mobilepolice
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So here's my 1980 Piper Seneca II, home for just two weeks now.
It has practically every factory option including:
Factory Air (WORKS!, COLD!) -- my favorite option here in the south.
Three blade Hartzell's
Full FIKI Equipment
Halogen Landing Lights
Tip Strobes and tip landing lights
KFC-200 Flight Computer System
Scott Six-Place factory oxygen system (behind the hat-rack)
128 Gallon Extended-Range fuel tanks.
And many other aftermarket options:
Merlyn Black Magic Automatic wastegates
Some sort of 337 Oil Screen System instead of oil filters.
GAMI Injectors
Airwolf Oil/Air separators.
Shadin DigiFlo-L Fuel Computer
Digitach digital tachometers
Pressurized door seals (with electric pressure pump, not the bloodcuff hand pumps)
Club seating (I say yay, some say boo. Middle row has no legroom with forward-facing seats)
Engine times are 835/1150 on factory re-manufactured engines.
What about avionics you say? Sorry I didn't include a picture, but here's the specs:
For Comms: King KY-195A's
For Navs: King KN-53's
VOR/RNAV: King KNS-81
ADF: King KR-87
Audio Panel: King KMA-24
All of the above works.
For IFR GPS, there's a King KLN-90B, but the CRT screen/flyback transformer went on it just before the seller sold the airplane, so it's INOP. It gave us a funny burny electronics smell on the way home so we pulled the breaker for the GPS and later I pulled the instrument save for the tray and antennas and saved 5.5lbs. My A&P will busy himself with pulling the rest of it when I figure out what to replace it with.
There's on-board Bendix/King Color Weather Radar that's functional, so long as the CRT remains functional. I was out with my MEI yesterday training and we dodged some weather by using the radar. Takes a minute for the thing to warm up, but it works great. The CRT could go in it any day, really, so I keep it turned off.
Also have a L-3/Goodrich WX-1000+ Stormscope that works too.
Finally, some loon decided to install a SANDEL 3500 Digital HSI. It's nice, but my god is it overkill.
Now! For Squawks:
* Nose tire looks a little low, dunnit? I need to rig up something to connect my nitrogen bottle to a tire inflater this weekend and sort that.
* KLN-90B is shot, as described above
* Stall light doesn't light, but you won't miss a stall in this airplane.
* Also, speaking of shaky stabilators, it seems the stabilator has some vertical centerline slack in the bearings. I don't know if this is normal or not. On the ground the stabilator will shake up and down from the prop buffeting (you can't feel it in the yoke though) but in the air it's loaded and doesn't seem to shake.
* small oil leaks from both engines on the outboard valve cover gaskets. Ends up with dark streaks down the cowling after a long day of flying.
* Primer buttons are finicky and need to be serviced, they trigger the diverter valve, but not always the pump (switches for the pumps work fine)
* Merlyn wastegates need overhaul, difficult to control manifold pressure above 33-34 inches, too easy to overboost.
And potentially the most expensive problem:
The KFC-200 FCS works fine in FD mode. I can command it to pitch and roll to specific settings using the CWS switch and it will go there. It will also track a heading perfectly.
The command bars on the KI-256 track appropriately with the horizon when in level flight, and they follow the requested pitch and roll attitude normally.
However, if I hit the altitude hold button while idling on the ground, or in flight below at least 5,500, the command bars will immediately indicate a 10* pitch up climb.
I don't know how long it will hold this, I haven't ridden it out but I do intend to. I remember when we tinkered with it flying it home I engaged the altitude hold at 11,500 feet several times and the airplane didn't seem to track the assigned altitude, though I don't remember any sort of exaggerated pitching up or down moment like I do now.
The trim switch on the KFC-200 will properly move the command bar up and down when out of ALT mode, but once you hit ALT mode anywhere below some unknown altitude, expect to go up.
I presume this is a problem with the pressure sensor in the flight computer itself that needs to be looked at. I don't know if there's any pots that could be trimmed out, or how to better verify that there's an issue with the flight computer's pressure sensor (clogged inlet perhaps? etc)
Thoughts appreciated.
It has practically every factory option including:
Factory Air (WORKS!, COLD!) -- my favorite option here in the south.
Three blade Hartzell's
Full FIKI Equipment
Halogen Landing Lights
Tip Strobes and tip landing lights
KFC-200 Flight Computer System
Scott Six-Place factory oxygen system (behind the hat-rack)
128 Gallon Extended-Range fuel tanks.
And many other aftermarket options:
Merlyn Black Magic Automatic wastegates
Some sort of 337 Oil Screen System instead of oil filters.
GAMI Injectors
Airwolf Oil/Air separators.
Shadin DigiFlo-L Fuel Computer
Digitach digital tachometers
Pressurized door seals (with electric pressure pump, not the bloodcuff hand pumps)
Club seating (I say yay, some say boo. Middle row has no legroom with forward-facing seats)
Engine times are 835/1150 on factory re-manufactured engines.
What about avionics you say? Sorry I didn't include a picture, but here's the specs:
For Comms: King KY-195A's
For Navs: King KN-53's
VOR/RNAV: King KNS-81
ADF: King KR-87
Audio Panel: King KMA-24
All of the above works.
For IFR GPS, there's a King KLN-90B, but the CRT screen/flyback transformer went on it just before the seller sold the airplane, so it's INOP. It gave us a funny burny electronics smell on the way home so we pulled the breaker for the GPS and later I pulled the instrument save for the tray and antennas and saved 5.5lbs. My A&P will busy himself with pulling the rest of it when I figure out what to replace it with.
There's on-board Bendix/King Color Weather Radar that's functional, so long as the CRT remains functional. I was out with my MEI yesterday training and we dodged some weather by using the radar. Takes a minute for the thing to warm up, but it works great. The CRT could go in it any day, really, so I keep it turned off.
Also have a L-3/Goodrich WX-1000+ Stormscope that works too.
Finally, some loon decided to install a SANDEL 3500 Digital HSI. It's nice, but my god is it overkill.
Now! For Squawks:
* Nose tire looks a little low, dunnit? I need to rig up something to connect my nitrogen bottle to a tire inflater this weekend and sort that.
* KLN-90B is shot, as described above
* Stall light doesn't light, but you won't miss a stall in this airplane.
* Also, speaking of shaky stabilators, it seems the stabilator has some vertical centerline slack in the bearings. I don't know if this is normal or not. On the ground the stabilator will shake up and down from the prop buffeting (you can't feel it in the yoke though) but in the air it's loaded and doesn't seem to shake.
* small oil leaks from both engines on the outboard valve cover gaskets. Ends up with dark streaks down the cowling after a long day of flying.
* Primer buttons are finicky and need to be serviced, they trigger the diverter valve, but not always the pump (switches for the pumps work fine)
* Merlyn wastegates need overhaul, difficult to control manifold pressure above 33-34 inches, too easy to overboost.
And potentially the most expensive problem:
The KFC-200 FCS works fine in FD mode. I can command it to pitch and roll to specific settings using the CWS switch and it will go there. It will also track a heading perfectly.
The command bars on the KI-256 track appropriately with the horizon when in level flight, and they follow the requested pitch and roll attitude normally.
However, if I hit the altitude hold button while idling on the ground, or in flight below at least 5,500, the command bars will immediately indicate a 10* pitch up climb.
I don't know how long it will hold this, I haven't ridden it out but I do intend to. I remember when we tinkered with it flying it home I engaged the altitude hold at 11,500 feet several times and the airplane didn't seem to track the assigned altitude, though I don't remember any sort of exaggerated pitching up or down moment like I do now.
The trim switch on the KFC-200 will properly move the command bar up and down when out of ALT mode, but once you hit ALT mode anywhere below some unknown altitude, expect to go up.
I presume this is a problem with the pressure sensor in the flight computer itself that needs to be looked at. I don't know if there's any pots that could be trimmed out, or how to better verify that there's an issue with the flight computer's pressure sensor (clogged inlet perhaps? etc)
Thoughts appreciated.
