Mexican registration for the 337

XB-HPL and N337JG
Originally uploaded by Skymaster.

Now we are officially mexican! The N337JG is now the XB-IXP... Though that still is to be painted on the plane. Here the plane is shown at Atizapan airport (MMJC) next to its little brother the XB-HPL, a 1999 172R. With the new leather and the registration about to be painted on the tail, we are only a week away from the inagural flight with a mexican tail number... No wonder we are excited!

New leather seats for the 337

New leather seats for the 337
Originally uploaded by Skymaster.

Ok, we did it. The seats were ok, but Andres and I decided to go for the leather in the seats. It looks great! We now have to change some of the plastics and go for new seat belts but it is going to be a really neat machine to fly in!

337JG test flight to Queretaro

AOPA 337
Originally uploaded by Skymaster.

Test flight to MMQT (Queretaro airport). I departed IFR for QET up to 14000 ft. We still had some roughness in the back engine when the fuel flow is not above those indicated by the aircraft manual charts. The front gear vibration problem is gone now and we had an uneventful flight. Andres landed the plane in Queretaro and I did in Atizapan. Shame on me, his landing was better! We love the plane. 1:50 total time.
Oh, yes, the mexican inspector tried to get money from us because the plane has american registration. His name is Dario... avoid him at all costs!

P337 paint scheme

AOPA 337
Originally uploaded by Skymaster.

Maybe in the near future we can change the scheme of our T337 to this original paint scheme by Cessna. Looks neat!

Me and the N337JG

Me and the N337JG
Originally uploaded by Skymaster.

This picture was taken just before making the test-flight for the N337JG on early May. Homebase 00V.

N337JG+Andres

N337JG+Andres
Originally uploaded by Skymaster.

Picture of my friend Andres and the N337JG after a short trip to Queretaro. This is at the 337´s new homebase in MMJC (Atizapan)

New home for the N337JG

Ok, the long trip from Colorado Springs to Atizapán Mexico is over. We finally flew the T337 to our local airport. A description in spanish follows. It refers to May the 13th, 14th and 15th.

SATURDAY 14TH
- Familiarization flight with the plane and avionics. David (friend, instructor and pilot) coached me through several maneuvers including engine failure simulation. Five or Six landing were performed including one with an engine in idle. Total flight duration: 3 hours.
- A short hop from Medow Lake (00V) to Colorado Springs (KCOS) (20 minutes) to pick up Andrés. Our good friend Jeanne was my approach controller into KCOS. Nice sweet voice this woman has!
- KCOS-KLBB-KSAT flight in 2 legs. Noon departure from Colorado Springs, and Jeanne graciously guided us out of Denver-Colorado airspace. Up to 17,500 VFR to clear lousy weather with pretty hogh cumulus formations. Short stop at Lubbock for coffe where Andrés relaxed after experiencing engine roughness on both engines at high altitude. Moderate MP and RPM oscillation on the back engine first, followed on the front engine a couple of minutes later. Solved with the aux pumps on Hi though after some minutes the problem came back. By then we were able to descend to 13,500 and the roughness was gone. Weird... May be a combination of vapor lock and not enough fuel flow was the cause or maybe the magnetos misbehave at high altitude. Will have to find out. No plroblem on the much lower flight from Lubbock to San Antonio, we arrived at dawn, tired but happy. 4 hours total flight time.

SUNDAY 15TH
- ksat-mmrx (1:30, IFR )-mmjc(2:30, VFR). Flights conducted at 11,000ft and at 12,500ft. Same misbehaviour of the engines, specially the rear one... I had the suspicion that the fuel flow in the manual (which we were following) was somehow low for the conditions we were flying, so I increased that flow by about 1 gal/hour and... Problem solved! No punps used. Arrival to Atizapán (MMJC) complicated by haze and fog, as well as by low clouds (1.5 SM). But... Great machine this 337!
- We also experienced increasing vibration in the front landing gear. In Atizapán it was really bad. We later found that the securing bolt of the front gear somehow lost its head and was causing the vibration.
- The avionics, including the GX50, the Argus 5000 along with the digital RMI make a great suite to fly with. We got up to 195mph TAS, but front wind slowed us to 170 KT all the way. Great plane this 337!!!