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Bill,
Great flying and decision making to get it back on
the ground with "minor" damage!!!
I sure hope we can find the cause to prevent it in
the future.
One idea: Rotor #1 - still great comp.
Rotor #2 - None. First flight after plugs changed. Any
possibility one plug in Rotor #2 protruded beyond the housing and
did damage? Why does Rotor # 2 have no compression?
The muffler crap should not have damaged anything
because it would only get into the engine after the nose went down
and the prop stopped.
But on the other hand - you would have had some
power from Rotor # 1 "No stumble, no hiccup, just instant silence" That
indicates to me total failure of fuel or ignition.
Concerning HushPower II mufflers - After Bobby H's.
loss of power I removed my muffler and found the internals failing at about 225
hrs. I removed all the internals and now fly with just the muffler
shell.
Dennis H.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2011 9:53
AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: The good news
and the bad news......
Bill,
Helluva nice job on
the emergency. Glad you’re unhurt.
Bryan
From:
Rotary motors in aircraft
[mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On
Behalf Of Bill Eslick
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2011 11:52
PM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] The good news and
the bad news......
I have been holding up
reporting this until all the facts are in, but that might never happen, so
here we go.
Good news: No
injuries.
Bad news: I have some work to do.
Photos
at: http://www.tiny9.com/u/2101
On August 16th at
10 AM, I lined up for takeoff at my home airport (3600' paved) into a 5 knot
headwind. I had just finished changing the oil and filter and
plugs. Run-up was fine, so off I went. Approximately mid-field,
and a couple of hundred feet in the air, it suddenly and without any warning
became very silent.
Hit the big switch which puts direct battery power
to everything engine, but no noise. No more time. At this point
flying the machine becomes THE priority. Dropped the nose and was amazed
to see a little bit of runway under the nose! I had fully expected to
land in trees, houses or the river, so I dove what seemed like straight down
to capture as much runway as possible while (somehow) holding the electric
flap switch long enough to get full flaps (noticed this later). Pulled
probably my best round-out ever - no bounce. Brakes to max and tail up
for weight. I think my sub-concious put it all the way on the nose to
try to prevent going through the fence and down the hill. Wheel skid
starts about 200 feet from the stopping point. Skid marks from the wheel
pants, cowling and prop run about the last 50 feet. It stopped nose down
just off the end. The tail was still over pavement. Pushed the
slider canopy UPHILL, stepped out and down. Noticed that I was not even
scared by the whole event. Interesting. Never even considered
trying to turn around. Pre-thinking that non-option apparently paid
off.
More good news. No FAA or NTSB as it was a
non-reportable incident. Didn't even bend the gear legs. Also, my
neighbor crashed in a Challenger about 10 minutes earlier at the city airport
about 10 miles away. The police and rescue types were headed that way
(they had injuries) and were not interested in my minor mishap.
As for
the engine. When we got it back to the hangar, the prop would turn only
haltingly. You could feel grinding going on inside. First try at
turning had it come up hard and stop. More fooling with it and it
gradually came looser and would turn. Really looked like something came
loose in there. Pulled a plug from each rotor and did a compression
test. Rotor 1 was 80-80-80. Rotor 2 was 2-2-2. More proof
that something had come loose. With that evidence, the insurance company
allowed me to remove the engine for inspection. What I found was a pile
of ground up ceramic junk. All the seals were still fine. Lots of
time went in to finding where that stuff came from. Went through every
inch of the induction system. Finally Jason Hutchison (my other
on-airport rotary guy) broke the code. While the RV was standing on it's
nose, this crap from my burned-out Hushpower II ran back up the manifold and
in the exhaust port. That is what was grinding. Crap. Now
the entire thing is off the firewall including the engine mount. All the
wiring is disconnected (did not find anything loose or missing). I spent
the morning looking under the panel for any loose or broken wiring, but found
none. When I get the EC-2 out, Jason wants to plug it into his plane and
we'll do the plugs and injectors test. If that checks out, Tracy, it is coming to
you for a good look. I don't know what else to check. The engine
quit just like somebody reached over and turned off the ignition. No
stumble, no hiccup, just instant silence. I honestly do not know if the
prop was turning or not. I suspect not, due to the silence and the fact
that one blade is untouched.
As you can see from the photos, there was
something going on with Rotor 1. Wear is apparent down stream from the
plug holes and all 3 apex seals are starting to chip in the center.
There is quite a lot of carbon also on the rotors after 170
hours.
Going forward, I have decided to look at resale value for
if/when my RV-12 days arrive. This means putting a (gasp) IO-360 on
it. The rotary has given me a safe 10-year run (til now, of course), so
I have no regrets, but this is an opportunity to make some changes, and parts
are already on the way. I will still be hanging out at the engine tent
at S-n-F and wherever else gatherings happen. Hope to be flying by the
first of next year....
I'm sure some of you will have suggestions about
what might have gone wrong, and I welcome any kind of speculation, but bear in
mind I am just looking at a pile of parts and wires at this point. Both
fuel pumps were on, tanks were over half full, crank angle sensor worked
fine.
Guess it's obvious that I now have a RD-1A, EC-2, EFI Monitor
(Ed's), Felix 68/72 and Props Inc 68/72 wood props and LOTS of engine
parts (my whole 14-year stash) available! And priced to sell!
Bill Eslick
RV-6 13B/NA EC-2
RD-1A
750 Hours
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