Thursday, July 3, 2008

Liquid Gold

The Ranger engine in the Fairchild uses oil. It loves oil. The joke amoung Fairchild owners is when you land, you check the gas and top the oil. It was designed with loose tolerances to be run with 60-weight oil. Any lesser weight oil and the engine starts losing oil pressure after an hour. 60-weight is impossible to find at any FBO, you have to take it with you. I buy oil by the 55 gallon drum. Every oil change takes 5 gallons. A drum lasts about 5 years with the amount of flying I'm doing. Even so, with the dramatic increase of the price of crude, the direct operating cost of the airplane has skyrocketed.

Here Skyler pours some of the liquid gold into a gallon container so we can put it in the airplane.

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