Really neat to see rotaries showing up at fly-ins Mark.

Tried to make the first one in my RV-8 last weekend (SERFI in Alabama) but about 80 miles out from Shady Bend the autopilot banks the airplane hard left and stayed there for 180 degrees.  I hit the disengage switch and it let me be PIC again.  Then I notice the message "GPS FAILED" on the Bluemountain screen.  I had my Garmin GPS on board for backup but now I had no confidence in my instrument panel so just stayed on heading back home.  I cycled power on the BM and it booted up OK & was fine all the way back. 

Later, I see several drops of coolant under the cowl and pop the upper part to see what's up.  Source of leak was the lower hose connection to water pump.  I use those Gates PowerGrip heat shrink clamps which I like a lot.   This one was about 6  inches away from the exhaust collector pipe which I thought was far enough but the radiated heat from the glowing pipe was apparently absorbed very well by the black clamp.   It had melted about 95% of its length at the point directly faceing the exhaust pipe and was barely holding on.   Lesson learned: These clamps MUST be shielded from radiated exhaust heat if distance is less than 12 inches.

Now I have to decide if the Bluemountain EFIS is a write-off or was it smart enought to warn me about the disintegrating hose clamp and turn me back toward home :>)

Tracy