Magic words. Our moms had them. “It will be OK.” And it would be, because she could make it so. She could sharpen a broken crayon, wash finger paint off a wall, and stitch a hole in a blankie. Then we grew up and decided building an airplane would be a fun way to fritter away our free time and dispose of our disposable income. When we over-sized a critical hole in a spar we found airplane building wasn’t in mom’s wheelhouse. She couldn’t make it OK, but she was quick to offer a warm chocolate chip cookie. Mmmmm.
During my career at Sonex I enjoyed dispensing the Magic Words and making it OK for builders. Some Magic Words I could dispense as if I were a wizard with well-practiced spells.
“Kerry, on drawing W01 there are—”
“Yes,” I’d interrupt, “those three holes are tooling holes for rigging the wings. No hardware is permanently installed in them.”
My answer was met with silence before the caller continued, “There are three holes that don’t have hardware callouts. What am I missing?”
Kit manufacturers often know exactly why certain things occur with their products and the corrective action to take: why full elevator travel didn’t happen automatically, why the oil sump contacts the cowl, why a wing spar curves after riveting. But, like mom, support staff won’t always be able to make things OK. There aren’t Magic Words for everything that can happen because it is homebuilding and everything can happen. Homebuilts fly at the intersection of kit quality and build quality. The paths to that intersection are too numerous to count.
No Two Are Alike
Supporting homebuilt aircraft is unlike supporting standard category aircraft. Though a kit invoice or data plate may bear the name “RV-6” or “Panther,” no two are alike. Inevitably there are deviations from the plans. The closer a kit comes to completion, the further it may have drifted from what the designer intended. This is a challenge for tech support staff. When seeking factory support, some owners know to disclose pertinent modifications up front. Other times modifications reveal themselves through interrogation and, often, modifications are simply unknown to a secondhand owner or a hired mechanic, and therefore factory support staff.
Workmanship and attitude also come into play. One builder might be well-seasoned in many of the skills required for success but apply them lazily. Another may blurt out, “You don’t understand, I’ve never tightened a nut in my life.” (True story.) I found there was little correlation between skill and success; a skilled builder may be more likely to veer from the plans and less likely to accept corrective guidance. An unskilled builder may approach each part with great care and caution and be less likely to accept “that will be fine” when seeking factory support.
The Call for Help
Every time I opened an email or answered a call, I was unaware of what the question or problem may be. The builder may have already spent hours on the problem, or invested no effort at all, but I was always jumping in cold. There were questions I’d have to ask to establish my footing. I couldn’t always incant Magic Words before a question was finished. (In fact, answers weren’t always available by the end of a call. Some problems required extensive post-call investigation.) When I’d ask someone with a hot engine about landing gear fairings, instrument settings, or what propeller they had, they didn’t always think I was listening. They didn’t understand I was filtering knowledge I had gathered from the factory floor, my own experience building and flying the product, and the experiences of hundreds of builders whose problems I had been exposed to over the years. If I had ignored all known reasons for an issue I would have been doing them a disservice. Every question tech support asks, every bit of information a builder can provide, brings both closer to the Magic Words.
The cause of a problem may lie in the nether regions between parts and plans, between tools and techniques, or between building EXACTLY to plans and a modification thought to be irrelevant. There may be an error in a weight and balance calculation, an offset thrust angle, or the all-too-common assumption that something should be other than it is.
It may be a misread dimension, a mislabeled rib, or a supplier’s change to a raw material’s specification, as was the case when common 6061-T6 aluminum angle extrusions used in the Sonex began appearing with a larger inside corner radius than parts were designed for. It can be difficult for support staff to figure out why one builder has, for instance, a lot of flat tires when the fleet at large doesn’t. The customer may be convinced it’s the parts—and it may very well be their parts—but support staff can’t inspect them over the phone or through email. They have to rely on the overall history of the parts in play. A problem could be … well, that’s the problem, a problem could be so many things—some not so obvious.
Forgive Me an Anecdote
When we were all much younger than we are now, I performed a tuneup on my British sports car prior to a trip. I adjusted the valves, the timing, and the mixture and synchronized the dual carbs. When I was done the car ran worse. During follow-up troubleshooting I found manipulating the choke seemed to improve how the engine ran. Convinced I had made custard of my carburetor adjustments, and pressed for time by the encroaching departure deadline, I took the car to a foreign car specialist. They found a loose ground wire on the aftermarket electronic ignition. I must have bumped the wire, which was near the distributor, and compromised the connection while setting the timing. There is no way they could have diagnosed that over the phone (nor would they—we in homebuilding are spoiled by seemingly endless, and free, factory tech support) unless they asked all the right questions (electronic ignition was not original to the car) or I provided information I thought was irrelevant. Also—and this is a big one—I would have had to trust them if they told me on the phone it wasn’t the carburetors. There’s no point seeking qualified help if you’re going to ignore their advice. (Let the record show my tuning was bang on, other than the knackered ground wire.)
The Magic Has Limits—At Some Point You Must Solo
The day will come when you must dig in and figure something out for yourself because the problem requires hands-on, on-scene investigation. It will require some combination of measuring, tightening, loosening, metering, trimming, seeing, trying, and quiet head-scratching. It may require distilling information gathered from numerous sources into a resolution that appeases your specific issue. And it may require luck.
After an engine tuneup, a customer’s EFIS went blank when the engine’s RPMs were increased. The instrument manufacturer, he told me, said it was probably an over-voltage issue. The product I supported, the engine, could only over-volt if the alternator or voltage regulator were bad. Both tested fine. This left the owner to find the cause without definitive guidance. It took time. Not hours kind of time, but days kind of time. As is often the case when maintenance or repairs are performed, the problem was caused by something that had been disturbed or replaced. In this case, a new CHT probe was the culprit. Still, the reason a CHT probe caused the EFIS issue remains a mystery, at least to me and the owner.
When a challenge turns into frustration the fun gets funneled away. In those moments I recommend stepping back (clean your shop, walk your dog—I went for runs) and approaching the problem with fresh eyes and a fresh attitude. Clear away assumptions and confirm that the parts are correct and the plans have been followed. Another helpful technique is to bring in a friend and let them look things over—but don’t influence their investigation with your thinking and conclusion. Let them come to their own conclusion. Because of the custom nature of homebuilts it can be difficult to find a local A&P willing to work on them. This is a topic worthy of its own column, so here I’ll say only that you shouldn’t assume someone who is willing to take your money to sort your problem is qualified to do so. An A&P license doesn’t automatically bestow knowledge applicable to the unique world of homebuilding. Even if you find a well-qualified A&P, you may end up paying hundreds of dollars for them to sort your undocumented wiring harness.
Building Is the Reward
Without question, Magic Words are comforting. But one of the rewards of building an airplane doesn’t come from effortlessly assembling a box of parts. Homebuilding is not on par with assembling a pressboard TV stand, which is a means to an end. Building an airplane—each individual task—is its own reward. The most satisfying are those that come from rising above the individual challenges. When you do, when you conjure the magic yourself, the satisfaction can be greater than when things go well. You were challenged and you rose to meet the challenge. Congratulations, experimenter.
I give tech support to builders every day. Two things drive me nuts:
1. They sometimes call the front the back or the left the right. I have had one guy tell me, “what you call the front, I call the back.” Frankly, that’s not how it works.
2. They sometimes make up words for a subassembly. For instance, the center section on a biplane is not called the “diving board.”
No, I am not making this up. Unfortunately, these two habits frustrate everyone involved and cause LOTS of confusion.
It’s not an easy job. You have to be a mind reader and often you become the target of a builder’s personal frustration. There should be a group dedicated to supporting people who support homebuilders.
A really outstanding article. Lots of patience and smarts evidenced. When that “problem” emerges, taking time and distance from it is top notch advice. The correct answer often comes a ways down the road. What looks black is sometimes white or vice versa.