flyrotary@lancaironline.net Mailing List Archive

Thanks for the comprehensive report, Todd. You did good - especially considering all the distractions! Wow! As you pointed out, you did the critical thing just right - FLY THE AIRPLANE! Assuming you were pulling at least 7 psi at 6300 (likely to have been more) my calculations indicate you could have been producing approx 230HP. That would certainly increase the heat load dramatically leading to your high temps and contributing to detonation.

Ed Anderson
RV-6A N494BW Rotary Powered
Matthews, NC

----- Original Message -----

From: Haywire

To: Rotary motors in aircraft

Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 5:04 AM

Subject: [FlyRotary] Detonated... the reasons why?? (long)

Like everything in aviation it's not usually one thing that gets you, but rather a culmination of many little things.

    The original plan for this flight was for my buddy (great pilot, shitty mechanic) to fly the plane while I looked after the engine. First lesson... stick with the plan. While taxi testing with me in the left seat (Dynon in front of me, EM2 in front of buddy), all was good so we felt it was good to go and asked for T/O clearance. Both agreed I might as well fly it.

    Second factor; I have an electronic governor for my IVO prop which I have previously calibrated on the ground, but while it works in flight it needs to have some in-flight tweaking of the calibration to perform better, so I just generally control it manually until I have more time to play with it. During full power run-up, I briefly played with the auto settings, before switching back to manual. While in auto it must have went full coarse and when I switched back to manual it stayed there. Prop pitch is on my pre-T/O check list, but it seems to have gotten by me. But this wasn't a problem yet...

"   SNIP"

all this I never forgot to just "fly the damn airplane", but I still feel extremely foolish as in the seat beside me was a qualified pilot looking at an engine monitor for an engine that he didn't understand, while I was more than able to comprehend everything on that monitor but as a (very) low time pilot I was trying to do too much at once. If he'd been in the left seat, I'd have been freed up to closely monitor and control every aspect of the engine.

    I pretty much accept full responsibility for this little episode and consider it "pilot error" and not the fault of the engine. I welcome any other opinions if anybody has another take on it. (I already know that I was a dumbass, so you can hold on to that one :-)

S. Todd Bartrim
Turbo 13B RV-9Endurance
C-FSTB
http://www3.telus.net/haywire/RV-9/C-FSTB.htm

   "Whatever you vividly imagine, Ardently desire, Sincerely believe in, Enthusiastically act upon, Must inevitably come to pass".