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Hi Folks,
Just got home after 5 "terrible"
days of being stuck in Shady Bend due to weather {:>). I mean how much
worst could of it have been? Stuck there with 5 guys who knew nothing to
talk about but rotary engines and aircraft, day and night. Just Pizza and
beer to sustain us (with an occasional donut - for vitamins) and Coffee to keep
us awake. It was as close to heaven as it comes for a rotary flier.
Sorry the rest of you were able to drive out and therefore missed the post event
activity. Yes, I know some of you had exciting adventures of your own
returning on our commercial air carriers - but, don't think they beat the post
event activities {:>)
As everyone has mentioned, Tracy and Laura,
produced a great event. Well, to be more accurate, Laura, produced a
great event and Tracy went along for the ride {:>). Couldn't imagine
two more gracious host/hostess who not only worked their butts off to bring off
the event, but then were stuck for 5 more days with 4 of
us. Three who couldn't get out due to weather. Well, Laura
could only stand so much and left for Atlanta on Tuesday morning - leaving us
guys to fin for ourselves - the house is still standing, Laura.
I think various reports have covered the
events without me taking up disk space repeating them. I just wanted to
state that it was great meeting some of you finally face to face, who I
have chatted with for several years over the e mail . Of
course, great to again see those of you who I had met before (even If
I didn't always remember).
I was greatly honored be presented an
award for my efforts to get stories published on the flying rotaries. I am
certain my old English Teacher is smiling up in heaven and recalling when a
young 12 year old told her "... twarn't nuting 'portant - 'cept Math
and Science" as she tried to (rightly) convey how important
communication skills were - even for budding Engineers and Scientist.
{:>)
EDDIE
I greatly appreciate the opportunity to
present the EDDIE Presentation to those of you there. It seems to have
stood up well to the inquiring minds present {:>). I hope in the
not too distance future to refine the value bounds for some of the
variables in the equation, but nothing was brought up (to my knowledge) that
raised any doubt as to the logic and structure of the basic EDDIE
equations. So I feel fairly comfortable that it represents a reasonably
sound (no pun intended) mathematical analysis of the phenomena and small
advancement of our rotary knowledge.
For those of you who have inquired about the
EDDIE presentation. An effort was made to video tape it, however, I am not
certain it was totally successful - Tracy and Laura will let us know as soon as
they find out. I am going to attempt to put the presentation slides into
PDF format and Laura Crook has offered to put it on there RWS web page for all
(who are interested) to view. I need to write some script to go with the
slides, so it may be a week or two for me to get that finished and then of
course however, long it may take Laura to put it on the RWS web
page.
Unusually Happening #147 to Ed
Anderson
Jim Mosur and I launched from Shady Bend around
0830. Kevin had unfortunately done one of those things that no one else
has ever done - leaving his master own after returning from giving rides in his
great looking RV at Shady Bend. But, as we left Tracy had hooked up a
battery charger, so I'm certain that small problem was quickly
corrected.
Crossed the Okefenokee swamp at 5500 MSL, where I
noticed that my oil pressure began to fluctuate about the time I was dead center
over the Swamp. It appears that the fluctuation I thought I had imagined
when I shut the engine off when my exhaust pipe backed out of its header was
indeed real.
The oil pressure which is normally rock solid at
around 70 psi was slowly wiggling its way up to 90 psi in 5 - 10 psi
fluctuations. I could detect no other indication that there might be a
problem. But, I'll tell you that I kept an eye out for clear cut areas,
dirt roads, anything that might possibly provide solid ground to touch down on
should I have to. Needless to say there would be no "precautionary" shut
downs of the engine over this swamp. But things like that do tend to raise
the pucker factor a bit {:>).
Made it across the swamp and on to Way-Cross,
Georgia where Jim and I topped off the tanks and then Jim Launched headed to
Canada trying to get there before the next front rolls through and I headed for
Charlotte, NC. Well, on this leg, the oil pressure was again jumping and
now going up over 100 psi. I was beginning to suspect that there was no
real problem (at least it wasn't falling oil pressure) as there was no other
indication of a problem.
I thought that if it were an oil problem it must be
associated with my recent reinstallation of the redrive and was wondering if I
could do any airborne analysis to find out. So I decided to pull a
fraction of a "G" to see the results. As soon as I put "Positive" loading
on the airframe, the oil pressure immediately dropped back to 70psi for a few
moments, before again wiggling back up to over 100 psi.
Aha! That provided the input to decide
on the most likely cause of the oil pressure fluctuation. Yes, you guessed
it. Apparently the electrical terminal to the oil pressure sensor can is
loose. Several more pull ups confirmed that with "Positive Gs" the
terminal apparently would make adequate contact. Negative "G's produced no
effect. The sensor/gauge combination I have, go to maximum reading on the
gauge if the ground connection fails, so this appears to be a intermittent
contact problem causing the gauge to bounce.
So made the rest of the trip a bit
more relaxed and got home around 12:30. Too beat to take the cowl off to
check the oil pressure sensor terminal, so will do that this
weekend.
Again, I had a great time and enjoyed it
enormously. See you there next year.
Best Regards
Ed
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