SAFA Skysailor Magazine

30 SKY SAILOR January | February 2021 Supervised 100 hour/Annual Service – Noosa airstrip, 2 December 2020 A few months ago, in the May/June edition of SkySailor magazine, we published an offer to supervise a Rotax 912UL(S) 100 hour/Annual engine service for free, as long as we were able to drive to the location. Trevor Mathews took up our offer, knowing that his new Airborne M4S would be due its first service later in the year and he hadn’t completed one before, just an oil and filter change at 25 hours. His aircraft was based at Noosa airfield, so only two hours from us. We made a note of his aircraft details, and asked him to contact us again when he had reached 100 hours or 12 months from when he purchased it, whichever came first. Trevor was also keen to go over any tools he should be buying, ready for his next service and waited patiently for his engine hours to tick over. When the time arrived, we arranged a date for us to travel to Noosa airstrip to do it. In readiness, we printed off and laminated a copy of the new 2020 schedule, to make it easier for Trev to follow, and then he could sign up and keep his own sheets. When we met up, he discovered that the 2019 copy he had printed ready for the service was no longer current, so we reminded him about the importance of registering for free email updates with the Rotax Owner website (R.O.A.N.), which he has since done. Kev had already run the SB compliance check before travelling down, and Trev was able to confirm that although his engine serial number was listed in the Rotax SB-912- 073UL, the circlip in question had already been replaced by BertFloods, prior to him buying his aircraft. He now needs to ensure the appropriate entry is made in his engine logbook. It was a hot day and the facilities at Noosa airfield are far from ideal for conducting maintenance, with little floor space and no clear bench space. However, it remained dry, and we managed to steer Trevor through his 100 hour schedule in about six hours – somewhat longer than he’d anticipated, and probably considerably longer than most owners spend on it. For us though, it was a quick service time, due to the fact that it was a fairly new aircraft. Even though it was only one year old, Trevor was advised to remove all the cable ties that he could to enable a thorough check, using a torch and mirror, for wear, chafing or damage. Although reluctant to begin with, after discovering a few issues, in particular an over tight cable tie restricting the throttle cable, he soon got into the swing of things. He also found a broken exhaust spring, as well as several chafe marks. After the engine ground run (to test for leaks) was completed, he replaced all the cable ties, but this time took care to make sure they were not too tight, or chafing anywhere. Unfortunately, there was an extraor- dinary amount of spirap on this engine, which prevented a Kev talks Trev through a carb sync