Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bob McDonald on April 19, 2020 at 6:24am

Starlings are the worst offenders. Engine compartment nest are the smoky one if you don't find them. Mouse nests are corrosive and need a good cleaning.

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Permalink Reply by John Waldrip on April 19, 2020 at 11:09am

Not sure what type of bird it is. My wife said it was probably a wren or a sparrow. 

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Permalink Reply by Jim and Amelia Isaacs on April 19, 2020 at 7:00am

Yes clean that nest out of there or you will have bird droppings all over your airplane including areas that you may miss, and those droppings are bad for your paint.

I notice by the self locking nut the 801 must use a bushing bearing on the elevator horn pass through, the 701 does not and instead uses a drilled bolt with castle nut and cotter pin.

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Permalink Reply by John Waldrip on April 19, 2020 at 11:08am

Yes this is an 801 that I purchased. Does everything look Kosher?

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Permalink Reply by Zenith Aero on April 20, 2020 at 9:16am

Make sure to preflight properly under the engine cowl for bird nests. They can literally start appearing in a few hours at certain times of the year and can be a fire risk

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Permalink Reply by John Waldrip on April 20, 2020 at 10:39am

   Yes I will certainly pay attention to the birds. My wife just happened to see the bird flying out. You need a ladder

to get up to the tail and see in there. I don't think it would have been a hazard to flight. It was in front of where the cables exit.  Engine compartment would be way worse. 

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Permalink Reply by Joe Spencer on April 21, 2020 at 9:05pm

It's not only outside. Just as bad in the hangar. Around here, wrens are the worst. They will build a nest on the engine and I have found one built into the exhaust stacks. Bout the time you break ground the thing will catch fire. Every spring it's look for the wren nests.

22 with rat shot won't knock holes in the hangar roof.

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Permalink Reply by John Waldrip on April 21, 2020 at 10:27pm

Yes fire not good. That's another reason I want to put quick release Dzeus fasteners on the cowl. So You can remove it and replace it quickly. 

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Permalink Reply by Rodger Rinker on April 22, 2020 at 10:56pm

For the engine compartment, the simple fix is to make a set of cowl plugs that you 'use' when parked.  They can be connected with a cord that passes around the prop so that if you forget to take them out, the prop will if you start up, & just being a chunk of foam will not hurt anything.  Only time that ever happened to me was when I did a start up to just taxi a ways....didn't have the cord trick on then, but no harm done.  Wouldn't work out good to take off with them in.  

The ability for birds to get into the airframe and build nests definitely needs to dealt with, especially near control surfaces.  Holes like that need to be blocked somehow.

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Permalink Reply by John Waldrip on April 23, 2020 at 1:09am

Yes I need to get some cowl plugs. But they can always fly in from the bottom. 

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Permalink Reply by Rodger Rinker on April 23, 2020 at 12:48pm

I've had several nests built in the cowl over the years, but the access was always from the front opening.  They liked to land on the prop and walk right in.  When I kept that covered I never had one want to come in through the bottom.  This was at our local airport, and the problem bird there was starlings. Not a bad idea to cover the bottom though.  Maybe another kind of bird might act different?  Harder to deal with checking the bottom on preflight.  It only takes one time to forget, to wreck an engine.  

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