When we first dropped off 620D to Waypoint Aviation in Riverside (KRAL) in December, 2021, we innocently thought we’d be picking our Bonanza on the promised delivery date of mid March 2022.
Well, life gets in the way, plans change, and things don’t always work out the way they are supposed to work out. To be fair, as the customer in this situation, we have definitely been responsible for a bunch of change requests.
We have also been the victims of the times we’re living in today. Covid is definitely to blame for ongoing supply chain issues. Many of the parts needed were delayed for weeks or months.
All in all, our delivery date was pushed back from March to April, then April to May, and now we’re looking at a June 10 delivery date.
The good news is that there’s very noticeable progress. Where do I start? So much has been done. Here we go:
Ruddervators were removed, corrosion cleaned up, resealed, painted white and reinstalled.
The new VOR antennas were installed just below the v-tail. They are white also and look like shark fins.
Both the top and bottom of the plane now have a Whelan LED light. This is great to reduce the load of electrical draw and they shine much brighter.
The GPS antenna was also added to the roof.
The aux tank (10 gallons) was removed, cleaned up and a new Seis fuel sender was added to report to the brand new JPI EDM 930. Also pictured below, you can see the insulation added in to the side walls to reduce cabin noise.
Here are the changes to the panel:
The panel is looking great! It is now mounted and riveted. I’m lovin’ the “B” silkscreened onto the glove box as well as the C35 Bonanza and our tail number nicely displayed.
The throttle and mixture cables were replaced and are now installed. The magnetos are now controlled by Electroair switches and a push to start button was added.
The six pack was installed including the airspeed indicator, turn coordinator, altimeter, VSI and VOR2. They all surround our two new Garmin G5s as primary for our attitude indicator and directional gyro. Our DG will now become and HSI.
In the panel, the stack is now setup from top to bottom as follows:
PS Engineering Audio Panel 8000BT
Garmin GTX 327 Transponder
Garmin GNC 255A COM2
Garmin GNS 530W
The openings you see in the middle are reserved for the JPI EDM 930 primary engine monitor and a placeholder for our future Garmin autopilot. Hopefully, we can get that done next year.
Forward of the firewall, the generator was replaced with an alternator and we added a mount for an oil filter, removing the oil screen. Now our oil changes can go from 25 hours to 50 hours. Woohoo!
The nose wheel landing gear was removed and overhauled. We had it painted white and reinstalled.
The main gear was cleaned and maintenanced as well. The original Goodyear brakes were replaced with Cleveland brakes to go along with our new wheels and tires.
Whew! Well, that was a mouthful. So many exciting improvements have been happening. We’re getting closer to the finish line on this massive project. Stay tuned for more…
5/22/2022 We have the power!!!!