All,
Just getting around to writing this story.  Wife and I flew our
Velocity 173 FG IO-360 to Destin FL for the Thanksgiving
holiday.  Coming back we went by way of Greensboro NC to spend
Sunday night with relatives.  APC vectored me to a downwind
about 5 mi abeam the runway.  About the time we leveled out at a
couple thousand feet, we heard a bang – “… what the hell was
that …?”.  I turned toward the runway and switched to tower and
started checking the gauges.  Nothing unusual.  Had a nice
undershooting x-wind so it took a while to get on the ground.
After shutdown we inspected the plane and found a dink in the
leading edge of the prop that you could put a kidney bean in,
and a scratch on another blade.  Damage was greatly reduced IMO
by the leading edge protective tape on the Catto prop.  No
screws or anything missing off the cowl.  Then I saw it – about
6” were missing off of the port side exhaust pipe.  It broke off
right at the runner from #1 cylinder, squirted right out the
exhaust nipple in the cowl and through the prop.

There practically NO damage to the prop.  Amazing!  I called
Craig Catto for advice on repairs and he reassured me that a
little flox would fix it. We called Velocity Monday AM and
Natalie was able to overnight us a regular steel pipe to use
while she gets hold of a SS pipe for us.  We put it on Tuesday
noon, wadded up some bread dough, stuffed it into the dink,
covered it with duct tape for the uneventful flight home to CSV.

Craig told me he has had several customers who have shed exhaust
pipes, fuel caps, etc. through his props and incurred no
significant damage. He said that a Long-EZ once shed its ENTIRE
LOWER COWL through the one of his props and the airplane flew
back home no sweat.  I contrast that with the Cozy a couple of
years back that shed about the same size piece of exhaust as I
did through a Performance prop – it broke one blade off, tore up
another and the engine nearly shook out of the airplane in the
time it took him to reach over and shut it down.  He was able to
dead stick to a nice 5000’ runway, hitch hike home, get a new
prop and retrieve his airplane a month or so later.  I never
could have made the field from where my exhaust broke off.  That
Catto prop of mine saved my bacon sure ‘nuff.

All hail Catto …. Jim S.



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Jim Sower
Crossville, TN; Chapter 5
Long-EZ N83RT, Velocity N4095T