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Message
Greetings all,
It was a beautiful day to
fly, so I finally made it over to see Paul's plastic fantastic in Mobile.
The engine was running great, the oil temps were perfect, and I was seeing 235
mph groundspeed as I headed home. I was about 25 miles from my home
airport, and started descending from 7500 ft. At about 6000 feet, I
started smelling something that smelled like plastic, or insulation burning,
smoke started coming in through the vent, and oil covered the
canopy. Not good.
My primary fear was fire,
and my planned course of action was to get on the ground as soon
as possible, so I pushed the nose over, and headed for a
Navy helicopter field ahead. I did the 121.5 mayday call,
squawked 7700, and talked to the controller. He asked if I was going to
land at the Spencer Field, or if I could make another airport.
The smoke was subsiding, and the engine was still turning, and I thought about
trying for another field, but when I tried to throttle up, the prop stopped
cold. Needless to say, I confirmed that I was landing at Spencer.
Fortunately, I had the field made easily, and had to use full flaps and a slip
to make the part of the field I was aiming at.
This field is a
helicopter training field, and it has 4 runways that form a square, with
each runway being maybe 1000-1500 feet long. Lots of grass exists outside
of this square. I wanted to head for one of the runways, but it was full
of RC model guys. I went instead for the parallel runway on the other
side of the field. Still, they were mighty shocked when I
came gliding in :-) I landed a little hot, about a third of the way
down the runway, and ended up running about 200 ft off into the grass before
coming to a stop.
Within a minute, there were
people from the RC club at the plane, and I could already hear the fire trucks
that had been summoned by Pensacola approach. Within just a couple
minutes, civilian rescue folks were there, followed shortly afterward by
military police, and then by the CO of Whiting NAS. I talked to
the Pensacola controller, and got a call from the Birmingham FSDO.
Basically, everyone just wanted to know that I was OK. I filled out a few
papers for the Navy Police, and I owe the FSDO a statement via fax, but that
should be the extent of the paperwork. The CO of Whiting
NAS (who controls all the outlying fields) gave me permission to either
repair the plane, and fly it out, or disassemble it, and haul it
away.
The plane was not damaged
in the landing, so no problem there. I pulled the top cowl off before it
got dark, and just can't see the problem, probably because the oil cooler
(evap core) is hard to see without removing the bottom
cowl. There's a puddle of oil in the oil cooler scoop, and
oil covering the exhaust, and all the bottom of the cowling. I can't
prove it yet, but I fully expect to find the evap core split open just like the
last one did. Let's just say I won't be using one of those for
oil again.
The EM-2 was flashing it's
ass off, and in the middle of trying to get the plane on the ground, I
never even looked at the screen. My initial assumption is that I blew
out all the oil, but I won't know until I check the oil level. I don't
recall the low oil light coming on, but that doesn't mean it wasn't on.
The engine is not seized now, but it does feel low on compression. Once
the engine quit, the prop did not turn at all for the duration
of the glide.
The plan for tomorrow is to
remove the wings, with the help of my good RV-8 buddy, and haul the plane
back to the hanger. At this point, I don't know quite what I'll do
with it from there. My wife was slightly upset by this, but I think she'll
get over it. I also have the Slingshot at home already, AND I'm
going to have to leave the hanger in a month or so when they rebuild it from the
hurricane. Seems like a logistical nightmare. I don't intend to
abandon the rotary, but I might re-work the Slingshot first (with the 912S), so
I can get something flying. I'd follow that with a rebuild of the RV-3
engine, and a real oil cooler. Once I do that, maybe I'll be ready to
tackle the single rotor for the Slingshot, or maybe not :-)
Cheers,
Rusty (I still smell
burning oil, 5 hours later...)
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