Pro tip: check your cooling fans BEFORE a long weekend trip

Last Friday I walked into the hangar for a quick preflight on a King Air 200 and noticed a weird smell right away. Opened up the avionics bay and one of the blower fans was completely locked up, plastic housing was starting to melt. Got lucky because I caught it before any real heat damage to the boxes. Had to order a replacement from a shop in Wichita, cost me about $180 and 3 days of waiting. Anyone else had a fan fail on a Garmin or Collins setup like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

simoncarr4d ago

Man, that smell is the worst. It's that hot electronics smell mixed with burning plastic and you just know something's not right. You definitely got lucky catching the locked fan before it took out a whole box. Those king air blowers can be a real pain to get to sometimes, too. A melted housing on a weekend trip would have been a real headache. Sounds like you saved yourself a much bigger bill and a lot of headache.

beth_stone4d ago

@simoncarr, did your buddy ever have a fan seize midflight and lose half his radios?