En-route to my first stop of Mashient (MSH) flying Alas 14, I began to feel an erratic thumping from my engine. I was almost to my destination, and everything seemed fine from the gauges, so I just kept going. After I landed in MSH, I tested some things with the engine still running before shutting down. Sure enough, I had problems with my left magneto. After unloading my over 900 pounds of sheet metal roofing (WEAR gloves!) and concrete, I took the cowling off and tried to figure out what was giving me problems.
Some may remember the problems we had with Alas 14 in out ferry flight from the USA. Long story short, it was the same problem today. So, after diagnosing that the problem I had could not be fixed with my simple tool kit, I was destined to wait in MSH until parts could be brought to me. The part I needed was a magneto harness. This is the thing that has all the wires that send the spark to the spark plugs. At about 3 in the afternoon, (6 hours after I got there) my boss Dan landed and helped me put the harness on, and sure enough after start up the problem was gone.
I was soon on my way back to Shell after a quick stop to pick up a passenger in Copataza. I didn't have enough daylight left to get my other stops or flights done. I guess that is why God invented tomorrow.
As with most big white pilot guys that have to spend unplanned time in a jungle community, you quickly develop a following. The people of MSH, including the adults, are great. I was shown around the whole community, and even sat in for about 30 minutes on a highly competitive game of high school soccer. For having to get stuck in the jungle with maintenance problems, I really had a great time. The weather was great (I am sunburned now), the people very welcoming, and the parts fixed my problem. Most important, I had my lunch with me. An older pilot told me once; "never get separated from your lunch!"
Here is Dan taking off after helping me get things up and running again. 
It's always interesting the pets people pull out when I'm in their communities...literally. This monkey is the pet of the teacher in MSH, and he literally hangs out inside her shirt. He didn't like me too much.
3 comments:
Hello Sean.
Wel wel what a day did you hade!
How does the Alas 14 give so many problems?
Sean, when you fly with the C206G how high do you fly with it? What is the Altitude that you fly most of the time?
And how high can you fly with the windows open?
Regards
Javier Vermaas
Hi Javier...Alas 14 doesn't really have that many problems. It just seems that way. When you fly a machine as much as we do, things are due to need replacement or fixing from time to time. Esp. considering the conditions we fly our airplanes into.
As far as altitudes go, that depends on where we are going. Usually it means being anywhere from 2000 to 4000 feet above the ground. Which means 4,500 ft above sea level to 7,500 feet above sea level. But if we have to fly to Quito that can take us to 12,500 feet on a nice day, to 15,000-19,000ft. on a day with bad weather.
You can fly with the windows open as high as you want. Although it might be a little cold at 15,000 feet where the air temps are usually below freezing. But in the jungle, I fly with the windows open a lot if I don't have passengers to cool down.
Hello Sean,
Thanks for the information.
Maybe if i have time i'm going to repaint Alas 14 for Flight Simulator, If its so far i'll let you know.
Best Regards
Javier Vermaas
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