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[January 19, 2014]


My annual is due on the RV-7 by the end of January, so today was the day to start it. I start the annual with doing an oil change and compression check, both which prefer the engine to be hot. The best way to warm up the engine is to warm it up! I took a quick flight over to Clearview airport. This served 3 purposes - warmed up the airplane, got cheap gas ($0.27/Gallon less than my homebase) and picked up a case of oil.


I am sticking with AeroShell 15w-50 for now.


Clearview is a very interesting airport to land at. 1900' long and landing west is downhill! Quick challenging and fun to land at.


Oil change in progress.


I finally mastered changing the filter without spilling a drop!


The compression check ended up being great. Two cylinders at 79/80, one at 78/80 and the other at 77/80. I am very happy with these numbers.


This is a new drill I bought for the annual. Over the past couple of years I have tried a couple of drills. The first year I used a Craftsman 4V Lithium Ion drill. It was small and lightweight, but it didn't have much power. Last year I used a DeWalt 18V drill with a NiCd battery. The Dewalt was plenty powerful, but it was extremely heavy and fairly large. I did some research this year and came up with this drill - the Black and Decker LDX120C 20 Volt Lithium Ion powered drill. It was $60 on Amazon and it received great reviews. I used it briefly today, and it is quite nice. Perfect weight and size, and it plenty of power and speed. It took no time at all for the plenum to come off! I am looking forward to putting this drill through its paces for the rest of the annual. Without a doubt, the worst thing in my opinion about the annual is taking off all of the plethora of screws.

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Last Modified: August 13, 2023