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Date: Sat, 03 Dec 2005 12:37:42 -0600
From: Charlie England <ceengland@bellsouth.net>
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To: Rotary motors in aircraft <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Re: [FlyRotary] Intersting flight
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Steve Brooks wrote:

>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.
>
>  
>
snipped

>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. 
>

>snipped
>  
>

>Steve Brooks
>Cozy MKIV
>Turbo rotary
>
Hi Steve,

Congrats on the safe conclusion of your adventure.

I assume that the offending connector was a 1/4"  'spade lug' type 
connector. Did you check the quality & integrity of the connector after 
the incident? High quality connectors like that require an amazing 
amount of force to remove, usually involving pliers or prying them off 
with a screwdriver. If it came off with just the tension added from 
dressing wires with a wire tie, I'd be concerned.

FWIW,

Charlie