let this happen and did not clean the droppings off quickly enough. I have not found a solution for fixing the paint. Statues and blow up representations of predatory birds and snakes in the vicinity of your plane will help scare off some of these intruders. If you have droppings on your paint, deal with them immediately. Damage can start in 24 hours.

New Tailwheel

I have changed many a tire in my day. It is one of those things that the FAA has graciously allowed the lowly non-mechanic pilot to do, but this one was different. My cub has a solid rubber tailwheel tire. This was upgraded from just a tail skid back in the 40s. In some ways the tail skid seems like it would be easier to control for some of my students, as the stearable tailswheel seems to baffle some people. The skid would have been a stricktly grass operation however. The scraping sound on the asphalt would drive me nuts. Anyway... My plane came with this tailwheel that has been on it for some number of years. Much of the solid rubber has worn away and some of the metal that the solid rubber is bound to was starting to show through. It was also no longer really round. When rolled, it did not have a round orbit, but more an escentric orbit. Every time that I landed the plane you could hear and feel the tailwheel. I thought this was just a normal part of flying this particular airplane. Anyway... Since there was metal showing, I ordered a new tailwheel tire from Aircraft Spruce. It came with new bearings, a new hubcap, a new hub bolt, and even a new cotter pin for about $95. The old tire came off really easily and the new one went on just as easily. I was done with the change in less than 30 minutes. I did four landings after the change and the feeling is like night and day. When the tailwheel comes down or on a three point landing the ride is smooth and quiet. I should have done this years ago.

Rejuvenation - The Flight Home

In order to get the seaplane back to Lake Martin after its restoration at Bibb County Airport, it was necessary to execute a trailer take off. (video link to follow) We ran up the engine and back taxied the plane down the runway. It was very disconcerting to have so little control, as I was at the mercy of the driver of the truck. We wanted to use every bit of available runway. I had read everything I could on the subject of trailer take- offs and watched all the other videos that I could find. I had been though the sequence a million times in my head. At the end of the runway I did another run up and then we unstrapped the plane from the trailer. I was in constant contact with the driver of the truck over the radio. I gave the go ahead to start the roll. I added power to keep positive thrust as we accelerated and I kept down elevator to "pin" the plane to the trailer. I did not want the plane to tilt back or slide forward, and I wanted sufficient airspeed to climb over the truck.



Once we reached 50 kts I began to raise the pitch. According to the truck driver we hit 70 mph before liftoff. The plane came easily off the trailer and climbed and accelerated nicely. I lost contact with my ground crew by radio shortly after takeoff. My partner in the Twin Comanche, Allen, was going to follow me to the lake, but since we could not make radio contact he went back to Bessemer. The flight to Lake Martin was about 45 minutes.



About 15 minutes into the flight I started getting a random 200 rpm drop in engine speed. The drop kept coming and going. I was 10 minutes from Lay Lake so I continued the flight and kept my eyes out for suitable landing spots should things go badly. The drop turned more rhythmic as I got to Lay Lake. Once over the lake I climbed to 5,000 feet. I could see Lake Martin and I felt that I could make it. I had people on the water at Lake Martin. If I landed in Lay Lake on untested floats it could be ugly. So I made the journey home. The engine did not get any worse, but I was sure glad to see my home lake and my buddy waiting for me in the pontoon boat. I had not landed a seaplane in 4 months, which did not help my stress level. Neither did the fact that the float skins were new and untested. I set up and landed near my buddy and then taxied straight to the dock to do another leak check. Once at the dock, I called everyone to inform them that I was good. The rejuvenation project was finally at an end and I could sleep well. The issue with the rpm drop turned out to be a bad ignition lead. I bought a fresh new harness from Aircraft Spruce. If you would like to see the video follow the link-www.waterwings.com/video.html

























It was very sweet to finish this project and land back into Lake Martin. Thanks to Erol Kyzer and Allen Taylor for the videography and Kevin Williams for the metal work and paint job on the plane. The airplane design is by Anna Welden (my daughter).

Rejuvenation - Assembly

The paint is finally done and the floats are attached. The plane is starting to look like a plane again. Every piece that we add back on takes us one step closer to flying again. While the deconstruction was interesting and it was nice to be "Out with the old" putting stuff back together is way more inspiring. We had been pretty careful during the deconstruction to make sure that every piece is accounted for. Unless this is done religiously, the construction phase will be trouble. Many of these parts are hard to find and expensive. Some nuts are in the hundreds of dollars. We did a great job of being careful and we found pretty much everything that we needed to put the plane back into flying condition. One of the most difficult operations was putting the wings back on. This required 4 people. Two of us held the wing while the mechanic attached the bolts. There are only a few bolts but the tolerances are very tight where they go. There are only 4 bolts that hold a wing on. Two hold the strut and two hold the wing root to the plane. The first three bolts seem to go pretty easily. The last one always seems to be tough. It took a couple of hours to attach both wings. The prop and the spinner and all the control surfaces went on pretty easilly as well. After about 2 days we had a complete plane. All painted and ready to go, except for the leak test on the floats. We went ahead and fueled the plane and ran it. The plane is very "tippy" on the trailer. If you get too far back on the floats it will fall back onto the back part of the floats. We strapped the plane down to keep it stable. It felt very nice to spend some time in the completed cockpit and to actually hear the engine run. It started easily and ran perfectly. We kept it running for about 15 minutes. I was very happy for about 20 minutes. We then decided to do a leak test on the floats, by putting water in them with the hose. There were very many leaks. My hopes of flying were dashed for several days while thinks dried out and more sealant was applied.

Rejuvenation - Geometry

We had been very careful to leave the float attachment gear on the plane and not to touch the flying wires that keep everything in line, but as the time came to paint the floats and all of this gear, we decided to remove it and thus do a better job painting these parts. So we built a rig to raise the plane from the lifting rigs on top. These rings are good for lifting straight up, but it is not good to put a side load on them, so we used a 6x6 piece of lumber and ran eye bolts through them. We then attached chain via shackles to the eye bolts and we lifted the plane using a chain hoist that we purchases for about $90 from Harbour Frieght. The chain hoist worked really well since it is a gentle and controlable lift. The chain will scratch or remove paint if you are not careful with it. We raised the plane gently supporting the tail with another human. Once the plane was up it was pretty stable. We then unbolted the attachment gear. This is another on of those things that is really strong as long as everything is attached and tight, but it turnned into a pile of spaggetti when off the plane. It is important to keep track of which parts go where and to remove as few parts as possible. Once some of the tubes were off I was able to really clean out some "years old" dirt dauber nests from inside the tubes. More useful load for me.... We reversed the process once everything was painted. We installthed the attachment gear to the floats first while they were on the trailer. We rolled the trailer under the raised airplane and lined everything up as best we could and lowered the plane to the gear. It took several hours to get everything attached, but not tight. The tightening would wait until we got the geometry straight. It would not do to have the floats improperly aligned with the plane or each other. All these things are possible with the miriad of possible adjustments. We found points on each wing as a reference and tightened this and loosened that until everything came into alignment. This was not nearly as bad a process as I imagined. We did a great job, because the first landing was very comfortable.

Rejuvenation - Painting the plane

Actually getting paint on the plane was very exiting. After looking at naked metal for months to actually see it with paint was really the begining of the end. While a P51 with yards of polished aluminum is a thing of absolute beauty, a Cessna 150 with dull etched (for painting purposes), is just sad. When the first coat of Zinc Chromate went on my painter sent me a photo., I showed all my friends, until I reallized that the really just did not get it. Even my family was unimpressed. I was giddy. Later that day, the first coats of gray primer went on and then the first coats of white paint. The painting process is really messy and stinky. To start with you need a low humidity and reasonably warm day or a really good paint booth that has climate and humidity controls with really good venting. Everything that does not get paint needs to be really well masked off. The air supply for the paint gun needs to be dry with astrigent sponges. Dust control is also a serious issue. The surfaces that are to be painted must be totally free of grease, finger prints, dust, or any type of contaminants. The area around the plane needs to be as clean as possible as well. Once everything is ready paint is mixed an put into the gun. You want to keep a wet line going so it helps to have someone mixing paint while the painter is going, to minimize the down time when the gun runs dry. Once the process starts you need to finish an entire coat. This means the painter needs to hold the gun up for hours sometimes. The paint that does not go onto the plane creates a terrible fog that gets on and into everything. A respirator and preferably a paint suit is a really good idea. These are not chemicals that you want to inhale, ingest, or soak into your skin. Once done properly the results are very pleasing.

Rejuvenation - The paint scheme

We had definitely decided to move away from the 80s inspired orange and yellow paint scheme that the plane came with. We were thinking about white with a blue Nike like swoosh and this would have been fine. It would look kind of like the newer 172s out there. One of my goals was to use a white that was close enough to a Krylon white that would allow easy paint patches to the floats not if but when they happen. We went to the paint store and chose the colors that would work and priced out everything. Planes use a whole lot of paint since there is so much surface area and you want to use the best paint that you can afford. You can count on spending a couple thousand dollars just for the supplies, primer, and paint. There are a bunch of chemicals that have to be mixed together to make the paint so have a professional help you out, or just let your paint guy handle everything. For my birthday in February my daughter, a budding artist, surprised me with a paint scheme for the plane. It was really pretty and striking, which is fortunate, since it would have been a very sticky family dilemma if I did not use her artwork. So the plan changed. Fortunately we had not actually bought the color part of the paint yet. I took her with me to the paint store and we picked out the colors together. I am color blind and she is not so this worked out. Afterward we flew to an airport restaurant for lunch and a helicopter ride, but more on that in another post. After all was said and done, we really ended up with a pretty plane. I have had numerous comments to the positive, and one prospective student has asked if we would be training in the pretty plane or the orange one. (The old plane colors are still on the website, and there is a slide show of the new colors) So be creative and make your plane a work of art. If you do not have a budding artist available to you there are several companies out there that will design you something cool.

Rejuventaion - The windows

It would not work to paint the plane without replacing the glass. The windshield and the rear window in the 150 were in need of replacement. They were not shot, but this was the time to do it. I selected the thickest windshield that I could find. The rear windows are not as critical and as far as I could tell from my research, they only come in one thickness. The website at Great Lakes Aero Products was very helpful. http://www.glapinc.com/ It is just a matter of picking out your plane from the menus and choosing a color, a thickness, and whether or not you want a compass mount.



I chose a clear windshield that is 0.187 inches thick without the compass mount. The color choices are clear, green, or grey. In retrospect, the compass mount would probably have been a good idea. When we mounted mine my mechanic actually mounted it crooked. I spent many sleepless hours that night worrying about how to remove the mount and replace it. I reality, it came off easily since we used the wrong kind of glue to start with. The windshield came out pretty quickly compared to the rear window. We removed a bunch of screws and pulled. Then we cleaned all of the putty out of the channels that the window came out of.



The rear window was riveted in, which meant we had to drill out all of those rivets. This took another several hours. After lunch we put the new rear window in. We applied the supplied felt to the window and put fresh sealant in the channels that hold the window and then we shoved. This was an ugly process with lots of grunting and maybe an expletive or two. There is no good place to push or pull on the window and the channels are very tight. The window has to fit ALL the way into the channels or it will not fit properly at the bottom, where we had to rivet the hold-down piece back in. Once the window went in, it was time to rivet. This is a loud process in general, but inside the plane, bucking the rivets while my mechanic shot the rivets from the outside, was truly terrible. I wore my Bose headsets with the ANR on. I don't think they were designed for this but it was way better than nothing. The windshield went in easier. At least I was not involved in the process as we ran out of time that day. It is really nice having new glass, and from a cost standpoint, this is one of the cheaper improvements ,especially considering the benefit.

Rejuvenation - The evaluation

We are at the point where the paint has been removed. The plane is naked and the floats are separated. We had to use a crane to lift the plane and remove the floats. I think it is shivering a little from shyness. It's time for a thorough inspection of the skin. The airframe was free of corrosion and cracks. There were a few rivets in the wings that needed replacing. We even pulled out the entire interior, cleaned and inspected everything inside and out. This was also an opportunity to re-zinc chromate everything inside, then we repaint all the exposed surfaces. This was very exciting since I have spent a thousand hours in the plane thinking that it would be nice if the paint were not worn off some of these parts.


The only parts that really needed love were the floats. These were original with the plane when it was new back in 1967. The airplane spent a number of years as a land plane while the floats sat in storage. As far as I can tell from the books, the plane was not put back on floats until the mid-80s, when it was painted and upgraded to a 150 hp engine. I think that was the last time it was on wheels. These floats have been in the water or near the water for the last 24 years. That is a huge amount of time and wetness to cause corrosion. The worst of it was at the step area and the skeg, the deepest part of the float. The skeg and the bottom skins on the front half of the floats needed to be replaced. This is a terrible and expensive process. So we began locating the parts that we would need. At least we had a new plan. The old plan which was to only clean and paint the plane was out the window. This float project would take lots of time and effort. We would work on getting the fuselage and wings prepped and ready to paint while parts arrived for the floats. We would also spend a good bit of time taking the floats apart.