A Survey Pilot's Photo Journal

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Major Oil Leak?

I jumped out of my flying machine this morning after landing in Sierra Vista and was astonished at the large puddle of fresh oil underneath the nose of my airplane. Within 5 minutes of shutting down the engine almost a half quart of fresh clean oil was on the ground. Everything in flight seemed ok, but maybe something was not. I spent almost an hour investigating every nook and cranny that I could look into, but nothing in the engine compartment looked abnormal... I checked the oil dipstick and it was at 11 quarts, the same as when I took off. However I did notice the oil on the dipstick looked warn-in, but the oil on the ground looked brand new. This got me thinking and I checked the nose cargo bay where I found the culprit of the oil slick, a new quart of oil with an inch-long gash in its plastic container caused when I unknowing pushed the bottle with my sunshades into an exposed sheet metal screw. Crisis averted.

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