Dave,
I think you have a higher tolerance for inflight faults than the average pilot. :-)
Not exactly sure why you say that, but I could guess. Below is the other side of the story... why I maybe am a little less phased by maintiance issues....
I disagree with your comment that these are non-incidents. A non-incident is when you fly and nothing breaks. I flew an RV-6A with a 160 Lyc for several hundred hours over 4 years, incident free. The stuff you noted below may not have required a precautionary landing or resulted in a forced landing, but they were failures none the less.
Then again, my last 200 hrs of rotary flying have been essentially issue free (except for one turbo failure - flip switch to fly home from Texas). It only took about 170 hrs to sort out all those problems. How many hours do you think it took the piston engine guys to figure out their issues?
Personally, I now have about 300 hrs in certified aircraft, and 360 hrs in my RV-6. You have seen the list of issues in my RV, here is the list of issues with certified aircraft:
C140 throttle cable stuck at full throttle - required turning off the Mags and landing deadstick on an airport. (mixture cable adjustment insufficient to stop engine)
C140 dead battery at isolated airport due to bad maintenance from certified mechanic.
C140 required early engine rebuild costing thousands of dollars.
C140 engine rebuild continued to leak oil all over windscreen right after rebuild, required repeated trips to repair shop to fix.
C140 lost spinner in flight - could have been catastrophic.
C150 Severe Carb Ice causing sudden engine stoppage - restarted at only 1000' AGL
C152 Nearly deadstick landing at airport due to fuel starvation due to lack of reliable fuel consumption/measuring devices.
C152 Severe plug fouling causing cancellation of flight during run up.
C177 Cancellation of long planned trip due to complete electrical failure on pre-flight.
Piper Dakota - unable to start in cold weather. Cost a whole day.
C182RG Cancellation of another long planned trip due to quirky electrical issues that made me uneasy.
Piper Apache - Failure of prop governor in left engine requiring a single engine landing
Piper Apache - Bilateral engine failure due to carb ice - quickly resolved. (Carb ice happens easily in the tropics - not just in landing phase)
TH-57A - fuel control unit mis metering shortly after start up - flight moved to different aircraft.
Those were as the pilot, I also had these failures as a pax (not counted in the 300 hrs certified time):
P3C-Orion - Engine oil failure causing the dreaded 3-engine landing.
H-46 - chip light warning causing emergency landing in mountainous terrain.
F/A-18 - computer said something was wrong during pre-flight. Flight canceled. Happened about 5 times.
F/A-18 Computer said something was wrong in flight - RTB. Happened once.
F/A-18 Cannon jammed and we couldn't shoot the burned out shell of a tank... damn!
C-5 Flight Canceled - undefined maintenance issue.
C-141 - Spent 6 miserable days in Atsuki trying to board. Every morning check out of BOQ, carry all belongings (for a 6-month deployment) to terminal, wait in terminal for several hours for flight to be officially cancelled due to 'maintiance issues', carry all belongings back to BOQ and get a different room. Repeat...
C-17 FINALLY going to get off this rock, meet girlfriend, get laid... Canceled for undisclosed maintenance issues. Still paid for girlfriends airfare to Bahrain - and she broke up with me after traveling to Bahrain and back for no reason.
Surprisingly, all my time in jump planes is without incident. Go figure.
In both cases (rotary and non-rotary), all the failures are associated with peripheral systems and not the structural components of the engine. But if I were to pick the better ENGINE, it would unquestionably and without a doubt be the rotary. The NTSB records are FILLED with crankshaft failures, jug failures, exhaust valve failures, cam rod and piston failures, crashes due to carb ice and crashes due to vapor lock.
Now that I am through those first couple hundred hours, give me the rotary any day. I truly, in my heart of hearts, believe that my RV-6 is safer than any Cessna or piper I could rent from a club or FBO. I now believe that it is nearly as safe as an RV-6 with a lyc installation. In another 500 hrs, I think it will be safer and more reliable.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2009 6:32 PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Gary Casey was [FlyRotary] Re: Rotary Engines
Well, now you are getting into non-incidents. That list is inexhaustible.
On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 5:15 PM, John Slade
<jslade@canardaviation.com> wrote:
Here's a few for the list, Mark,
1. Stock turbo bearings collapsed & took out apex seal. Flew home at reduced power.
I have burned out 2 turbos. The first caused precautionary/urgent landing at an airport pending shutting off fuel flow to the turbo. The second, I flipped a turbo oil shut off switch and flew 1000NM to get home.
2. Fuel filer (sinstered bronze) looked clean but was restricting fuel flow. Flew home on other tank.
Had a fuel pump die in flight, switched to the other and kept flying.
3. Bad / intermittent contact on ignition timing sensor made engine run rough. Landed normally and repaired.
I had a bad injector enable switch causing rough running during some phase one flying (after major change)... landed normally
4. Turbo hose blew off on take-off. Returned to land at reduced power.
John
Been there, done that.
Also:
Forgot to re-connect fuel return line in engine bay after doing some work. dumped a couple gallons of fuel onto the running engine until I smelled gas and shut down the engine.. (never left the parking space - but it could have been really bad.
Cracked alternator mount bracket found on pre-flight during phase one testing. Would have lost cooling and alternator if it happened now.
PSRU sun gear pin broke from a backfire during run-up. Was able to taxi back but would not have been able to fly.
This is good - broke a coolant line in flight and smelled coolant... landed at nearby airport and taxied up to restaurant with steam spewing out of the cowl. Me and my buddy calmly walked into the restaurant and had breakfast. Afterward, we borrowed some tools and fixed the coolant line. Went back into the restaurant to ask for 2 pitchers of water to put in our plane. Continued ski trip to Mammoth. The end.