GPSS options with 400A

[patrolpilot]

Originally Posted by cessnadriver

TO Patrol pilot.
Thanks for your reply. Yes you are correct, about spending $10K to get my old straight 400 working. But as I stated in an earlier thread, my plane is NOT worth, to me, dumping $30K plus for a new autopilot(S-tek 30). But an investment of LESS THAN $10K would be worth it. I fly long trips in my C337 and at 68 years old the trips are very tiring! With me doing ALL the grunt work I'm hoping to be under $10K? The other reason to invest $10K is I'm currently training for an instrument rating. I just wish, as many other C337 owners, to have one of the New autopilots that single Cessnas and Pipers have as options.
Regards.

I hear you, Bill; I will be 67 this year, but at any age, having an autopilot, even a basic wing leveler, is worth a lot in a single-pilot operation. It gives you time to do many things, including watching for traffic and other tasks on any flight.

My vote would be for Autopilots Central. They run a schedule and seem to stick with the expected finish date. My work was supposed to be done at noon on a Friday (their normal end of week closing time), but everybody stayed until 5 pm to make sure I got out. They did this for me without over-time shop hour charges.

I see that you are in NE PA, so Tulsa is a long flight. My thoughts or at least a question for any shop working on a 400 is, "are you going to tune it to the airplane on a check flight?" Two shops in Texas were honest with me by saying: we are going to pull everything out and send it to APC, and your airplane will sit here while APC goes through your gyros and boxes. What we won't be able to do is tweak it inflight when we put it back together."

As in a post I made concerning my autopilot work at APC, twice as much was found after the test flight as were found at the bench. This lead to some small components being replaced. I wanted to fly the flight with the two technicians but was smart enough to let their pilot do it as I figured he had seen it all. It was a smart move as, after the first flight, he told me all that they do on the flight (about an hour's worth of flying), and he showed me his kneeboard with notes; a lot was going on that I would have never thought to look at, let alone understand. The pilot was a Cessna guy, and he said he probably flew the acceptance flight in my airplane as it rolled out.

In that other topic, I also relayed how it takes two technicians in flight, one in the right rear overhead of the airplane, one upfront, to do what they do. These two fellows have a couple of unique "boxes" that they have made over the years of 400 work that help them fine-tune the beast.

When looking at other shops and their bids on your work, ask them if the actual 400 bench setup and testing will be done in-house and will they be accomplishing the inflight adjustments. The first will unnecessarily increase the downtime on your airplane if sent off, and the latter will not provide a finished product.

I had found a complete Cessna bench setup for sale, the same boxes on the APC bench (not the inflight boxes), and offered to buy it for my shop. The guy that works on my airplane didn't want it as he said there was more to it than that. He said, "it's too late to acquire the knowledge that an outfit like APC has." At least APC is training the young guys.

With the certain schedule that APC maintains, I bought a round trip ticket on United from Tulsa to Victoria, TX, and back. It was the cost of one night's hotel and meals. In that my wife and I go to St. Paul twice a year to see family; with a stop in TUL, we are going to plan an overnight on the early fall flight so that APC can keep the 400 tuned up. I spoke with the boss; he thought it a great idea as too often so many are letting their 400s go. He felt the 400 is better than the alternative.

My freshly overhauled AI was bad; still, in warranty, I found a replacement in TUL (Porter-Strait Instrument Company) and returned mine for warranty as I would like one on the shelf as a failure ends 90% of my flying. APC suggested that when returned, I send it to them to adjust the nulls as it will not come from the instrument shop ready to slide into the Skymaster and it's 400. It's not a complete 400 tuneup, but it will keep me going until I get back to TUL. I still haven't received the AI back, but when it does, I will slap a label on it and send it to TUL. I have a T&B on the shelf that needs O/H; I will send it to PSIC as well; I liked how they worked with APC and the help they offered to get my airplane out of the shop!

Yep, $10K is probably worth it all considered!