A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, isnt it, Jay? (referring to the
junior A&P).. maybe you need to go flog the poor kid for taking 10 years
off your life with that one whistle..

Sounds like this could be the ONE downside to an owner assisted annual.

Grins..
Dave

Jay Honeck wrote:
The junior A&P in the shop that is doing my annual (whom I've known for
years) was poking around in the under-wing inspection cavities on the
starboard fuselage/wing root joint, when he let out a low whistle.

Since I was futzing around with re-attaching my god-awful wheel pants (I
don't CARE if they get me 7 knots, I almost trashed these damned "Fancy
Pants" in frustration, trying to get 'em back on!), I was right next to him
under the plane. My heart stopped -- I *knew* this annual had been going
too well!

Peering up into the hole, he showed me what looked like massive corrosion on
the wing spar -- a sometimes fatal malady, not unknown to Cherokees. Two
years ago a good friend had to replace BOTH wings on his Cherokee 140, and
his plane was down for almost a year, precisely for this problem.

My stomach churned as he called his partner, the senior A&P -- a guy with
30+ years experience on all kinds of planes.

His advice: Poke at it, to see if it's not left-over paint stripper from
the last paint job. This nearly inaccessible joint is a common place for
stripper to accumulate, because it's almost impossible to remove during the
pre-paint job pressure wash.

So, we fashioned a long, sharp scraper from some scrap aluminum, and I held
my breath as he began to poke away at it...

It easily flaked off into little chunks of "melted" paint. The metal
underneath was perfectly clean -- and completely unblemished.

Airplane ownership: A sure-fire way to take YEARS off of your life
expectancy...

Dodged another one! Hee hee!

;-)