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Dana
Joined: 13 Dec 2007
Posts: 1047
Location: Connecticut, USA
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 Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 6:44 pm Post subject: New Year's day flying |
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Today was a strange one. Weird, weather, careless damage, and almost a
forced landing.
A week after the Christmas blizzard, forecast was for upper 40s and light &
variable. All the snow melted or blew off our grass strip, looked like a
good day, everybody was there.
The strip was here, but I had to dig out the snow behind my trailer to get
the plane out. Then the first hitch, maneuvering the plane around a
snowdrift I got careless and let a tree branch slice a foot long rip in the
elevator fabric. AAAARGH! I'll fix it properly, of course, but some
ripstop tape takes care of it for the moment. Not as bad as my buddy's
Firestar; the storm blew his canvas shed down and sliced his wing pretty
good... duct tape fixed him up for the moment, too.
Started out a beautiful flight. Temperature inversion, snow nearly
everywhere, upper 40s on the ground but 65° at 2000! This is a rare winter
treat. Engine hesitated a bit going from mid to full throttle, but top rpm
and temps OK. Flew out across the river, but my engine didn't want to hold
cruise rpm... would fall off or increase. Then the rpm dropped to around
3500, which isn't enough to maintain altitude. Kept jockeying the throttle
but it just wouldn't "catch". Tried a shot of prime but that nearly killed
it. I kept circling over a couple of short farm fields, deciding between
the one near the road with horses, or the empty one farther out. I was
down to about 500', setting up for landing, when the rpm finally came back
up, and I was able to climb to 2500', high enough to make it back home,
keeping a potential landing site in reach, though it continued to run fine
at full throttle.
Back on the ground, the same problem was intermittent. CHT OK and EGT on
the low side. Running at 4000, it was hesitant to speed up, so I killed it
and pulled the plugs... looked OK. Fiddled with it until it happened
again, full throttle and it sagged until it quit. Pulled the rear plug and
this time it was black. My guess is it's flooding, perhaps a bad float
needle, this is supported by fuel dripping from the carb onto my leg as I
was pulling the plugs. Took the carb off and brought it home, though I
haven't opened it up yet. Time to order a needle and gasket set, I guess...
-Dana
--
If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
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ces308
Joined: 03 Nov 2008
Posts: 317
Location: houghton lake ,mi
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| Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 7:05 pm Post subject: Re: New Year's day flying |
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Dana,
It must be the season...My Jabiru did the same thing 2 weeks ago and forced me down in a golf course...Changed the needle and all is well again... Glad yours stayed running....
chris ambrose
M3X/Jab
N327CS
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