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
On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 8:39 AM, Mark Steitle
<msteitle@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Guys,
To break the monotony of technical threads, I'm posting a picture of our BBQ run from Austin to Llano last Saturday (10/24/09). Three of the four a/c are rotary-powered. How's that for a change? It was a great day to fly... cool, calm, & clear. This is what its all about.
The a/c are:
Foreground - My Lancair ES - 20B
2nd - Bobby Hughes' RV-10 - Supercharged Renesis
3rd - RV-6 - Lycosarus
4th - Dennis Haverlah's Green/White RV-7 - N/A Renesis
Keep building,
Mark S.
Sent from my iPhone
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