Video: Meet the Summit Series Standard – Cosmetics of the Pilatus
Script from Video:
Hey everybody it’s Bub! Every year we have 3 or 4 or 5 different projects that involve what we would call “non-JetSwiss Standard” airplanes. And, what that means is that we have this OCD way of making sure an aircraft we deliver to our clients is the best it can be. So, this one just came back from its pre-purchase inspection but we haven’t had a chance to do our Summit Series Standard. What that means is, again, making the airplane the best it can possibly be.
Exterior Cosmetics
One of the really good spots that gets some rocks and chips and so forth is the wing fairing area. Many aircraft have 3M guard already placed on there. And that is helpful to minimize the effects of rocks and chips and so forth. But this fairing right here is a typical fairing we address quite often with airplanes that have been in the field for a while. This will be one area that we will address and corresponding on the starboard side of the aircraft as well. Another area is anything thats taken the wind rain or ice etc. This area here on the wingtip is going to receive a little bit of abuse. That’s static discharge. Static electricity and energy after going through clouds for quite a while will actually cause a little chip in paint that looks like it got hit by a rock. So getting these lenses either buffed or cleared and cleaned out. A lot of times we’ll end up, you can see the strobe light right here on the side, a lot of times… go ahead and cut because we have company.
Aircraft Interior Experts in Our Area
Jim is our leather and soft goods and recondition guy. He takes the original condition and it is stained, it has pen marks, its worn out and soforth and he turns it into brand new. its magical. he’s one of really 2 or 3 of you that have the background in the entire country we are blessed to have this resources right here in Kansas city. In this project. we are going to remove all the seats, we’re going to remove the interior and he’s going to recondition all of it. it will look like brand new.
More PC-12 Exterior Places to Address
Alright. Here we are kids. This little rascal is a rascal. This little guy right there. Those stacks lets just say they might be beyond a condition that we can bring back to life. It’s one of those things. We’ve had those areas. We can remove them. We can get them buffed out an so forth. but probably going to leave those. one of the other areas the spinner right there of course. we can turn this into brand new looking lot of times we will dress the prop if it hasnt been dressed or didnt have it dressed at the pre purchase inspection get it tidied up. you can tell a lot about a prop. Little sidebar. on how the airplane was flown if it looks like a bunch of hamsters chewed on it every day. These areas Here you can mess with them all you want but you’re just going to come back with the same kind of issue. you can see kinda here if you come around here Claire you can see the Frankenstein effect if you will right here and thats just because heat is coming out of this stack right here from this exhaust stack going directly into here which is why this gets discolored over time. Nature of the beast. All PC-12s have it. We’ll polish the spinner and get it looking good. we can polish this in that lip but it will get it looking nicer than it does now. Another area that sometimes we end up touching up is this vent right here for the air cycle machine we mentioned this already as well. the wing faring this ones got some war wounds a little bit. so we would have the 3M coating taken off and have that area shot.
Painting The PC-12
Ok, here we are with our 2013 model its got about 3000 hrs on it. This is all kind of before at some point were going to come back with the after, before and after of this its kind of like a home remodeling show if you will. it has been washed believe it or not. it just come out of an inspection at a Pilatus Service Center. So the boots have been dressed. all along this area if you follow this little laser here all that gets is carbon soot from the exhaust stack obviously. so over time that soot will eat itself into the finish of the paint and it will start to oxidize it and look dull etc. Our crew, they will be here for three days on the airplane and they will go detail every little last inch of the airplane with a high speed buffer. to remove all that oxidation and then they’ll come back with a ceramic coat ceiling… uh… sealant. and a wax after that that will pop everything out. and then that will preserve the paint moving forward. this is a 10 year old paint job. Ironically enough I knew this airplane when it was a baby and first born. You can blame me on the color scheme. That’s one thing I don’t know if you can see it or not. Maybe farther away you can see it where it just looks kind of dull. you can see how dull it is right there. It’s dull. See how dull it is on the door. You can see how dull it is right there. It’s dull. Right? It’s not shiny. That’s an area that were going to do kids.
Wingtips, Light Covers and Bullet Fairings
Ok here we are on the starboard side of the aircraft. Like I said earlier is you know you’re going to have a little spot usually right here with this wingtip. Another area right here you can see this is probably going to need to be addressed sooner than later, you’re actually getting a little bit of corrosion slash rust looking so its exposed. so that needs to be sealed up and painted and repainted and so forth. we see sometimes and we don’t see it on this one because I think we may have replaced it or buffed it out. is the recognition lights cover get really dull kinda like an old car head light if you will if you’ve seen that kind of like an old Honda or something like that. So we have a way, we can remove those we can refinish those and get those clear again. Thats another good area to address. And then of course the canoes here. These flap track fairings. These are easily removed. We can shoot those sometimes if they’ve got scars and chips on them and so forth. Not a big deal. Easy to do. Ready? We’re going to go up. Kinda wrapping up the outside and areas we like to address that will bring it back to life. ‘Cause it’s a beautiful aircraft. It’s in really pretty good shape for the amount of how old it is and how much time it’s been flying. It just needs a little bit of love. And uh, once we do that, seal up and preserve the paint, it will be fantastic. But the last thing I was going to call you attention to was the bullet fairing up there. If you can see that up there where I’m laser pointing. Gosh, I’m so glad I found this in my truck. You’re going to get a lot of wounds and scars up there. Again another area thats easy to just remove that bullet fairing, we can remove it here in our facility. Take it to another facility, have it painted, have it shot. So it’s not super, super expensive by flying the airplane several hundred miles or whatever to get it addressed. We’re here in Kansas. We’ve got great facilities very very close by that can address it and make it look really good. So. That’s it for the outside!
Interior Cosmetics
Let’s go inside because again this is a 10 year old aircraft with 3000 hours on it. We found a little bit of interesting about kind of the 2013, 2014 model year kinda have some issues with discoloration in the upper side wall and headliner finish of the wood will crack this has got a matte finish it doesn’t have a gloss finish so it doesn’t show itself as much but why don’t we come in here and ill take a peek at what were talking about you may not be able to see it but we will try alright so here we are on the inside. First thing. It happens a lot. this little booger right here. this one drives me crazy. so normal shade looks great start to roll it up and it gets all boogered up like that. you might get someone that says, a shop that says, “Ugh! You know we gotta replace that!” That’s easy to replace. Well it’s not easy you’ve got to take the interior out and the sidewalls but at the end of the day, this is an easy, at home, DYI, D, DIY? Do it yourself? It’s an easy do-it-yourselfer, I’m not going to tell you the trick, but you can address it, and most guys will know what it is, but we’ll get this and we’ll address it. so it properly accordions up like that. We’ve got some discoloration here, but generally speaking everything you see in the upper sidewall and headliner was one point white and now it’s yellow and what that is, is thats the adhesive behind here that hold it on the panel itself. It’s bleeding through. So we will get this and we’ll refinish and recondition so it looks like brand new in addition to that. we will come and look at the wood and we will get the wood finished we can remove all the wood and have it redone this is kind of dull and it will look brand new as well. If there is any leather like this, we can get that reglued and so forth. The seats will get redone. Heres a great example, I dont know if can come over to that chair, Claire and you can see. This is supposed to be white, but right next to it, you can see the difference in the tones this one is really bad we see this a lot actually lately for you know, 10 year old airplanes 2013, 2014 model years we’ve seen this particular issue. So well try to address that as well so everything is consistent. We will bring back the interior of the aircraft to close to as looking new as we can. the perverbial pen marks! Oh my gosh, what do you do with those?! Everybody’s a magic cocktail to get rid of them. I’m here to tell you whatever you have as your magic cocktail to get rid of it, it never fully does. The only way to address it is to completely strip it down and recondition it and re-dye that area. Or replace the whole panel. So there’s your nice blue pen marks and we’ll address that as well. There’ll be little cracks that you can see. Wood finish. Right here guys. It’s not smooth. You know in order to do it right you’d want to remove it. And get it… I don’t know it just depends. If you’re going to go and fix up the house if you will, I don’t think i would stop with not finishing those types of things. It’s been lived in. But it can be completely brought back. Just a matter of some time and a little bit of money to get it done.
Value of Refurbishing Your Pilatus
But I’ll use the house analogy: Remodeling your kitchen and then selling your house 3 or 4 years later, that’s a good investment. Those are good dollars spent. You’re going to get you best return on the value of your home by doing. that. I’m not saying it’s dollar for dollar in an airplane, but it certainly is. Because we know that 80% of the folks that are going to buy this airplane at some point in the future, they want something that’s nice. They want something that doesn’t look weathered, that is cosmetically pleasing condition etc. That has the kind of color scheme… We know that if we spend a couple dollars here, and we make it, and bring it up to what we call a Summit Series Standard, you’ll be proud to sit in it, you’ll be proud to show your friends. You wont think that its a 10 year old airplane with 3000 hours on it. So. More to come. Ok so thats our review of Before and we ll get back to you later with after effects of bringing and airplane to a JetSwiss standard. That’s one of the differentiators that makes us who we are .
If you’ve got any questions, if you want to talk about any of the things that you’ve seen in this video or other topic matters regarding Pilatus in general. Give us a call. Fill out a form. Thanks for shtopping by.