Hi Al,
You make an excellent point on the single failure
point.  I've been trying to come up with a way to
eliminate the problem, but outside of going to 2
switches, I'm not sure how to do it. Even with 2
switches the one for the engine is still a single
failure point for the engine.

The emergency checklist is also a good idea.  I'm
going to check today, I think that I already have one
with my preflight checklist.  A placard for engine out
is probably better though, rather than trying to find
a paper copy during an emergency.

Steve

--- Al Gietzen <ALVentures@cox.net> wrote:

What a relief the find that the power came back on;
and that you landed
without mishap. My adrenalin level was going up when
I got to the part of
your story where you were heading for the highway.



I see two important lessons in your experience;

Redundancy in the system isn't much good if there is
still a single point
failure.

Have an emergency checklist that is well memorized,
but kept handy.



Glad everything is OK,



Al





-----Original Message-----
From: Rotary motors in aircraft
[mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On
Behalf Of Steve Brooks
Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 6:29 AM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] Intersting flight



I made it down to South Carolina, to among other

things, fly the Cozy.  It had been 2 months to the
day

since I had been down, so the remaining 8 hours of
the

40 test hours have been slow to come off.



On Thursday I washed about 30 lbs of dust off of the

plane (open T hanger) and checked everything out.  I

did a high speed run down the runway, but didn't
have

time to get in a flight.



Yesterday I went to the airport after it warmed up a

few degrees, and took off.  The engine was running

very strong in the cooler air (54 degrees).  I had

planned to do about a 30 minute flight ad land, just

to check everything out, and was was doing turns and

just cruising around about 6-7 miles from the
airport

at about 2900 MSL (2300 AGL).  While flying straight

and level, I felt a sudden miss in engine.  When I

check the I/P, I also noticed that the digital
gauges,

fuel and oil, had rebooted.  I immediately started a

turn toward the airport.



About 15 seconds later, I lost total electric.  The

I/P went dead, and so did the engine.  This isn't

good, I thought.  Actually, it was more like, OH
SH**.

 I took a look at the airport, and I was too far to

make it there, so I looked around, and a 4 lane

highway, which has light traffic appeared to be my

best option.  I had just started turning toward that

highway, when the electric power came back, and the

engine picked back up.



I immediately started a climb, and headed toward the

airport again.  I already knew that there was a
plane

in the pattern doing touch and goes (unicom field),
so

I called the airport and advised the other aircraft

that I had a serious issue, and needed to make a

straight in landing.



It didn't lose power again, on the trip back to the

airport, but that 6-7 miles seemed to take forever.
I

stayed on the high side on altitude, for obvious

reasons, and then had to bleed altitude (and speed)

while on short final.  I came in a little fast, and

touched down earlier than normal, but still was on
the

ground, and very happy.



Since I have two separate electrical systems (engine

and everything else), I was really stunned that I
lost

both like that.  After thinking about it for I
while,

I figured out that the master switch was the only

common link.  I pulled the I/P cover off, and found

that the ground connector was pulled off of the

terminal and just sitting there barely touching the

contact.

The cause of this was the fact that when I did an

annual on the plane in May, I had added some
addition

ty-raps to dress up the wiring a little more.  In

doing so, I had stretched the ground wire which runs

to the master switch, which energizes the two master

relays.



It was an easy fix, but now I have to replenish the

adrenalin supply, and figure out how to get the
ridge

out of the seat cushion.



After some ground testing, I made another flight

(circling the airport) and everything checked out
OK.





I have an emergency bypass switch that will supply

power to the engine systems from either the forward
or

aft battery.  I didn't think to switch it over, but
I

=== message truncated ===


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