I’ve been writing for FLYING going on 12 years now, and on the whole it’s been a fantastic chapter of my life. Through this column I’ve met some really interesting people and flown some pretty cool airplanes.
There are, however, a few notable downsides to the gig. One is that my words, once unleashed upon the larger pilot population, are permanently out there, and I occasionally find myself eating them. Another is that I write about ongoing flying adventures, and if they subsequently go pear-shaped, my options are fessing up or hoping my sharp-eyed readers don’t notice the sudden radio silence. Fat chance.
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In December/Issue 953, I wrote of my preference for “Wicked Old Birds,” avowing that their various charms outweigh their many vices (including engines that are “often less reliable and require more maintenance”). I penned those words in early October on a sailboat in Croatia. The week prior, my wife, Dawn, and I had flown our 1946 Stinson 108 from Washington state to Minnesota.
We had excellent weather with a healthy tailwind, and the plane didn’t miss a beat over two days and 12 hours of flying. We were starting to regain some of the trust we had lost after breaking a rocker arm in northern British Columbia last spring (“That Shaky Feeling,” November 2024/Issue 951). Upon our return from Europe, I took my nonagenarian grandmothers flying (“The Promise,” January 2025/Issue 954), and then turned the Stinson’s homely beak westward for the long flight back to Washington.
She’s still not home.
The trip went smoothly across the Dakotas and Montana. Dawn and I stopped for the night in Bozeman (KBZN), and the next day made good progress until Wenatchee, Washington (KEAT). There we were stopped short by crummy weather across the Cascades. We actually took a cursory look at Stampede Pass and beat a quick retreat, a decision that was sadly affirmed when a Navy EA-18G Growler crashed in the area that same afternoon.
The following day, the passes were still socked in, so we detoured 90 minutes south to the Columbia River Gorge, a sea-level passage through the mountains. After brunch in Troutdale, Oregon (KTTD), the weather up Washington’s central valley had improved enough to depart for our last leg north to Bremerton.
We didn’t get very far. We had just flown over a friend’s house in Woodland, Washington, when the engine abruptly started backfiring and running very roughly, with rpm varying between 1,500 and 2,200. There was a large open field immediately below us, but it looked rather wet and soft. I made a few circles while troubleshooting, then decided the engine was putting out enough juice to limp to nearby Woodland State Airport (W27). I can’t say it was the right call, because as we approached the strip, we lost most power, and there was a heavy rain shower, and I only saw the 2,200-by-25 runway at the last moment.
An uncomfortably radical slipping turn got us down on centerline and stopped with room to spare. The engine was running so roughly that I shut it down on the runway, and we got out in the rain to manually push the plane clear. Dawn was admirably calm considering she had just experienced her second emergency landing in five months—and a somewhat spicy one
at that.
A bit of troubleshooting revealed a stuck exhaust valve—and subsequent broken rocker arm—on the No. 4 cylinder. A local mechanic friend came to the rescue and helped me pull the jug. The exhaust valve looked pretty toasty. I’m at a bit of a loss. I’ve never been too aggressive about leaning the mixture, and there weren’t any conditions where you would expect the cylinder to get very hot in the last 20 hours or so. I’ve been running avgas, though, and old Franklins are somewhat infamous for valve problems on 100LL.
Dawn and I rented a car and ignominiously drove home, while my friend took the cylinder to a shop to replace the exhaust valve and guide. (Thankfully, upper-end parts are still available for Franklins, though lower-end stock is getting rare.) A week later, we met back at Woodland to reinstall the cylinder. The test run and flight went well. Leak check complete, I took off and climbed to 4,500 feet for the quick flight home.
- READ MORE: Experiencing That Shaky Feeling
I only made it halfway before a distinct vibration presented itself along with a slight loss of power. I figured we messed something up on the reinstall, and not wishing to go for a three-peat, made a precautionary landing at nearby Chehalis-Centralia Airport (KCLS). Finding a local Franklin mechanic took a few days. When Craig and I started troubleshooting in earnest, the problem wasn’t the reinstalled No. 4 cylinder at all, but a completely new culprit—a poorly seating, sticky exhaust valve on the No. 6 cylinder.
We duly pulled the jug, and I took it to a local shop to grind the valve seat. There the old-school cylinder guru found the valve guide right at wear limits. Supposedly, all the exhaust valve guides had been replaced when the engine had been overhauled before my ownership but a mere 130 hours ago. The guru shook his head: “Shouldn’t be that worn.”
There had been a few other things that made me think the overhaul perhaps wasn’t quite as advertised. And now as Craig and I rechecked the compression in the remaining cylinders, we found that the top spark plug helicoil inserts in the Nos. 3 and 5 cylinders wouldn’t stay in place. The threads in the aluminum cylinder heads were largely stripped. This is common in Franklins when unfamiliar mechanics use Lycoming spark plug torque
values, but I had been present every time the plugs had been torqued to the correct 15-20 foot-pounds. Suddenly, I have at least two cylinders that need overhauled, but more probably the lot—and at this point, I’m doubting whether even the bottom-end overhaul was legit. There’s no way we would ever feel comfortable flying around the rugged Northwest behind this engine (to say nothing of planned adventures to Alaska and Mexico) without a complete teardown and inspection.
In the middle of all this, I got a shock call: My A&P/IA for the last several years, Scott Bethke, had died of cancer. I didn’t even know he was sick—apparently only a few close friends knew. He had returned the calls about my Franklin woes until the final week, suggesting he was too busy to get down to Chehalis but offering suggestions and moral support. I was stunned and saddened that I never got to say goodbye and that I was so wrapped up in my engine problems that I didn’t notice any suffering in his voice. I really enjoyed working with Scott during the Stinson’s annuals. He was patient and taught me a lot. His passing leaves an ache in my heart.
This story doesn’t have a happy ending—not yet, anyways. The Stinson is still sitting in a shade hangar in Chehalis, four months after I put it there. My own hangar sits pitifully empty. I had plans to pull the Stinson’s wings and bring it home on a trailer, and then I got word of a possible donor Franklin in eastern Washington, newly overhauled by a reputable shop. I’m waiting on more details before I pull the trigger on that. I don’t want to throw more good money after bad.
Part of my conundrum is that I’ve done enough cross-country and mountain-flying work with the Stinson at this point to know that it’s not our forever airplane. A Cessna 180 is truly what we need to do the kind of exploring we want to tackle. But this Stinson is a nice enough airplane that I want to see it return to the skies, preferably before I sell it. We’ll see how things shake out.
This column first appeared in the April Issue 957 of the FLYING print edition.
