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Bill, Another area that is needed for safe operation is good construction and maintenance. I have had the opportunity to inspect numerous Lancairs (320/360) over the years and have found many items that can only be classified as "accidents waiting to happen". A recent discovery was a home-made electrical firewall pass-through that was severely overheating. It carried all current to and from the battery including during engine start. The plywood firewall was charred through its depth. One can only hope that any actual fire would have been caught on the ground. Another 360 wasn't so lucky and crashed just 50 miles from here due to an electrical fire. Improper electrical wiring was determined
to be the cause. The retractable landing gear is a source of numerous avoidable incidents. These typically only cause damage to the aircraft, but are still very costly. One of my favorite quotes lifted from an NTSB interview with the owner after an accident is "I tightened it as best I could." If the spec calls for 35 ft-lb and best you can muster is 20, the job isn't done. Unfortunately no credit is given for effort.
Chris Zavatson N91CZ 360std On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 11:12 AM, "cwfmd@yahoo.com" <cwfmd@yahoo.com> wrote:
How to stay healthy in a homebuilt Lancair: Stay inside the envelope by: Avoiding 1. thunderstorms, 2. Ice, and low 3.IFR. Don't get 4.slow in the pattern behind other distracting traffic, even if it's "his fault". Meticulously 5. avoid engine failure on takeoff and have a 6.plan, where to point the nose and what to do at each runway/airport. Somebody said: piston engines will tell you before they are going to fail. 7.Drain the sump every time before takeoff, be 8.relentlessly unforgiving about the most minor hint you feel during
preflight and 9.runup. 10. Abort the takeoff immediately, then think about "why" or "if". Allow no possibility of 11.wake turbulence encounters near the runway: wait 2 min, upwind side. In military jets(T-38, A-4), if you can't instantly recite the
12. bold face and action in response to a surprise scenario in the brief, you don't fly as pilot in command that day. This level of proficiency is required in the Lancairs too, but the self discipline and cross check is harder, because one guy usually wears all the hats, compared to military or airline ops: pilot, copilot, safety officer, steward, maintenance chief, CFO, dispatch, skeds, ops, doc, (chaplain?). Happy, Merry, Lancairing
From: Lancair Mailing List <lml@lancaironline.net>
To:
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2013 6:42 AM
Subject: lml Digest #4452
----- Forwarded Message ----- Lancair Mailing List Digest #4452 1) Re: 1992 "HOW TO KILL YOURSELF IN A HOMEBUILT" by " pete@leapfrogventures.com" < pete@leapfrogventures.com> 2) Re: IVP instrument panel -cad file by Douglas Johnson < lancair1@bellsouth.net> 3) Re: N181AM status update by Paul Miller < pjdmiller@gmail.com> This digest is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list < lml@lancaironline.net>. For archives and help click http://mail.lancaironline.net:81/Lists/lml/List.htmlLML website: http://www.lancaironline.net/maillist.htmlI think it would benefit all of us if we stopped crowing
about how safe each of our Lancairs are because we have not personally had serious accidents. Lancairs are more dangerous than planes like 172's because of how unforgiving they become when errantly flown outside of their envelope. IMHO, most accidents occur after a sequence of mistakes by a fallible pilot that ends with
departing the safe envelope. In a 172, recovery is easier - in Lancairs, not necessarily so. Flying our high performance unforgiving airplanes does take a level of diligence that is above what many pilots I know possess. Training is critical. But even more important is not making mistakes on a routine basis that can cascade into catastrophe. We fly high performance unforgiving aircraft that are inherently dangerous relative to most other planes. We need to constantly remind ourselves of that and treat every flight, no matter how benign, accordingly. Pete There was an even older version of the IV panel that I am looking for--the one with the slight angle bend for about the last 8" on the pilot side. Douglas Johnson MD Sent from my iPad Here's my panel cutout.... from the best I can tell, this is the standard size as before we changed around the avionics, our panel looked just like many of the other IVP panels I've seen (see attached photo of previous panel)... If you have any questions, just drop me a note.
-dr
<cfqqq_panel.dxf>
<N181MT 036.jpg>
Adam: During your stay in FL, if you pop over to Spruce Creek I have the dynamic balancing setup for the Legacy. Once the transducer and optical unit is attached to the engine, you can balance via ground runs with the cowl on or run the wires through the heating duct into the cabin and fly it to get real measurements in flight. It would take a few hours to get the solution and a few more runs possibly to home in on a low IPS figure.
I still need to regrease the hub and dynamically balance the
engine/prop combination. I’m off to Florida
tomorrow for vacation so it will have to wait until I return. I’ll keep you
posted.
Happy Holidays, Adam Molny
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