That Was the Year that Was

Peter Garrison

Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 09:59 PM ET

Verified

** Although it's been flying for 11 years, Melmoth 2
remains a work in progress.**

Key Takeaways:

The author details a year spent tackling several technical challenges on his homebuilt aircraft, including a persistent high oil temperature, pitch control friction in the elevator, and a major modification to reverse the engine's intake manifold.
The long-standing issue of elevated oil temperature was ultimately resolved by discovering a "silly error" – the author had been mistakenly reading induction air temperature instead of oil temperature due to an unlabeled selector switch.
The article highlights the iterative, often frustrating, and time-consuming nature of maintaining, troubleshooting, and improving a custom-built experimental aircraft.

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I am writing this on Dec. 31, 2014. On this day some people prepare resolutions. I catalog regrets.

At this time a year ago I was racking my brain over an apparent rise in oil temperature in my homebuilt, which has an updraft-cooled Continental TSIO-360 engine. This is an airplane I designed and built and that I spend a few hours each week coaxing toward perfection, not that it’s in any danger of getting there.