I wrapped up the 10th annual on the RV tonight with about 611 hours on the plane. The plane has been virtually flawless during the past decade, but there are always some items that need to be repaired or replaced.
First up is the tires. I’m a little surprised I got 10 years out of the original set, but I’ve always let it roll out on landing and avoided heavy braking where possible. I did flip them to opposite wheels at one point to even out the wear, but they were pretty well worn now, so I decided to replace them. Here you can see the new tire on the left with the original tire beside it.
The snorkel had a bunch of cracking paint and flaking filler, so I removed it and sanded it back to the bare fiberglass before repainting it. I originally applied filler and sanded it to make it smooth, but the filler was delaminating. I’m not sure why it didn’t bond better, but it should be more robust now.
Finally, I replaced the air filter. These K&N filters are supposed to be lifetime filters, but some of the wires were starting to break on my old one for some reason.
