Super Cub - Engine Winterization PLUS meet the Flight Chops production crew!
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2024
- Tail wheel flying this summer was a blast.
But we need to say good-bye to the Super Cub for the winter.
Not enough people are interested in cold weather flying her, even though Super Cubs do really well in the winter if you're up for it!
Anyway - she goes offline Dec 1st each year, and I took the opportunity to learn about the pickling / deactivation process.
BONUS footage with Dennis and his STEARMAN!
unlisted link here:
• Dennis on winterizing ...
HUGE thanks to Jim Stroh and the global delivery team at PROGGEX for providing the bulk of the production budget to produce this episode!
Please check them out if you're looking for outsourced project management!
www.proggex.com
And thanks to Lee Stutt at Kovachik Aircraft Services Ltd. for putting up with me and the crew looking over his shoulder while he worked.
For info about the awesome service there, please check out:
www.spectrumair...
UPDATE: There was a great reddit/flying discussion about this video here:
/ latest_flight_chops_vi...
For those that haven't seen it, please check the Flight Chops Patreon page to find out how you can be a part of it!
/ flightchops
Here some direct links to my other Tail Wheel Flying videos, but please also check my channel incase I forget to update the links here in this description:
Wheel Landing on pavement
• Tail Dragger training ...
Grass 3 point Landing:
• Flying a Tail Dragger ...
1st solo in the Super Cub
(Great illustration of trim usage,
And my WORST landing is also in this video)
• My 1st Solo!… AGAIN! -...
Ski Flying:
• 1st time Ski Flying! -...
Upset Recovery and Spin Training - Bellanca Citabria
• Upset Recovery and Spi...
Flying a Tail Dragger - Tip #3 - Taxi + Run-up + Take-Off - Shoes Matter!
• Flying a Tail Dragger ...
And, if you haven't seen it already - check out the "fun" video I edited from this footage. (link below)
• Tail Dragger check rid...
HUGE thanks to those that have become a part of the Flight Chops Patreon campaign - we've already crushed 2nd mile stone goal!
If you want to know more about how Patreon works, check out:
• Video
Flight Chops branding music featured is written and produce by Chris and Rob from "Big Honkin' Spaceship" For all your music and post sound needs, please check them out at:
www.bighonkinsp...
DISCLAIMER: I am a "weekend warrior" private pilot, I fly for fun with no intentions of going commercial.I have had my PPL for over 15 years, but still consider each flight a learning experience - I generally take detailed notes after each flight to remind myself what went well or what I could do to improve.... Having the GoPro cameras to record flights like this is invaluable. I find these self analysis videos very helpful in my constant quest to improve, and am happy to share. Feedback is invited; however, please keep it positive
Just a little different than winterizing a P-Navajo our company used to have. But I did spend one day watching them do it from start to finish and the guys behind the scenes can't be thanked enough for their knowledge and care for the aircraft. Great video!
***** Thanks - It was a fun and informative experience for me to shoot this one
I'm an A&P mechanic here in the states, thanks for sharing some of our world that largely goes unseen! It's great and a good idea for pilots to get some knowledge of the mechanical aspect of their own aircraft. Conversely have known of some pilots overstepping the boundaries of light maintenance and performing work that should done by a certificated aircraft mechanic. So keep the thought in mind before you do something to a plane, that even if you could, stop and think if you should. It's all in the name of safety. Out of courtesy, make sure you ask your mechanic if he or she minds you tagging along. Some folks are uncomfortable working around customers or could find it as a distraction. As with flying, keeping focused on the task at hand is paramount to maintaining safety. Great job as always! Keep up the great work!
Excellent points! Thanks!
And glad you enjoyed the video!
Cool to see the filter being examined. It's a bad feeling when your mechanic calls you and tells you there's metal in your oil. It happened to me during an annual, then cleared itself up and I haven't had a problem since. Maybe because I wasn't flying much that year. Love all your vids and the cat. It's always smart to put a cat in the videos.
That cat had quite the belly on it... Interesting seeing the process of winterizing a bird!
Methinks it’s a belly full of paws and whiskers.
You bring up a great point about getting some mechanical experience. Systems were one of my weakest areas during my initial training & lacked confidence when it came to that subject & questions. The best way to beef up my knowledge in that area was actually to pick the airframe & powerplant handbooks & get some more in-depth information (frankly, better pictures as well). Not necessarily that pilots have to be a mechanic (I eventually want to get my A&P for greater job opportunities) but it will help in the long run.
Very impressed with Lee, knows his stuff! I once inhibited a Bristol Freighter............28 cylinders to remove a spark plug and spray the inhibiting oil into! Great to see you have sponsorship this is a great tool for pilots with little experience (like myself) but even for those who might have a lot more hours but still get something out if it. Happy New Year!
bazwabat1 Thanks! Yeah, hopefully I can piece together a few sponsors to help get the crew out there more, I have a great team and I know I can continue to produce great stuff if the opportunity presents itself. And yes, Lee is awesome; I had a feeling he'd do well on camera, but he exceeded my expectations. And Happy new year!
Excellent video, love to see what the maintenance guys go through!
Wow, great video - one of my favourites I think! Very neat to see the different steps involved in winterizing the Super Cub, this really adds a new dimension or layer to the FlightChops package in my opinion.
Ben Crooks Thanks! And yes, I think regular stops into the maintenance hangar could make for some great content!
Yes! I'm so glad you are covering the maintenance side of flight. I feel like there is so much for us pilots to learn from mechanics that can make our flying safer. If I get an opportunity, I'd like to spend time working in a maintenance shop and learning a ton about how airplanes work. But in the mean time, keep these videos coming. I learned a lot.
Awesome! I'm happy to share!
And we can trust that you WILL be back in the spring!!
:)
Gwen Walcott definitely!
Great video and fantastic production! Good stuff!
cencalmatt Thanks! glad you enjoyed it.
Excellent production quality. Very nicely done. Thank your crew - from the interwebs :)
Felix from Quadcopterguide thanks!
Excellent video as always. Sorry we won't see any ski flying this winter. Even here in NJ the SuperCub is freezing in the winter. Will look forward to the return of the tailwheel in the Spring. I just doubled my pledge...Merry Christmas!
A Flyer Thank you! The support is GREATLY appreciated! And the good news is, I have about 4-5 more videos worth of Super Cub flying in the "un cut footage bank" - so there's more great stuff coming before spring! Heck - I just remembered that including the Stearman I have another 2 or maybe even 3 Tail Wheel videos worth of footage - so that's 7 or 8 more to edit! And that's assuming I don't get back to Windosr this season to fly the Chipmunk which they operate all winter... :)
I have to thank you for giving the tip of having cameras on board! I've just started my flight training and I was able to learn a lot by setting up GoPros in the Cessna. It helped me figure out my mistakes, most especially having one GoPro faced towards the instruments!
Great job Steve. I'm very mechanically-challenged too so this was really cool to see.
A.T.1357 Thanks Ali! Yeah, this one has gone over rather well - I'm looking into doing more videos with Lee in the shop!
Old one but good one! Interesting to see the evolution from here!
Very nice to see. We don't do that in South Florida. Ha!
You're lucky to be living in such a tropical place Alex! But do keep in mind that "winterization" is as much about the time the engine is inactive as it is about the season. Like if a plane were to sit unused in south FL, I bet all kinds of bad things would be going on internally with regard to humidity and salty sea air... So even in South FL, you'd want to "inhibit" an engine that was going to sit unused for an extended period.
THAT is really neat!! I live in southern Arizona, USA so not much of a winterizing process is ever used down here. (usually only 0 C or maybe the abnormal -7 C is about the coldest it gets.)
I'm actually in process of helping with an Annual on a Cessna 310 this past month. My dad's boss owns it, and he asked me to help! (got to fly it for a few min when I was 9 as a birthday gift :D)
Very similar, we did the whole "cut open the oil filter" for the engines, but we also pulled all the plugs to clean them. It's weird though, the filters were having a fair amount of carbon deposits caught in the pleats. Looked like metal at first, but it would crumble and powder up.
Been subbed for a while now, and always enjoy watching! Gotta admit though, having the team there sure made for great bonus footage! Nice to see a different side of the flying world :)
RCFlyBoy314 Thanks for sharing your story, and glad you enjoyed the video!
I heard that maintenance / storage hangars for old / traditional fabric-covered airplanes actually attract and like to keep cats around, especially in winter time, when mice want to come in from the outside, and occasionally eat a piece of fabric here and there :)
But apparently there is no problem with the future supplies of maintenance cats around the Super Cub :)
Every hangar needs a shop kitty!
That's a great point - I should have asked about that - Lee said they've always been happy to have cats in the hangar, but I never delved deeper into the reasons why.
***** A fellow A&P friend had a good story relating to such things. My friend helped a pilot that had a PT-17 Stearman that had been stored for a long time and needed to be inspected for a ferry permit to get it to an FBO for restoration. Everything appeared to look okay, engine ran fine, etc. The plane left a private grass field in the early morning when traffic was lighter. The FBO was also on a grass strip and the takeoff, flight, and landing, was uneventful. When they went to tug the Stearman in the hangar, it came to a screeching halt when the tires hit the paved ramp in front of the hangar. The brakes had seized sometime during takeoff or landing! The only reason nothing happened was the early morning dew on the grass let the old girl slide over it! Good thing its ferry was to & from grass fields! When they got it inside to begin restoration, they started removing all the old cotton fabric to recover it with new poly fabric. They discovered that mice had eaten away most of the cross stitches inside the structure that pull the fabric tight to the ribs & spars! That's 2 bullets dodged! Moral of the story is even though things appear fine from the outside, sometimes we need to err on the side of caution and go beyond the visible spectrum. Pull those wheels off or cut an inspection window in the fabric, etc. There's a story to have a furry purring mouse assassin around!
That was a great video Steve. We fly them year round here in the sunny south but I always wondered about the process.
Why Yes I fly Glad you enjoyed it!
SuPERB video quality. You're people are doing great work!
Thanks Michael!
cool trick with all descant if it turns blue you can just bake or microwave the moisture out of it and reuse
+shadowsrwolf That's awesome! thanks for sharing.
Fantastic video once again mate. The production quality of this was just excellent, an absolute pleasure to watch!
Looking forward to future videos.
Loved the maintenance video, that's a part I never get to see. Would love to see more videos like this one Steve! Amazing work as always
Javier Llaneza Thanks! And yes, we plan to do more of these!
+FlightChops Very cool! I'd also like to see more workshop/maintenance videos. Great job, thank you!
Jigsaw407 I am literally JUST editing another video in the shop :) The first part will be released today as an exclusive Patreon supporter perk. email me and I'll send you the link. flightchops at gmail dot com.
Great production Steve and crew! You will have to come up in May when we do the annual on Fox Alpha. Although I warn you my lock wire skills make it a slow process under the watchful eye of the AME. BS aside, I really agree that performing maintenance on an aircraft teaches you a great deal. Not least of which is respect for the machine and why checking and double checking is critical.
CPsVids Thanks Chris! And I might just take you up on that! I would love to make a video talking about the "owner assisted maintenance" thing!
Hello from Kentucky! I enjoy your videos. I recently purchased a GoPro and plan to start making videos as well. Right now I'm flying a PA28-140 and plan to move on to bigger aircraft and tackle some more ratings after the new year. SEEYUH!
Be careful with that lockwire. We used to make a joke at my old flying club that you weren't a "certified lockwirist" until you'd been cut using it.
Found that fascinating! Please do more videos about engineering and keep up the great work :)
Clement Allen Cool, yeah, this one has been well received, so I'm talking to the owner of the shop about making more of these!
Awesome! Looking forward to them :)
Love your vids man. Would be cool to see more a&p coverage in your channel too. Love it.
Interesting video that was fun to watch. When I change the oil on my motorcycle there is a magnetic piece on the drain plug that will show me any unusual signs of wear. The Super Cub looks like a really fun airplane...that would be my airplane of choice to buy someday. :)
***** Thanks Steve. And agreed - I've totally fallen in love with the Super Cub!
"Super Cub, Engine Winterization!" It's a very cool presentation of how it really gets done!
Great production,*****!
#Aviation
Love your videos, and what a nice hulihee!!!
sangemon thanks!
God I live this channel.
Really enjoy your Videos. I'm just starting the license process and these videos are very well done. A good friend flies a 46 Aeronca Champ ( and an A330) Done a little stick time in that and an RV6. My five year old is bonkers about aircraft and flying and has ridden in the Champ and RV6 even took the stick in the RV. Love those taidraggers!
bremms1 Thanks! I'm looking forward to exposing my 5 year old daughter to aviation - she hasn't been in a small plane yet - But I'll probably take her flying this summer!
*****
That would be great if you can get your daughter up there. My son is the one that got me back into aviation after many years he understands the function of the rudder, elevator and aileron.Turns out I made some good friends in the past few years that are long time pilots. I'm a BIT of a gear head and am planning an RV7 build. Live down in South Carolina but grew up near Oswego NY so I'm familiar with your weather. I'm starting some flight lessons in a few weeks. My friend with the Aeronca is a private and CPL instructor, but has two regular jobs and can only go up every now and then. Good thing is, I can clock some hours when we do fly.
Really enjoyable video!!
Eric Lund Thanks Eric! This was a fun one to shoot - I'm glad people are liking it.
Ok I do injoy your videos on here
Lovely video!
Down here in Australia, we don't winterize, it's too hot!
We generally only preserve an engine if its not going to be used for a long time (maintenance where the engine comes off)
Otherwise, we run out planes flat out until they get fixed, then we break em again ;)
Good stuff Flight chops!! - Love the beard ;)
Thanks! And you make a good point that "preserving" an engine isn't limited to cold temps - if the planned period of inactivity is long enough (60 days for many engine specs) then it is best to shut it down and put it into a preserved or inhibited state.
Exactly,
Engines brand new generally have a preserving fluid in it already too.
Jet engines do the same thing
Hey! Nice Job at the Shop! :) And these colors are pretty amazing! I never saw these sparks he uses!
Apropos: I fell in love with the cat :) I am still in bed with our cat and watching a pre coffee video....
Nice!!
Update I'll be able to get you your pic this weekend if everything goes as planned
Michael Miller very cool - thanks!
very informative
I haven't worked with silica gel in several years, but the version that I used was blue when dry and pink when wet. The silica gel in the plugs he inserted looked pink, which could mean it had absorbed as much moisture as it could hold and would provide no benefit to the engine. As always, check the manufacturer's instructions before using!
That... Actually pretty similar to the way you winterize anything else. I'm surprised!
love the videos thanks man
***** I'm happy to share Tyson, glad you like 'em!
I know my comment is a little old but I am an A&P mechanic and the part you were showing the desiccant plugs in they were pink and should show blue if there's moisture. This should be the other way around. They should be installed blue and if there is moisture it will be pink. just my input
Your absolutely right there Christopher, just watched the Vid an picked up on that straight away - a good way to remember this for me has always been 'pink - stink, blue - new.' and yes, you can always dry them back out in the oven or microwave.
Love your videos Steve, awesome work - possibly the best resource I've found on youtube for the me being a newly certified pilot. You should try and get over to Europe to fly here in the Alps some time..
I'm surprised to see it put up for the winter. Is the demand that much lower? I'm in Wisconsin, which can't be that much of a temperature difference, and we keep our Cub J3 flying all year round. Just have to put on a warmer coat and gloves.
Brad Ingersoll Yup, I wish they'd keep her flying, but no one seems to want to fly her in the winter :( I sure would. Anyway - as a result they take her off the insurance and put her to bed Dec 1st each year until spring.... Maybe if I promote it enough, next year will be different :)
Same here (Alaskan) with my plane I keep flying as long as it's above 10 degrees Fahrenheit
You obviously have some trolls lurking around your videos. I don't know how anyone down-votes this...cool video Steve.
ThreeTwo Victor I know, right? I love those guys - there are a couple that are there with the "thumbs down" promptly with in the first 6 hours each time a upload a new vid - they are very loyal subscribers :) And thanks Nate - glad you liked this one!
He said "decissant" plugs. I'm sure he means "dessicant"! :D
So next up is showing an overhaul right? ;)
Haha - sure.
I might have to camp out in the hangar with the crew for a few days to shoot that one though :)
Ok I will ty:)
Great video...what happens if metal shavings are found in the filter?
Randell Heyman you cry. But seriously, if there are metal shavings, you're looking at a potentially imminent engine failure and a major repair bill at the very least, or a complete engine replacement at worst. Bottom line - the engine is going to have to be seriously inspected and over hauled.
Depends how much swarf you find and what it is and it also depends on the engine. You need to find out where it comes from; this could be done by analysing the oil for non visible metallic deposits and whether the swarf is magnetic or not and try to piece those together. Some engines have scavenge filters which protect the oil pump from being damaged by the swarf. If an engine has no scavenge filter, oil pump is probably shot. And you can do a lot with borescopes visually inspecting before you do a complete teardown. Main thing is to understand why it happened. Just blindly replacing parts is like giving medicine to a sick person. It takes away the symptoms, not the cause. In modern engines you can look into the memory of the engine for events like overheating which may have contributed
Thanks.
Ha ha nice video : )
Glad you enjoyed it Nick!
Wasn't this the Super Cub you flew on skis? I guess it won't be doing any of that this winter. I suppose demand for ski flying is pretty limited.
I, for one, would like to try landing on skis. I just got my PPL this week and will get my tailwheel rating soon. First I'll get my night rating.
Matt M Actually, the Super Cub on skis that I flew was a transient plane that was privately owned; it was just a brief time that it was based at our airport, so I was lucky to get the chance to fly it. Good plan regarding getting your night and tail wheel training soon after PPL!
Why can’t you fly in the winter?
Nice video. When are you supposed to finish your instrument rating?
THAT is an excellent question :P Maybe now that the Super Cub is put away for the winter I'll be less distracted and be able to focus on IFR again... hopefully. I really just need to buckle down and study for the written.
Great! Keep up the nice job man, cheers from Brazil :D
Guilherme Lima cool thanks! I'll be making some IFR training videos when I get back into it!
How do you mount gopro to wings and which go pro's you're going for ?
Hey there Greg - I considered including a discussion about my externally mounted cameras in this video, but then I decided against it because different countries have different regs and such regarding how / if you can do this.
SO my best advise on that front is to talk to an instructor and a mechanic to see what your safe / legal options are.
I know I'm a Canuck too when I saw you with the chocolate milk, I love it too, now you just need a Jos Louis www.vachon.com/en/pastries/jos-louis/#regulier or a may west to go with it! one of the first thinks I look for when I go back to Canada.
Great video as always
My director friend James loves Jos Louis as well... They are a guilty pleasure :)
I would send some money to patron to help u but I don't have vary much and I need to save every Penney
No worries! The videos will always be free. Please enjoy them with out guilt!
That can't be a pregnant cat. That hangar only has a cub?
So this is the same engine that the numbskull demolished by hitting the gas-island bollard?
+Mike Barlow - yes. That engine had received a lot of love - it was heart breaking to see it damaged like that.
Did we (the "royal" we) manage to restore the Super Cub and return her to your use? I'd love it if you could really get "bush pilot" skilled with her and show us how that differs from standard flying.
Just a thought............