[odlee]

Last Saturday while waiting 45 minutes for an IFR departure, the alternator started acting up. We were at the end of rwy 27, requested to leave the line and go to Basler. No thank you to flights with no alternator, IFR or VFR.

Ended up at NewView Technologies. A small shop next to Basler. Bruce Botterman, the owner, offered his tools and shop. I removed the cowl from the -7 and we determined the alternator was bad. A Saturday morning we obviously could not raise anyone at Plane Power. My co-pilot, Larry Bowen is up to date with the Twitter scene and in twenty minutes we had Damon Berry's cell number @ the Plane Power booth. An EAA intern was monitoring the Twitter site and went to the Booth to retrieve the number! A phone call and a trip across the field and we had the display alternator. Reinstalled the new alternator and departed after the air show.

This could have been a major problem, but for the generosity of Bruce Botterman, NewView and Damon Berry, PlanePower we were only delayed. Also, thanks to Chad Jensen for the assist @ KBMI, our over night stop on the return to NC.

Thanks again everyone.
David

 

[DwightFrye]

More Help Provided @ Oshkosh

In the spirit of reporting good vendor support at Osh, I have a small tale to tell myself. Just a week before departing for Oshkosh (in a Citabria, not an RV ... the -7 is still under construction) I yanked the cord on my Clarity Aloft headset hard enough to break some wires internally. I caught it on my foot crawling out of a Warrior.

I rushed it to Clarity for a repair, and they fixed it and rushed it back. Almost. It worked, but upon fiddling with the volume box I found I could make the headset mis-behave. I didn't discover this problem until I was hours into the flight to Osh and just lived with it.

At the show I went to the Clarity booth and inquired as to whether they could do anything or not at the show. Bill Waterman (who is, I believe, the president of Clarity Aloft) agreed it still had problems and said that he could easily replace the volume box if I left it with him overnight.

The next morning Bill called me and said he had bad news and good news. The bad news was that the volume box could _not_ be repaired or replaced, and the good news was that for this reason they were simply going to give me a new headset. When I got to the booth Bill was there with a new still-in-the-plastic-wrapper headset already placed in my headset case.

Understand that this wasn't a failure of the product. I snagged the cord with my foot and yanked it -hard- climbing out of the Warrior. I was careless, and *I* broke my headset. Yes, it was still under warranty, but this was not a warranty-type failure. IMHO.

Outstanding service. Kudos to Clarity for supporting their product so completely and making my flight home a _lot_ more comfortable (and potentially safer, frankly).

 

[scard]

I have one of a different nature. Our airplane ended up at Fon du lac on Sunday. The local homeowner, Al, that we stayed with offered to take us back down there Monday morning on his way to work to retrieve the plane. Wow, we were very appreciative. We had planned on hopping on the shuttle. After he dropped us off at the terminal, on his way to get back on the freeway, he saw a couple that hopped off of the bus from the flight line. They were a bit hesitantly walking toward the freeway. He stopped and asked them if he could give them a ride somewhere. They were just headed to a convenience store for a cup of coffee and to hatch their next plan. He hauled them to where they wanted to go and went on to work.
This is just you're average guy making his way to work at the county on Monday morning. The locals are really great people. I think we should try to keep them happy. They need more advanced info on expected road closures and traffic re-routing.