While visiting Reno this week, I had a situation.  The flaps would not come all the way up, stuck at just about the take-off position after a gas stop in LAS on the way to Reno.  I contorted myself into the baggage compartment only to find that I could not get to my flap microswitches without pulling the flap actuator because of the small tunnel area, so elected to continue on to Reno.  I just pulled the flap circuit breaker and limited myself to 160 indicated.

 

Not so bad for cross country actually…..at 14,500 feet, we were cruising at better than 210 knots true with less than 10 gallons per hour burn with the flaps hanging out at the take-off position.

 

After Reno, I flew to Redmond the same way to get to tools and for some other minor maintenance.  Now for the story:  After fixing the flap problem which was only a micro switch that had jumped the slot it was supposed to stay in on the flap actuator, I flew back to Reno to pick up my wife and continue on. 

 

During the flight to Reno (I usually use my #2 VHF as primary) I switched to #1 VHF to call flight watch for a pilot report.  That’s when things got interesting.  As I keyed my #1 VHF mike switch while on autopilot, my Legacy pitched up violently, and continued it’s nose up angel climb after the mike was unkeyed.  With the autopilot now off, I discovered that the elevator trim was way nose up from where it should be.  I left the autopilot off and tried keying the #1 mike again, and sure enough, I was getting up elevator while keying the mike, in direct proportion to how long the mike was keyed.

 

While continuing on to Reno and thinking about the fact that I had my hands all over the tunnel area pulling the flap actuator and moving a wire bundle to allow me to pull the flap actuator, than re-installing the wire bundle after fixing the flap micro switch, I wondered if I had inadvertently chafed a wire to the elevator trim, or something else equally as stupid.

 

While approaching Reno, I tuned the #1 radio to ATIS, and sure enough, no #1 receiver.  The fix was now somewhat certain in my mind.  I supposed that I would find the #1 antenna connector loose from the antenna.  The # 1 Antenna is mounted under the flap actuator on the bottom of the aircraft where I was working.

 

Next morning, before leaving for LAX, I got into the tunnel again, and found the #1 VHF antenna wire pulled from the Connector, guess it never was seated fully in the connector.  My “maintenance” of the flap actuator had caused it to be inadvertently pulled out of the connector.  When I keyed the mike, although the antenna wire was laying on the fuselage floor over 7 inches from the wire bundle, the RHF power from the transmitter told the elevator up trim to actuate.

 

Quick fix, just had to push the antenna wire into the connector until it “clicked”….it won’t come out again.

 

Good lesson for me, and a somewhat exciting one, I should have looked over the area with a mirror around where I worked carefully before buttoning up the tunnel.  If I had done so, I could clearly have seen the antenna wire loose in the compartment under the flap actuator mechanism. Lesson learned.

 

Ron Brice

N27RM

 

P.S. I left Santa Monica yesterday at 1140 and arrived at my hangar in Missouri exactly 5 hours and 50 minutes later including a gas stop at Tulsa’s Riverside airport. All this at 15,500 while using less than 50 PSI from my Mountain High Oxygen system, and total fuel burn was 68 gallons (two take offs and climbs!).   What an airplane!!!!!!!!!!!