Europa-List: Rubber Fuel Pipe.

[R.C.Harrison <ptag.dev@tiscali.co.uk>]

Hi! Thomas.
I think you had a "narrow squeak"!

Just for the record I should remind you that Europa recommended all such
fuel pipe distributed with their kits be changed at 5 years, which means
that by the time you built the kit it was almost time expired, if it had
carried fuel for any length of time.

Regards
Bob Harrison G-PTAG


- Original Message ----- 
From: Thomas Scherer <mailto:thomas@scherer.com>  
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 6:58 AM
Subject: Europa-List: N81EU incident - the culprit

Hi All,

today I can report with confidence that the reason for the power loss in
N81EU on Feb 24 was fuel starvation.

I had changed the fuel filter on the main-line the day before the
incident and as you can see on this photograph:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tosstudio/644899802/"; title="Photo
Sharing"><img
src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1252/644899802_5320589274.jpg";
width="500" height="367" alt="culprit" /></a>

the fuel line was worn (10 year old factory supplied original). One
strand of the tube did get into the fuel filter inlet and restricted
fuel flow.

I had sufficient fuel in the line for the take-off roll, yet during the
early part of the climb-out the engine quit.

~~~~~~~~

I shall later report on the moments right after that and the sequence of
the forced landing. Would like to discuss it with Kim Prout though first
to make it more authoritative.

be well - safe Landings

<Thomas, N81EU>


Robt.C.Harrison