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...)