Grubby
11-28-2004, 10:06 PM
Great Saturday to fly (Nov 20th) - engine was due for a decarb so I decided to take it up to Clyde's and do it there. We did the decarb, ran it up to temp and checked it - everything's fine. Weather's great - must be time to fly.
We took off and Clyde was filming with his new camera. We typically fly down the White River canyon and it's usually pretty low over the river. Lots of trees, lots of bluffs - but a very neat ride down the river. We had been out about 40 minutes or so and I was leading down the river.
I heard/felt something as I was cruising five feet or so over the water. River was maybe 60 feet wide and the left bank was higher than I was with trees. River was pretty deep in the main channel and flowing good so I decided land anywhere was preferable. I turned to the right and there was a lower bank with shrubs and small saplings. Soon as I started the turn, the engine quit. I hit both steering bars to flare and I was down on the island. Nice gentle stop, chute up in the saplings - nothing hurt, not a scratch.
Had it gone down on the water, I suspect it would have pitched forward and over and I'd have been upside down in the river with the chute over and in front of me - not a pleasant thought. Wasn't anytime to unbuckle and bail out.
From the time the engine missed until I was down was probably less than 10 seconds - maybe closer to five. Quick little incident - we've flown this river lots of times and many, many times I've had that little "what would you do if the enginee quit" thought. Probably should have paid more attention to that - but then I'd have missed a fair amount of fun too. Oh well.
Spent the rest of the afternoon waiting on Clyde and Steve to find me and lead me out of the canyon. Closed road was half a mile as the crow flies and up a pretty steep bluff. We went back the next day with a tractor - with five guys and lots of gutsy tractor driving (I didn't know a tractor was capable of doing some of that), we got the machine out by noon and back to the hangar. Thanks guys!
Turns out one of the circlips came out and scored up the cylinder wall, piston, rotary valve and rotary valve shaft. Looks like the crank is OK. A less expensive lesson than it could have been - both to me and the machine.
Will I do the flight again - probably. Was I lucky - you bet. My wife keeps reminding me what I tell my students - don't fly over anything you're not willing to land in! I assured her that I was willing to land where I did - I just would have preferred not to! ;)
http://24.17.140.177/flyingpictures/GrubbysExcellentAdventure.jpg
(Nice landing field, eh?)
We took off and Clyde was filming with his new camera. We typically fly down the White River canyon and it's usually pretty low over the river. Lots of trees, lots of bluffs - but a very neat ride down the river. We had been out about 40 minutes or so and I was leading down the river.
I heard/felt something as I was cruising five feet or so over the water. River was maybe 60 feet wide and the left bank was higher than I was with trees. River was pretty deep in the main channel and flowing good so I decided land anywhere was preferable. I turned to the right and there was a lower bank with shrubs and small saplings. Soon as I started the turn, the engine quit. I hit both steering bars to flare and I was down on the island. Nice gentle stop, chute up in the saplings - nothing hurt, not a scratch.
Had it gone down on the water, I suspect it would have pitched forward and over and I'd have been upside down in the river with the chute over and in front of me - not a pleasant thought. Wasn't anytime to unbuckle and bail out.
From the time the engine missed until I was down was probably less than 10 seconds - maybe closer to five. Quick little incident - we've flown this river lots of times and many, many times I've had that little "what would you do if the enginee quit" thought. Probably should have paid more attention to that - but then I'd have missed a fair amount of fun too. Oh well.
Spent the rest of the afternoon waiting on Clyde and Steve to find me and lead me out of the canyon. Closed road was half a mile as the crow flies and up a pretty steep bluff. We went back the next day with a tractor - with five guys and lots of gutsy tractor driving (I didn't know a tractor was capable of doing some of that), we got the machine out by noon and back to the hangar. Thanks guys!
Turns out one of the circlips came out and scored up the cylinder wall, piston, rotary valve and rotary valve shaft. Looks like the crank is OK. A less expensive lesson than it could have been - both to me and the machine.
Will I do the flight again - probably. Was I lucky - you bet. My wife keeps reminding me what I tell my students - don't fly over anything you're not willing to land in! I assured her that I was willing to land where I did - I just would have preferred not to! ;)
http://24.17.140.177/flyingpictures/GrubbysExcellentAdventure.jpg
(Nice landing field, eh?)