On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 09:58:05 -0400, "Ron Natalie"
wrote:

snip

Underseat or Baggage compartment? These were factory mods and are
on the original single engine type certificate.

Underseat. He tried to explain it to the Federales in that manner, but
the install wasn't documented anywhere. I think the whole Camair
thing had them flustered from the get-go.


I worked a couple nagging gripes on the "demo" Rangemaster a few years
back. The really funny one was varying/high idle speed.

Don't understand that. Should be a rather straight forward IO-520 installation.

Nope, this sucker (the "demo" ship) had been modified numerous times
in varying manners. I only worked on it a couple times, don't know all
the details.


It had a
Piper single throttle quadrant installed, but the gear/throttle
warning switch was mounted near the carburetor (instead of in the
quadrant Piper-style).

Carburator? What the hell did they use for an engine in these things. No
Rangemaster ever had a carburator. They also never had throttle quadrants.
Only the twins had those.

OK, so it might have been an up-draft injector unit. It's been too
long, I can't say for sure that it had a Continental engine. It
definitely had been fitted with an retract Piper single quadrant. I
popped the cover off of it and showed the "marketing consultant" that
was flying the 'plane the holes where Piper mounted the throttle/gear
warning switch, even gave the guy the p/n for the proper switch.

This airplane was far from a "stock" configuration.

snip

Only other thing I remember was the owner squealing
like a pig when I told him I wanted to replace the diaphram in his
prop (was older than I was at the time).

He was extremely lucky. I never got more than a couple of years out of the
diaphram at a time. I think Hartzell only claims they're good for 3 years anyhow.
Got the drill down, pull the spinner, unhook the actuator linkage, remove the pin,
unscrew the big nut, pull the prop. Unscrew the retainers for the diaphram,
replace, resafety wire all those dang screws and put the prop back on...

I can dig it. When I figured out how long that thing had been in
there, it scared the crap out of me. Didn't fly it 'til after the
inspection/diaphram replacement (was "out" of annual when I yanked it
out of the hangar).

I really enjoyed flying it. The radios were ancient, but everything
was "there", it met the Federal requirements for an annual inspection
(barely)- was in dire need of some TLC.

TC