The Joys of Aircraft Ownership 1,532 & 1,533

Last Saturday my brother/co-owner and I had planned on taking our
fresh-out-of-annual 172 up for a good workout at our home base in
Lincoln, IL (Logan County - KAAA). I'm a 14 hour student pilot on
hiatus. I got sick of paying to fly in other people's airplanes. My
brother, Brad, got his ticket in our airplane some years before we took
ownership. This was the final checkout of our plane to get everything
working so I can complete my ticket in 3916R. When we hopped in at 9am
ready to head out to the practice area, we ignorantly expected things
to go smoothly. I'll chalk this up to only being aircraft owners for
1.5 years. We've got a lot to learn.

Lesson #1 - Nothing ever goes smoothly when you own your own airplane.

We plug our headsets in and can't hear each other. Hmm, Brad goes
through the engine start checklist and awakens the O-300D while I
troubleshoot the portable intercom. After a few minutes of running on
the ground and no luck with the intercom, we shut down and unbuckle. We
went through 4 different headsets and none of them would work with the
intercom. It was an old intercom and we figured it had just taken this
opportune time to bite the dust. Why not right?
While I troubleshoot the intercom some more, Brad walks up to the
terminal to see if any other locals have a portable intercom we can
borrow. No such luck. We begin calling around to the FBOs within 40
miles, Springfield, Bloomington, Peoria, and Decatur. Only 1st Class
Air in Springfield (KSPI) has a portable intercom for sale. Could we
fly without one? Yes. Did we want to? No. What's $200.00 right? Chump
change when it comes to aviation. We weren't wasting this day of
flying due to a stupid intercom that decided to bite the dust.
Off to Springfield we go. Those Bose headsets really work by the way. I
was yelling over the engine noise to Brad and he had no clue!
We depart Logan County on 21 and get a straight in 10 mile final to 22.
Landing at Springfield is uneventful and we get to taxi past the ILNG
183rd Fighter Wing's ramp and check out the F-16's. Sweet.
We end up buying the Avcomm AC-2EX with the extension that turns it
into a 4 place.
Total: $230 and change. Being able to actually hear each other in
flight: Priceless.

Here's where it gets really fun. Brad notices on the flight back to
Logan County that the airspeed and VSI needles are jumping around quite
a bit. Our Garmin 296 is reporting a steady speed and level flight.
Something's funny. There's got to be a simple reason right?
Dammit! I was going to resume lessons next week and now we've got a
pitot static problem!
We land and taxi to our hangar, I'm ****ed.
We check the pitot tube and static port for visual obstructions.
Nothing we can see. Gentle airflow through both ports shows movement on
the gauges. Hmm. Test flight reveals nothing and the problem still
exists.

Our mechanic is on vacation for the next couple of weeks so it
doesn't look like I'll be working on my ticket in my airplane as
hoped. At least not for a while.

We head back to the parent's house to relax for the rest of the
afternoon. I can't get this problem out of my head. I've been
working on the plane for the past month with our mechanic trying to get
everything up and running so we can get the annual signed off. I want
to fly!

A light bulb went off in my head. My girlfriend and I had washed the
plane the evening before. How could I have forgotten? I explicitly
showed her the static port and instructed her to not get water near it.
I kept the pitot tube cover installed. Still, water could have gotten
in there. That's got to be the problem.

Lesson #2 - Nothing is as easy as it appears when it comes to
aircraft.

I run back out to the airport to investigate. Of course I had to remove
the front left seat to be able to look at the static lines. Hmm, I
think I see condensation in the line coming directly from the static
port on the left of the fuselage. That's easy enough to remove. I
unclamp the line, drain it, and re-clamp. Not really that much water
but I figure any water in there is going to cause problems. Brad
arrives at the airport and we take it up for a test flight. No joy.
Needles are still jumping all over the place. We land and scratch our
heads some more at the hangar.
We didn't try the alternate static source! We take it up around the
patch again and pull the alternate source with same results. The agony
of defeat!

Another light bulb goes off, or is it on?
I remember when I was putting the upper cowl on the week before; we
noticed we were missing a cam lock on the left side. I'll be damned,
the cam lock just so happens to be the one a couple of inches in front
of the static port. There is a ¼ inch or less gap between the upper
cowl and the mount it attaches to on the firewall. Could this be it?
Could there really be that much airflow disturbance due to this missing
cam lock. Well, where the hell are we going to get a cam lock on a
Saturday afternoon?
This is going to eat at me until I get it fixed. Giving up now is not
an option.
I begin scouring the hangar floor for the missing cam lock. Our hangar
floor is gravel so this ought to be fun. After 2 minutes of searching
where the cowling sat while it was off, I FIND THE MISSING CAM LOCK! I
should have bought a lottery ticket later that night.
Cam lock installed, back to the sky!!
Guess what? That was it. Airspeed needle solid as a rock. No wild
climbs or descents anymore on the VSI. Woo-hoo! Talk about a sigh of
relief. I was sick of working on this plane. I just wanted to fly!
Why I continue to be surprised by little things like this when it comes
to aircraft ownership, I'll never know. Maybe it's because we're
still newbies in the owner category. It sure is a good feeling when you
get it figured out and working again though.

Later that evening before sunset we were able to take the significant
others up for a sunset ride over the town. Flight lessons resume this
week. All is good in the world.

BTW, we'll be getting a new audio panel/intercom installed in the
next couple of months and will have a near brand new Avcomm AC-2EX + 4
place extender up for sale. If anyone is in the market shoot me a line.

Sorry for the long post, just thought this might be interesting to
share.

Brock
N3916R