Last Saturday I finally flew a pax - a kid I had been trying to coordinate a flight with via the organization STEM Flights with for months. Great weather and a newly fixed airplane meant we were able to do the flight, which went great. On rollout, however, the nose gear shimmy was more pronounced, with an embarrassingly violent shake (fortunately I had prepared the student for it.)
My A&P suggested we wait a month for the annual to diagnose, but I took to the Cessna 150/152 forum where it was recommended I start with checking the tire inflation. Now while I had added air to the mains to get them to recommended (POH) pressure levels, I hadn’t checked the nose gear tire simply because it looked right. So tonight I went to the airport with the intention of checking the inflation, adding air if needed, and test flying it if it did need air so as to see if the shimmy persisted. Great plan … except for one problem. The valve stem is conveniently located on the side of the tire OPPOSITE from where the wheel pant door is.
Because removing the wheel pant requires removing the netire nose gear tire, there is literally no way for me to air up the tire on my own here. More disturbing is that the pant has been in this position, presumably, since before I owned it - meaning nobody could air up the tire during that time. A friend suggested that at this point the wheel should be balanced as well before flying again, so this is going to require me asking my A&P to remove the wheel pant and tire, then balancing the wheel, and reinstalling.
Which leads to another problem - I'm having doubts about my A&P. You will recall that the noise coming from the mains that I had him look at was resolved with cleaning of the axles, but did not fix the noise. When I asked the A&P about it, he responded that they had heard the noise when towing it as well. Uhm, 1) That's what I brought it in for, and; 2) You didn't think that was worth mentioning to me?
When discussing the prop overhaul on the forums, it was noted that the 3.2 hours of labor I was billed for the prop reinstall was excessive unless a dynamic balance was done. That wasn't mentioned by my A&P, and it's not noted in the log, though I would have wanted one if asked. So now I have to go back and ask why I was billed 3.2 hours of labor when other A&Ps are telling me that anything beyond an hour would be unusual.
So the airplane is grounded again. I don't feel comfortable flying it with the shimmy this strong, and without being able to check the pressure in the nose tire. I'm going to contact the A&P about this, but I expect he's going to tell me to wait until the annual, which would mean the plane sitting for at least 3-4 weeks. Fun.
*As an edit, the A&P called and we chatted - the extra time was for his guy to go pick up the prop in Burlington, so that makes sense, as it's cheaper than the delivery fee. I feel good about that. He also said they'd take a look at the nose gear in the next week or so, so that at least helps with that too. I feel better now.
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