Stuck

 Last week, when I put the hangar door down, the motor did not stop when it touched the ground.  I was standing there so I manually hit stop. This was bad and potentially dangerous.  I mentioned it to management so when I went out 8 days later, I had assumed someone had looked at it.  Well that was a pretty dumb assumption.

I have a routine when I get to the hangar.  I unlock the door, hit up on the door,  put my flying bag on the wing and check the oil because if it's low I want to start adding it.  So bag is on the wing and door is slowly rising and then, it stops.  It is open about 3 feet.  No way the plane is sliding under that thing.  

I gave a call to line service and they said they will come look.  I tried cycling the door down and up and same thing.  Doesn't stop going down and does on the way up.  This is bad as I haven't got to fly in a week due to that really crummy weather we've had and now with one week left to annual, the plane is stuck in the hangar.

Line service comes, looks and says, the door isn't opening.  While that is correct, it wasn't too helpful.  They do call management which gets the ball rolling.  As a child I learned that "RIF", reading is fundamental.  I surmise the issue is not the door or the motor but rather the limit switches.  Theses were set decades ago and have worked perfectly but now the indexing is off.  I pop the cover and luckily the instructions are in the box.  The shaft looks like its rotating correctly so it must be an internal fault.  I think it's the worm gear drive slipping as it's impacting both indexes but that gear is hidden.  

Luckily we hatch a plan, re-index the up limit wheel.  This works and the door rises, and the plane is free.  There was much rejoicing.  Once the plane is out we try to put the door down and now, it's stuck up.  This is better than stuck down but still a problem.  They pull out the lift as the limit switch box is now 15 feet in the air.  They re-index the down and then  the door comes back down.  The plane is now enjoying other hangars while they get a replacement switch.

I did get out flying and knocked the rust off.  It was a great day and  I even got a bit of radar practice in with the storms offshore.  XM weather says it's raining 90 miles away and my radar sees the same thing.  Note the 0 degree tilt to keep from shooting over the storm.  At 90 miles each degree brings the beam up about 9900 feet.  I also have little clutter as I am over the water.

Sunday, I took my brother and nephew for a ride.  Today I worked on instrument approaches to freshen my currency.  It was a mostly VFR days with patches of IFR so I filed and shot 3 approaches at Saint Augustine heading back.  The controller really slam dunked me on the GPS 14, approach to home. 

I passed the FAF on glideslope but still too fast for gear.  Luckily the Baron is a champ and reducing power and going slightly high got me under gear speed.  From there is was an easy ride to an acceptable arrival.  Being stuck was no fun but glad we got it all sorted and hopefully I will have a new switch soon.  Cramming the last bit of flying in with this great weather.