Went to see David
Atkins yesterday. He continues to be a good person and business to deal with.
He took the time amidst the chaos to have the engine completely torn down and
inspected piece by piece as it was disassembled – while I was there. It all
looked pretty good until the front housing E-shaft bearing. There was
definitely some abnormal wear there and some scuff marks on the E-shaft. There
was also some wear on the center bearing but just on the forward
1/10th of an inch. He’s going to replace the bearing and rebuild
the engine and then check the oil pressure.
He suggested I look
for any source of chips or anything coming from the PSRU. Something caused
that front bearing to get worn way too quickly and he suspects there may be a
problem with the PSRU since we didn’t find anything in the engine that looked
like it was shedding metal.
I’ll try to get up to
the hangar in the next couple of days to retrieve the RD-1B and bring it home
for disassembly and inspection.
ThanxAll,
Joe Hull
Cozy Mk-IV #991 (In Phase1 Flight Test
- 10.9 hrs flown)
Redmond (Seattle), Washington