Yesterday I flew down with my instructor/friend Martina along with Henry in his vintage Comanche to pick up Miss Behavin’ at Montgomery Field in San Diego, Ca.

She looked wonderful with her new tanks and I couldn’t wait to crank her up. She started just fine but when I idled her for a moment at 1000 rpm she would just stall . After two tries at this I pulled Mike over from Spider Aircraft Service, who installed the tanks, to check her out.

She would only stay on with the auxiliary pump on and was blowing smoke.

Mike told me that the first night he tested the pumps on the auxiliary tanks he saw leakage (This was the first time that had happened to him in 30 some years). This required him to get some new parts from Flint which fixed the leak. Sounds like maybe some contaminants got into the engine fuel pump and fuel filter. He did not crank the engine since installing the tanks.  I’ll know more today when I talk to Mike this morning.

Needless to say I’m not too happy and I’m a little worried.

On a more pleasant note, it had been three decades since I was in a Comanche and it was a sweet ride from the back seat. Henry was taking a long overdue IFR lesson with Martina. It was fun to see how a pilot has to work without a Garmin 1000.

I really love my glass panels they’re amazing. Once you’ve flown a Garmin 1000 with integrated autopilot you can’t go back in my humble opinion.

Thank goodness for friends and a flight taxi home.