Mark,
When I first read your remarks, wasn’t so sure about them, I have
a couple of friends with Lancairs and one of them remarks on how poorly
maintenance is kept up by some guys (I’m not flying yet, so I haven’t
had a chance to see first hand). But…you are right…give the
engine fuel, air, rotation and a spark and they work. So why are the
quitting? Even if they aren’t tuned right, they still produce power,
even if not optimally.
So the question is, how do we set up a test of our fuel system so we
can test that configuration and flush out the gremlins?
I also agree with Ronald’s remarks, some folks are not executing
well when it comes to an engine out…but….I also agree that you don’t
hear about a lot of Cessna engine outs either. The other thing I would
add to Ronald’s note is that our forward speed is much higher, impacts
with stationary objects release far more energy than say deads ticking something
that stalls at 40 or 50 knots.
Back to the fuel system stuff. One of us needs to get something
set up that represents the same head pressures and general orientation of the
tubes and pipes that bring that life sustaining elixir (aka avgas) to our
engines. I recently started my engine for the first time a few months
ago, and had problems. The first attempt is The gas can was about
11% full and it turned out that the hose was sucking a little air. I had
constantly hit the high pressure boost to keep the engine running.
http://youtu.be/hIXqpxjyMco
(The decrease of RPM at times was also my testing of the constant speed
prop, but the last run, the engine stopped because it ran out of gas).
Later runs (not recorded) the tube was fully immersed in fuel and it I didn’t
have a problem. As part of the test we should see what a loose fitting produces
and how well the engine driven fuel pump works with a little air introduced
into the system.
Lot’s of questions
here, I have to head to CA for some work, and so I can’t do anything, but
we should do something so we have a good idea on how robust our fuel system
design is.
Kevin
From: Lancair Mailing List [mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Mark Steitle
Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 9:35
AM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: [LML] Re: another Lancair
I would like to go to Airventure, but this is a very busy time at work,
so I can't take vacation during July or August. I have only been to OSH once, and that was
pre-LOBO.
I work in occupational safety, and is probably why I keep asking these
questions. I'm looking for a common root cause, but I'm not hearing it.
I have a hard time convincing myself that all of these Lancair pilots
sitting in the left seat with an engine running at full power keep making
life-ending decisions. If there is fuel in the tanks, the engine should
keep running unless the pilot shuts off the mags, shuts off the fuel, or the
engine blows up. I doubt that Cessna pilots have this track record?
That indicates to me that there may be something more to this than simple
pilot error.