Friday, September 02, 2022

Breakfast Flight and Oil Leak

Mary and I made the quick hop over to Cambridge MD for breakfast.  Great flight and it felt good to be back in the air after thirty-two days, yes, 32 days!  

When we finished breakfast and approached 3 Tango Charlie, Mary immediately notice a large oil puddle under the engine with our nose wheel sitting right in the middle of that puddle. I said it can't be us because the wheel rolled through it but that's not convincing enough for me and definitely not my bride.  We each crawled around looking for any sign of a leak and decided to pull the top cowl and get a closer look inside. Mary and I each looked for oil, anywhere, but thankfully found none. 

I buttoned everything back up, checked the oil again to make sure there was no loss since leaving Ocean City. Checking is good, checking twice is better. I started up and taxied out in front of our parking spot for a clean place to leak check. I sat at idle for the oil temp to come up and then increased the RPM's a bit before pulling back to idle.  I made a complete circle to check the pavement for leaks and it was clean.  

I taxied out for departure and once completing my run up made another circle to inspect the pavement, all clean once again. I was good to go and felt I did everything I could to make sure 3 Tango Charlie was ready to fly. 
We made the thirty minute hop home and landed on runway two, since one-four/three-two is NOTAMed closed. Once safely in the hangar I gave everything another look. No leaks found, but plenty of bugs sacrificed on leading edges. 

A good day flying even if it was just an hour total. Mary and I are looking forward to our planned get-away to Charleston SC and then Laurel MS in just a week or two. 

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