Bruce Brown
10-22-2002, 11:25 AM
The following incident was reported by Reggie Toler (Nail) to the Yahoo PPC mailing list on 10-22-2002.
Well, I had a new experience. A friend was having a flyin this weekend. He had a nephew who wanted to take an intro flight. Weather was rainy the first day of the flyin, but on saturday was clear and a bit warmer (52). I agreed to take him on an intro. My friends field is soooo great....its 350' x 1000' and the grass is as lush as a Scott's Turfbuilder ad. Three sides of the field are completely open, surrounded by a harvested bean field. The north end is right behind his house, and is lined with 70' trees.
I got the student in (he is about 6'1", and 210 lbs), warmed the engine a bit more and took off to the north. As we climbed I started a left hand turn as I sure didn't want to fly over the trees and the houses beyond. I was about 80% thru the turn and at around 80-90' when the engine quit.....absolutely as if you had shut the key off, or maybe a bit quicker than that.... happened so quick my first thought was a cold seizure.... but it was warm! I was over the harvested bean field and the ground was slightly rolling. There was not much time to get excited, I just flew the plane, pushed flare out to full by the time I was about 5' off the ground, and reached and pulled in as much line as I could, at our total weight, the lines pull darn hard too. Made a nice smooth landing and the ground was soft from the rain the day before.....no problem! This was downwind, and there was just a slight breeze that took my chute over the top and in front of me and laid it out just perfect as you would to take off. The guy with me wanted to know if I had ever done that before, that it was pretty cool! I said I had done probably 40 or 50 engine out landings, but never in an emergency situation with 210 lbs behind me!
My first thought was that it was an electrical problem, since it quit without so much as a sputter. I decided to fly again and see if it would do the same thing. With the size of the field I had I was not concerned if it did quit. I took off, got to about 130' this time, since I was 210 lbs lighter and it quit exactly as before. Remembering an old 'Ed Neff' trick, I hit my primer twice (its conveniently located right between my legs on my Buckeye DM), hit the key, and it started. It ran for about 15 seconds and died again. It died 3 more times and I reprimed and restarted as I made my loop and landed on the field. Amazingly, it ran fine and I taxied 700' to the north end of the field.
Well, we decided it was fuel related and seemed to have something to do with climbing and being nose high. I looked in the tank, and there was an area of reddish brown water in the tank. I drained the tank and got 4 bottles of Heet, put a couple in and sloushed it around, drained it and repeated that. Tank clean and slick as a whistle. I had put a new large Fram fuel filter on about 2-3 hours ago, and it was clean. Figured that was the end of the problem.
Next morning I flew again and it was an exact repeat of the last flight, died 3-4 times, restarted, landed, taxied. We finally put it against the wheel on my truck and I ran it up to full throttle. After about 2 minutes it quit. Seems like it runs till carb bowls are empty. Luckily I had gotten a fuel pump kit from Bear this summer, just in case. I had actually put a new kit in about 50 hours ago. I put the kit in today, could not see anything wrong with the diaphrams that were in it, but that solved the problem. I flew it for an hour, no problem.
I was very fortunate that I had a good place to land. If that field was surrounded by trees, this tale would read a lot differently. I always try to keep thinking of where I can land if need be, but it seemed today I was even more vigilant of that. Hopefully this tale will encourage others to continue to remain vigilant of what they fly over, and where they can safely land if forced to.....................Nail
Well, I had a new experience. A friend was having a flyin this weekend. He had a nephew who wanted to take an intro flight. Weather was rainy the first day of the flyin, but on saturday was clear and a bit warmer (52). I agreed to take him on an intro. My friends field is soooo great....its 350' x 1000' and the grass is as lush as a Scott's Turfbuilder ad. Three sides of the field are completely open, surrounded by a harvested bean field. The north end is right behind his house, and is lined with 70' trees.
I got the student in (he is about 6'1", and 210 lbs), warmed the engine a bit more and took off to the north. As we climbed I started a left hand turn as I sure didn't want to fly over the trees and the houses beyond. I was about 80% thru the turn and at around 80-90' when the engine quit.....absolutely as if you had shut the key off, or maybe a bit quicker than that.... happened so quick my first thought was a cold seizure.... but it was warm! I was over the harvested bean field and the ground was slightly rolling. There was not much time to get excited, I just flew the plane, pushed flare out to full by the time I was about 5' off the ground, and reached and pulled in as much line as I could, at our total weight, the lines pull darn hard too. Made a nice smooth landing and the ground was soft from the rain the day before.....no problem! This was downwind, and there was just a slight breeze that took my chute over the top and in front of me and laid it out just perfect as you would to take off. The guy with me wanted to know if I had ever done that before, that it was pretty cool! I said I had done probably 40 or 50 engine out landings, but never in an emergency situation with 210 lbs behind me!
My first thought was that it was an electrical problem, since it quit without so much as a sputter. I decided to fly again and see if it would do the same thing. With the size of the field I had I was not concerned if it did quit. I took off, got to about 130' this time, since I was 210 lbs lighter and it quit exactly as before. Remembering an old 'Ed Neff' trick, I hit my primer twice (its conveniently located right between my legs on my Buckeye DM), hit the key, and it started. It ran for about 15 seconds and died again. It died 3 more times and I reprimed and restarted as I made my loop and landed on the field. Amazingly, it ran fine and I taxied 700' to the north end of the field.
Well, we decided it was fuel related and seemed to have something to do with climbing and being nose high. I looked in the tank, and there was an area of reddish brown water in the tank. I drained the tank and got 4 bottles of Heet, put a couple in and sloushed it around, drained it and repeated that. Tank clean and slick as a whistle. I had put a new large Fram fuel filter on about 2-3 hours ago, and it was clean. Figured that was the end of the problem.
Next morning I flew again and it was an exact repeat of the last flight, died 3-4 times, restarted, landed, taxied. We finally put it against the wheel on my truck and I ran it up to full throttle. After about 2 minutes it quit. Seems like it runs till carb bowls are empty. Luckily I had gotten a fuel pump kit from Bear this summer, just in case. I had actually put a new kit in about 50 hours ago. I put the kit in today, could not see anything wrong with the diaphrams that were in it, but that solved the problem. I flew it for an hour, no problem.
I was very fortunate that I had a good place to land. If that field was surrounded by trees, this tale would read a lot differently. I always try to keep thinking of where I can land if need be, but it seemed today I was even more vigilant of that. Hopefully this tale will encourage others to continue to remain vigilant of what they fly over, and where they can safely land if forced to.....................Nail