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...)