Hey guys,

On a trip in my Arrow 180R from FL to CA. Had to divert in Louisiana due to some stutter/stumble in cruise flight. Power was at 25" and 2,500RPM, boost pump off. ~1350EGT 350CHT. Sumped the fuel prior to departure found no water. This has happened prior, but not as obvious, on a completely different fuel fill. Mechanic looked at all the spark plugs, mag timing and then 8 min into another flight it happened again- its almost like the engine wants to stall/quit for just a second then goes back to running fine. This time I noticed a fuel flow drop from 12gal/hr to 10gal/hr. No boost was running, full rich on the mixture. Mechanic just took a look at the fuel screens and injectors and found no issues. Next he will check the engine driven pump pressure. Im far from home unfortunately! Any ideas where to look next?

Thank you.

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Putting the Apache back in the hangar.

Today was going to be a fun day to fly to Triple Tree. However, early low ceilings and later rain put a damper on that. So my buddy Brent that is going to Triple Tree with me agreed to put it off until Saturday. We think that will be a better day anyway. Originally I wasn't able to go on Saturday but that has opened up.

So.... Since I couldn't go to the fly-in at Triple Tree I got to work with my mechanic on the plane today. We got the final parts put in for the nacelle screws as there had been a few that needed attention. Then we put our attention on the fuel gauge switch. After adjusting it we think we have cured the "flaky" gauge. The microswitch needed adjustment. Also, the right fuel tank selector lever was very stiff. After playing with it we decided it was the cable itself that was dragging. So we lubricated it and worked it a bit. So far that seems to help so we will wait and see how it goes for now but it looks like that is taken care of. HOWEVER, in digging into the underneath of the plane we found the aileron cables are starting to touch on the sheet metal that forms the rear of the footwell. No issue yet but that is not something to ignore. So that will get attention very soon. I am always careful to do my control checks and I will be extra attentive to them for now. But I don't see any issue right now.

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Liked the June article on the Lance! 1978...Liked the June article on the Lance! 1978 straight tail, no turbo. Great cabin room, but burns a lot of fuel to go 145kts Show more