Buddy of mine was breaking in his Rotax 503 in his Hawk lite sport plane on the ground today. He had left the master switch on, so the brand new lithium ion battery was low.
We jumped the starter to get it running and observed the volt meter, which sat at 10 volts.
After running approximately 40 minutes of the hour required, the volt meter went to 11 volts, then immediately to 12. At that point, it lit off. As I ran for the fire extinguisher, he fought with disconnecting it and upon getting it free, threw it away from the plane.
It burned and smoked profusely for 5 minutes or so before finally burning itself out. IF this had happened while in the air, there is no way he would have gotten it on the ground before the fire had done serious damage to the plane, IF he could have seen anything through the dense white smoke.
Taught both of us a valuable lesson. I myself will NEVER install one of these until or unless better overcharge protection is in place and unless a low-charge shutoff is in place to prevent it from discharging too far in the first place.
It's just not worth what I saw today, no matter how light and compact it may be.
We jumped the starter to get it running and observed the volt meter, which sat at 10 volts.
After running approximately 40 minutes of the hour required, the volt meter went to 11 volts, then immediately to 12. At that point, it lit off. As I ran for the fire extinguisher, he fought with disconnecting it and upon getting it free, threw it away from the plane.
It burned and smoked profusely for 5 minutes or so before finally burning itself out. IF this had happened while in the air, there is no way he would have gotten it on the ground before the fire had done serious damage to the plane, IF he could have seen anything through the dense white smoke.
Taught both of us a valuable lesson. I myself will NEVER install one of these until or unless better overcharge protection is in place and unless a low-charge shutoff is in place to prevent it from discharging too far in the first place.
It's just not worth what I saw today, no matter how light and compact it may be.