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