New Skymaster Owner

[TomM]

Good morning all! I have been lurking for many years and have just reciently become a member as well as a new Skymaster owner. The road to this point has been less than exciting and filled with road blocks. However, you cant kill a dream about owning one of these remarkable aircraft!!

The first road block was the Bells............After talking to them and getting ready to utilize them for my flight training I was all fired up and ready to go! However, when they found out I was still looking for a plane, they offered me the one they have for sale. I respectfully declined as it was not what I wanted. The very next email from them was that any other skymaster will require $50k to make airworthy and that they would not subject their employees to flying an unariworthy aircraft so I better find another instructor.

Injured, but not down I continued on........

Found a plane I liked but couldnt get the price right. However, the owner is the absolute nicest guy you would ever be able to meet. Turns out he is a CFII and even though I didnt buy his plane, he was eager to train me AND has a DPE that will do a center thrust rating......life was looking way better!

Found another plane and ignored the warnign signs......took forever to get the logs, non responsive in general and minimal descriptions in the log entries. But I attributed that to the fact that he was an A&P/IA and figured he took great care regardless of the quality of the log entries. I may have been mistaken about that......

Hired a mechanic for the prebuy and gave him a long list of skymaster specific things to look for. Prebuy came back good with no major issues.

The plane was flown 1.5 hours from its home base to the delivery point. And that was that, with no issues reported. However on the next engine start up, the rear prop would not feather below 2000 rpm, oil pressure was low, brakes didnt work.....all this within 1.5 hours after a prebuy.......and none of these issues are skymaster specific.......seems strange significant items like this would just "pop" up....

Brakes were shot and getting relaced, not a huge deal. The rear engine oil pressure is somewhat bothersome. We are checking the oil pressure relief valve as the oil temp is up as well and since the relief valve is before the oil cooler, that condition tends to increase the oil temp.

I remain undaunted!

Thanks to the members of this group, I have a full budget on stand by for the first few annuals and things like this. I am just hoping the low oil pressure is a quick fix and not an engine tear down.

I was (still am) excited about starting training this weekend if all works out.

After 1500 hrs of SE flying I am really looking forward to becoming one of you guys and continuing to learn more through this site.

Thanks a ton!!