Two inspections of Smokey, the soot-ravaged RV-9A, this weekend.
The first one was to go over the outside of the plane carefully, looking for where molten light fixture had dripped on the plane. Those spots were marked with blue painter's tape. Surprisingly, not all of the spots that showed up in the pre-wash photo were discernible after the wash, indicating that some of the drops had cooled before hitting the plane. The nav light cover that I thought was warped by heat was apparently just poor construction, as the one on the other side was horrible with lots of extra screws.
Today, I wanted to look inside Smokey. I knew there was soot in the stabilizer, as the end ribs have holes in them and I'd looked inside before. Pictures with the iPhone were not all that successful. Next was pictures of the bottom of the extreme aft end of the fuselage, using the access panel under the stabilizer. Not good. Last was the access panel under the wing that looks at the aileron pushrod and where it goes through the aft spar. (This is the same port for looking for cracks in the rear spar to comply with the service bulletin.) Soot all over in there, too, and since the wing ribs have lightening holes..
So there's soot in lotsa places where the soot can only be cleaned out by drilling out a bunch of rivets, it seems.
Smokey has a lot of things all in one plane that are nice, or at least that I greatly appreciate: slider, Garmin G3X Touch IFR avionics, constant speed prop, nosewheel, skybolt cowling fasteners, grab handles on the roll bar, baggage compartment shelf (my design), sealed and balanced nosewheel, functional panel layout, and everything has been debugged and works well. It would take some doing to find another RV with those features. And I'm old enough that I don't want a multi-year project, because my use-by date is getting closer all the time. I'd love a -14A or a -10, but that's a lot more cash. Should have bought one of those a few years back!
