Thanks Ian... stories like yours go a long way towards saving the bacon of other
flyers.
Hope to be flying my N914PB by fall and join you in the good fight
Paul Boulet
Ian Mansfeld wrote:I don't think that this needs to be reported
'confidentially',
and it may save someone else a heart-stopping moment.
Europa Classic Mono with 912 & Warp Drive 3 bladed fixed pitch prop.
After a nice day out to a distant grass airfield, the return journey of 70
minutes
was fine, cruising along at 4600rpm. Joined the circuit with one other in,
and as he was slower and probably a student doing a large circuit, I slowed and
put gear down early to fit in behind him. On cross-wind, a 'tapping' noise
started. A few seconds later, as I turned onto downwind and applied a bit more
power, the noise suddenly got a LOT louder, now more of a metallic clattering,
and increased to match change of rpm. At that point I was sure that the engine
was just about to turn into a bag of metal bits, but there was no vibration
and the P's & T's were all normal. A call to ATC and I made a 'precautionary'
landing on the grass cross runway- my first ever.
Firstly, what did I learn:
- that after a moment when my heart seemed to stop, I realised that the aircraft
was still flying, so did not panic and the training kicked in.
- you can still hear unusual noises when they occur even with ANR headsets.
What did I do right: only 2 things really
- first I told ATC we had an engine problem straight away, probably about 10
seconds
after the noise got worse. He cleared the airfield so it was all mine, he
did not pester me with lots of questions, and once I had decided to land on
the nearest cross runway he gave me confidence by suggesting that as the wind
was light, the cross runway might be preferred. I thanked him afterwards, and
his only comment was that this was what he was trained for.
- second, I flew the aircraft. No faffing with radio chat, just check the
gauges/fuel
etc. and then concentrate on landing on the airfield. What really helped
here was that during conversion I had done side-slipping, and just a week or
so earlier I had made a full rudder sideslip approach just for fun. I was ready
to counteract the nose-down pitch and keep the speed under control.
I didn't do a few things, such as change fuel tanks (fuel cock out of sight so
got missed), shut the engine down or turn the fuel off until the landing roll,
but then again the indications were ok and there was no vibration. I left the
power set until I knew I could get onto the runway, then brought it to idle.
Of course, that meant I was too high, and so had to sideslip off the excess
height,
even adding an 'S' turn. I braked too hard as we crossed the main tarmac
runway, so that when I shut the engine down I got a smell of burning rubber,
which hastened my enthusiasm to exit the aircraft. I told ATC I was getting out,
then forgot to take the headset off, so had a bit of a suprise as it then got
forcibly pulled off my head!
To my great suprise, the aircraft just sat there once stopped - no smoke, no oil
leaks, nothing hanging off. After a very, very long look round and a compression
check, it started and ran fine, and we carefully taxyed back. The Fire Service
were great, they did not squirt anything on it, hack at it or even grab
hold of any panels, they just carefully looked around.
So what was it? Well, on the mono leg there is a brake pipe. On mine, it has a
'P' clip just aft of the hinge, and then a ty-wrap to hold it on top of the leg
near the brake disc. This ty-wrap was missing, allowing the whole pipe to
oscillate
in the prop wash and beat against the leg, resounding through the fuselage.
At the departure airfield, the grass was very long, especially in the parking
and taxi areas. Even after 70 minutes, there was grass in the tailwheel,
the flap hinges, and around the mainwheel axle. My best guess is that the long
grass caught in the ty-wrap, pushing it back and either breaking it immediately
or putting it into rubbing contact with the tyre, brake disc or wheel so it
broke. As the take-off used a lot of the runway, I brought the gear up fairly
early and the pipe never got chance to flap about until back home.
(Before finding this, I did give the aircraft a thorough check, looking
everywhere,
removing every access panel and of course removing the cowlings to look for
anything untoward, followed by a good long ground run).
Practice sideslips and keep looking out for fields to land in...
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