Posted for "Frederick Moreno"
<frederickmoreno@bigpond.com>:
There we were, over the crocodile infested swamps of the Kakadu National Park when the
exhaust rocker arm of cylinder no. 1 broke taking that cylinder off line. Operating with intake valve only, cylinder 1 burped
all its fuel into cylinder 6 (next in line) which promptly flooded and shut down. What fun. And of course I
had no hint as to the cause of the transition from smooth to very rough. Fussing with mixture, RPM, and manifold pressure
brought cylinder number 6 back on line and smoothed things out a bit, but going full rich when I ran the standard
final checklist on final flooded the entire engine which crapped out just when I needed a bit more power for the
flare. So it was bonk on the nose wheel and a chin slide. Then the fun
began. I did the aircraft recovery with a friend (only 3000 miles via road from home) and found it was great fun to work in the
sun in the tropics. The insurance company wanted a log of activities to support my claim for recovery costs. I
prepared the attached document and a spread sheet of costs. They paid in full. Rocker arm
failure appears to be a manufacturing fault. I am negotiating with CASA and Continental to see who does what investigation with
the broken pieces and then publishes the results. More to follow. Captain Tuna, Chicken of
the Skies
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