Steve,
Glad you and the plane are in one piece. You and Ed illustrate the first rule of troubleshooting, that Tracy has tried to instill in us - don't think, but follow a fixed engine-out routine that you practice in your head often. Ed just pushed that relay without thinking - as force of habit, didn't hurt anything. Earlier he tried to out-think his routine and failed to switch tanks when that would have solved his problem. My primary flight instructor drilled it into me too: aviate, navigate(brief), communicate(brief), fuel selector, circuit breakers, master switch, mags, mixture rich, carb heat on. In the C150 it flows in a fixed "T" from memory. Then you can allow yourself to think if time permits.
Of course, I would probably try to outsmart myself if I ever had an engine out - so thanks to you and Ed and Tracy for reminding me to practice that routine! :-)
Great job with the most important part - aviate!!!
On 12/3/05, Ed Anderson <eanderson@carolina.rr.com> wrote:
Hi Steve
Very glad to hear you and aircraft got back on the ground safely. Yes,
events like those really do use up seat cushions - don't they. Glad you
found the problem - amazing how little things like adding tie wraps can
cause such an exciting "adventure".
I too have a "Live Man" switch, actually a circuit breaker (normally open)
that when I push it in by-passes power around all switches to the critical
systems (fuel and spark). I aborted a take-off from a 2200 ft runway
(after getting airborne) when the engine began to surge. Only thing I did
have time to do (which in hind sight was a waste of effort) was too push in
the circuit breaker. Of course, the odds of a surging engine being caused
by a electrical problem is low - turned out it was the fuel map set too low
for the higher engine rpms (this was when I was using an HALTECH EFI which
you had to tune with laptop).
But, a good idea in my opinion since often use switches could possibly fail.
In any case, sounds like all the thought processes regarding what to do were
well done Land long and land hot if you have too - far better to go off the
far end doing 20 mph than end up short on distance or airspeed - my opinion,
of course.
Ed A
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