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First Flight Suspected Engine Failure Video

Flyguytki

Well Known Member
Below is a link to the video from inside the cockpit of my first flight a few months back. If you watch the dynon you will see a dramatic rise in the CHT and then it suddenly falls off. The EGT's on the right also acted very odd however that was a settings error in the way the sensors were reading. After this 3 minute flight we spent 3 days digging into everything imaginable trying to find a solution. After talking with numerous A&P's, Superior as well as a well known engine builder who is local we determined the Number 1 Cylinder fuel line was partially blocked during takeoff, as i turned crosswind the Cylinder became fully blocked which made the cylinder loose power and drop off, this also reduced the overall RPM by nearly 1000rpm. Almost immediately the cylinder cleared itself and returned to normal operations unknown to me at the time. The aircraft flew for 85 hours without a single incident until it was sold a few weeks ago.

Please critique, I would love to hear what others think of the diagnosis or how the situation was handled. Since I am starting a new aviation career next year this could help out significantly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-TSxl7y10

-david
 
I sent this to David via PM but figure the group might be interested. I just finished a 4.5 year tour teaching primary pilot training for the USAF. We focused heavily on single engine mentality and engine out/possible engine failure scenarios. YMMV

If anyone wants to read about how the USAF teaches single engine stuff, go here:
http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/?txtSearchWord=11-248&btnG.x=0&btnG.y=0&client=AFPW_EPubs&proxystylesheet=AFPW_EPubs&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&output=xml_no_dtd&site=AFPW_EPubs
and download that pub.
Read the part about ELP's (emergency landing patterns). Para 5.19 read as much as you want but focus on 5.19.7 and the figure of the ELP.

Basically, if you experience any type of engine failure, engine malfunction, or anything relating to engine issues, you should get yourself on profile for an ELP, and then fly the ELP. He APPEARED to have flown a normal pattern and my concern would be if his engine would have actually failed as he was rolling out on final, he might have been in a low energy state. I was not there so I can't judge.
 
Engine Failure

If you get a blocked fuel injector the other 3 cylinders will get extra fuel and run rich causing low EGT and CHT temps.
 
#4 EGT

Looks like #4 EGT dropped off suddenly on short final as well. Odd? Injector or distribution issue?
 
Comments

This is the first time I saw the video but there is some good learning stuff. I was the chase plane on this flight (you can just see me at 4:02 during the landing roll.

You made what looked like a play to land upwind which is a good first reaction with your altitude but you recognized that you were too high and with partial engine power could just make normal landing back to the takeoff runway.

First I thought you did a great job with the situation you had, this is just comments to think about the next time you are in this position. What most can't see is that you had an out on downwind since you where on a base for a crossing runway, so if the engine totally failed you could make that runway or at least the airport property.

Now the critique, I think you gave up precious energy by descending on the downwind to much. I think I even transmitted that I thought you were low. This loss of altitude stems from the initial turn and thought to land upwind, once you committed away from that course of action you should have leveled the plane or even traded excess airspeed for altitude and dropped the the flaps.

There is an argument that the engine indications you had might have warranted an aborted take off but, this all assumes you noticed them before you were near lift off speed. Other than a longer takeoff roll I did not notice anything as I waited still you were well airborne before I started my takeoff roll.

Most of this we discussed that day but I wanted to post so others have some amplifying information. I will be at this airport this morning if you want to talk emergency philosophy more in depth.

For those coning up on a first flight, I recommend hours sitting in the plane and chair flying all sorts of scenarios so that at least the initial plan of action is ingrained.

An experience formation pilot flying chase is also a big help, just did one with a plane that had unreliable airspeed, just flew on the wing calling out airspeed, verbal airspeed indicator if you will.

Cheers.
 
It's really hard to get a super accurate impression from the video as the wide angle lens distorts what we see in the video from what we would see in real life and also it is hard to know what your total energy is as I can't see airspeed and relative altitude. But my impressions - I felt a bit uncomfortable looking at the "perceived" low altitude on downwind and the slow downwind return on, I guess, partial power over an area with few "good" land out options.

When you first brought her around in a nicely controlled manner for the down wind landing, it sure looked awfully inviting to me to exit the highest threat environment and trade it for a low level threat of landing downwind... and perhaps in the worst case, running out of runway at walking or jogging speed. I immediately thought "heavy slip maneuver to align with the runway asap, then descending heavy slip all the way to the round out and straighten up and land on what is left of that beautiful runway". I'd much rather exit the runway end in a controlled manner, baja bounce over a few dirt clods and cow patties at 10 knots and come to a stop... then go from 100 to zero in ten feet in a stall-spin or have to touch down at stall speed off field and flip or otherwise go into a tree line or barn shortly there after.

My feeling has always been on engine failures... if you have a serious engine issue that has not led to complete failure (yet), expect the engine to fail at any moment even if it starts running again. I have been trained that a worsening failure in a damaged/sick engine will potentially follow the first movement of the throttle (variance of power), or otherwise, when you can least manage it - Murphy's Law. So with a sick motor we are in a very poor glider that just has not been released from the tow line - yet.

So in your case, you did what looked best to you and the result was no damage, normal landing, etc. The important thing was you kept flying the airplane, made an immediate landing and did not concentrate on diagnosing or fixing the engine above and beyond the basics that our emergency procedures call for, I assume. In my case, in my initial choice I was inclined to take when watching the video, I may have landed hot on the downwind runway, and perhaps even left the paved runway at slow speed or caused some minor damage if I had not executed the maneuver well. What was the right choice? People will always have different opinions. I still feel better about the downwind landing option, as it was a hedge against the worst sort of threat that presented itself while admittedly opening the situation up to some minor threats in trade for overall risk management.
 
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Thanks for posting David. As my first flight approaches, this is great to see and visualize...to see what it looks like and how to respond accordingly. Its easy to nitpick your actions to some degree, good for you for putting it out there on the forum for critique. In the end, you kept your head and flew the airplane when a lot of distractions were coming at you...a low time pilot on a first flight in a less than familiar aircraft...nicely done. There are no "style" points in this type of scenario...get it on the ground and walk away.
 
I dont see perfectly the numbers but i noticed that you take off al 2000 rpm, i know that after the war we are all generals but it is important to put in your checklist to check the full rpm in the begining take off run and if you dont get maximun rpm abort the take off.

Good to see you safety landing, congrats to that but you could abort before.:eek:
 
Good to debrief not a nit pick

Thanks for posting David. As my first flight approaches, this is great to see and visualize...to see what it looks like and how to respond accordingly. Its easy to nitpick your actions to some degree, good for you for putting it out there on the forum for critique. In the end, you kept your head and flew the airplane when a lot of distractions were coming at you...a low time pilot on a first flight in a less than familiar aircraft...nicely done. There are no "style" points in this type of scenario...get it on the ground and walk away.

I just want to throw out there that comment should not be considered "nit picking" which to me has a negative connotation Flyguytki put this out there for comments and I commend him for that, he wants to learn from the event, he has already discussed much of this with the local airport gang and has submitted here for a wider audience.

I call this a good debrief, flying fighters in the military our flight debrief most time was longer than the flight itself. You had to have a thick skin because if you screwed up your squadron mates were not going to let anything slide, this is how many call signs are made.

Everything from good comm discipline on the radio to formation position to analysis of shots and kills called. This teaches a few things the least of which is attention to detail. The big thing is you hear from others on techniques that you add to your own bag of tricks for future reference.

Flyguytki, did and outstanding job on the day in question with the experience he had at the time. He is doing what we all should do when we fly, go over it and see how we might do a better job next time. It does not mean we did anything wrong but perhaps just need to improve an area or two.

This thread I am sure will give someone some good things to think about before their first flight.

Cheers
 
Very well put Mike! It's tough to put yourself under the microscope like Flyguytki has done, he's to be commended for that!

Great outcome, nothing bent, nobody hurt. Now everyone can armchair QB the thing and we'll all learn a little bit.

A not-so-quick story: I bought my RV-6 in mid May this year. When I went for a quick check flight with the owner/builder as part of the pre-purchase inspection, we had a little problem... I was just along for the ride more or less, as it was still his airplane, and I had oh, about 15 - 18 hours in a single/piston engine in the month prior in preparation for picking up the RV. I had actually added the ASEL two weeks prior, and completed the RV transition and TW endorsement two days before with Mike Seager. With so little recent single/piston time, I still wasn't 100% comfortable in the single engine (still working on that now), and he was PIC.

On the takeoff roll, with the mains just coming off, the engine stumbled. It only lasted a moment, but to me, it was pretty significant. We were on a 5400' runway - and he continued the takeoff. I advised him that we had plenty of room to stop, and by then we were off and climbing. I said (a couple of times) that we still have PLENTY of room to land - and he continued. He was semi-unresponsive to my input, but I did not attempt to take the flight controls. About the time we had progressed to a point that a safe landing after an engine failure would have been very questionable due to our altitude, position, and the trees surrounding the field; the engine stumbled again. Only for a moment?

I've been flying for many years, I've had my share of emergencies, including an engine failure in a single engine helicopter, and I've flown about 1000 hours in combat. I have never, ever been so uncomfortable in an aircraft before. Quite frankly, it scared me. Mostly that was because I was not in control of what was going on I suppose.

We obviously got the airplane back on the ground OK, did some trouble-shooting and found the problem, found two actually. I had already discussed the flight with him, an informal and gentle de-brief if you will. He was not pleased with himself for continuing the takeoff, and of course he understood that I was not happy about it either! When it came time to fly again I did a fairly comprehensive brief, and we discussed contingencies. He was comfortable with that, attentive and much more prepared when we went back out. That flight went fine.

The point is that we all need to be prepared all the time. He was not mentally prepared to abort, and so he didn't. I should have had a brief with him before the first flight, but I didn't. I know I'm not as on top of it as I could be, but I try to brief myself each departure on what I will do if the poo hits the fan. Inbound to an unfamiliar field I'll try to take a look around and make a departure engine failure plan. I know how high I need to be to consider a turn back to the runway. I make almost every approach the old school way, power off at the abeam point to the landing. I try to never be in the pattern at a position I could not reach the runway from. I want to be prepared, and the fact that flying around on one engine still feels like an emergency procedure helps keep me focused on that.
 
I cant thank Mike enough for all he has done, been a great friend over the years and was defiantly there when i needed him most.

I am actually enjoying this, there are a lot of comments being thrown out and they are all actually inline with things that went through my head during this flight.

First off: Only 2000 RPM on take off, A Full throttle ground run would have eased this a bit however what occurred went something like this. I slowly increased throttle to about half, began rolling down the runway, waited for the airspeed to come alive and then increased to 3/4 and finally full, by the time I had gotten all the throttle in, I was passing through 45kts, and a second later the airplane was airborne. The RPM's do appear low however with the 74'' pitch on the Catto 3 Blade, this was the standard static RPM. The ground run would have confirmed that prior to the flight, I knew it was going to be low just did not know the exact number. An aborted takeoff would have been very possible, however it was not necessary at this point.

Altitude, when I started the crosswind turn I was passing through 900 feet, (700 AGL) and at the time of the incident i was at approximately 1200 feet, my initial plan was to land downwind, however being at 1000 feet a slip was possible but I felt there was not enough runway to accomplish this. Next though was the perpendicular runway or the large grass patch, luckily I did not have to put much thought into this, as the power was restored, The pattern that Mike was talking about in an earlier post was simply due to inexperience. Had the engine quite at any point, making the field would have been difficult, I remember being able to increase throttle and hear the big fan get louder so i continued. Looking back the pattern should have been much tighter and higher. Lessons Learned.

At the end of the day I think the piece I took away from this that I never would have imagined was simply The Fact that I could handle this type of event, Never did I think I was going to die, or Crash, the worst outcome I came up was having to put it down in the grass on the field. Fly the Airplane and do what you have to do to get it on the ground, Stay calm and you have a much Better chance of a successful outcome.

Keep it coming!
 
Nice sika on the canopy!

David - I can't add anything to the really useful comments you have had on the incident and how you handled it except if this happens to me I hope I have such a good outcome. Just wanted to say nice job on the canopy - the sealant looks very smooth! Thanks for sharing the video - this kind of information is going to make us all better pilots.
 
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