----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]----
Hi Al, Sorry but I see us as just the current custodian of our fine Coupes. I am pleased to see the you are making progress on your A&P certificate, I did mine in my late fifties just so that I could do the work on my aircraft and to know what to do and when to get help. It is the right way to go for many who love aircraft and are longer on experience than money. If it helps I found the King video courses to be great to pass the knowledge tests, went through the material twice and got 100/98/97 on the tests. For the oral and practical I used the ASA review guide which has all the questions they can ask and acceptable answers to use. I also found that you pass or fail the practical on the first task or two and the rest is just the process of punching the required areas. The first task was hard and I was able to deal with it just fine after not missing any of the first two sessions of oral questions we quickly went to the simplest task permitted for the rest of the areas. It is a very good thing to do and it does make you feel better when you work on your plane as you know that even if a Fed comes up and starts to ask questions you have nothing to worry about. Good luck and get on with it as soon as you can. Best regards, Vern ----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- Vern; You had to bring up the age thing, huh? I was feeling pretty good this morning! ;-) In my experience with Ercoupes, I've found a few sad things about proper maintenance. 1. Many of us don't know what is right and what is wrong, 2. many can't really afford to have it done by a certified mechanic or shop and 3. we feel that someone else couldn't do it any better than we could ourselves. When I bought my first coupe, all of those applied. In my very large local Coupe group, most of those applied. I remember wrestling with a decision whether or not to buy an oil pressure gauge at $20 or $30! Guess which won out! Now, even though I'll spend $10 on return shipping if I don't like the looks of things, 2 and 3 still apply to me. I'm going through replacing a few cylinders on my big airplane now, and if I had to farm the job out, I'd be up to about $6K and counting. I'm lucky enough to have advanced my skills to a point where minimal supervision is required. (I've been given a letters of experience and am just trying to find some time to take the A&P tests.) Lots of folks getting into this hobby would sure like to find a flying airplane at $6K and so would I, but if found I would be afraid to take it up! You're tail cone job is unfortunately a common one. Bondo, rather than spend $50 for a serviceable part is the norm. Tough thing is when the aircraft finds someone who is conscientious, that repair needs to be done over at double the cost. As you're repairing, why not document your procedures so that all of us may benefit from your technical and decision making skills. Thanks Al ========================================================================== ==== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
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