Ed, I have flown my Alon about 410 hours since I finished restoring it in August of 2005. I fly it at least once every week unless the weather or other commitments interfere. The only maintenance issues that I have had since then have been a nose wheel bearing that started to go bad and a few very minor oil leaks that were fixed with new valve cover gaskets, vacuum pump seals and a crankshaft seal. Since restoring the plane, I can't think of one time that I went to fly it that I found it broke, and I've never had anything break while flying it. How do you get there? Well, I don't know how anyone else does it, but the way I did it was to completely disassemble the entire airplane and spend 1800 manhours over 6 years restoring or replacing everything on it to "as good as I could possibly make it". I also tend to replace things when I think that they have been in service "long enough" or when I start to suspect that something is not 100% up to snuff. Stuff like bearings, gaskets, hoses, fuel pumps, seals, exhaust stacks, etc. Items on my to-do list right now are all new fuel hoses because they've been on the plane 3 years and 400+ hours, new aluminum fuel lines firewall forward, and all new primer lines on both sides of the firewall because they are all original and are probably getting brittle from vibration, and a new voltage regulator and master switch because they are over 20 years old. I'll probably do all of this during the annual this October. I pretty much operate under the assumption that if I haven't personally disassembled and looked at something to verify that it is OK, then it's probably not OK and needs to be looked at. These airplanes are really very simple machines, and if all the parts and pieces are maintained and serviced like they are supposed to be, there's no reason that the airplane should not be near 100% reliable. I put all of my airplane dollars (other than operating expenses) into maintenance. That's probably why my plane has been flying around in flat green epoxy primer for the past 3 years. I'm planning to paint it "one of these days" but there's always something more important to do on the airplane than paint it. Personally, I really don't care how the plane looks as long as I know that it is 100% mechanically. To be honest, I'm getting a hoot out of all the comments I get about the airplane in spite of the fact that it's decked out in ugly flat green primer and has a bare alumimum oil door. It's going to be a shame to paint it. Wayne DelRossi Alon Aircoupe N5618F
"Nobody has ever scientifically proven that life is supposed to be serious." **************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007)
