Thankfully the airspeed indicator problem turned out to be a fairly easy fix. There was some blockage in the airline. Debris? Insects? Who knows? Something flew out when air was fed into the tube. That was the easiest fix out of all the problems so I’ll take it. And, thank you rough around the edges mechanic guy!
Having focused on the big things here, I think I forgot to mention the baggage door lock. A trivial, little thing that will be popping up as a continual headache. The original baggage door lock was clearly replaced and not in a good way. Since the plane is 57 years old, who knows what happened to the original lock, but the one on the plane when purchased was not great. If you looked at it wrong or breathed a little too hard while lifting the baggage door, the entire mechanism (screw, barrel, washers, etc.) would all fall out all over the ground. Every time I walked by it I had to reassemble and re-secure it. This was officially the first thing I fixed, but had forgotten about it. I obtained a new one and replaced the internal parts, all was secure.
Now back to the intermittent radio. I was finally able to get an appointment with the avionics guy on site at the airport. The shop seems to be incredibly busy. Remember, I am new to the world of piloting and few to no contacts, so finally getting them to look at the radios was huge, but not worth the headache.
Why the headache? Well, nothing was found. They couldn’t repeat the problem. When checking the radios, it all worked great. I told them kicking up the RPMs might help, but no. Nothing wrong, it all worked perfectly. And, not only did I get to pay them for checking, the radio continued to be a problem until the temperatures warmed up. Thank goodness for handheld radios and future full avionics upgrades!!
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