"Whoops!" I thought to myself, "That sure didn't work out right!" There I was in the vertical part of the second loop in a cloverleaf, only I was rapidly approaching no airspeed and hanging without any G on the airplane. I pulled back a little to bring the nose over, rolled inverted, built up a little airspeed, then rolled out level and tried to figure out how I'd botched it...then I smelled oil. Hot oil....not a lot of it, but more than I'd get from flying over the Texas City refineries below me. Nope, I was still up about 10,000', so that wasn't it. All that thought in about half a second, and then I settled on the logical conclusion - I'd gone negative when I had the engine oil pooled at the back of the case, and must have burped the crankcase vent.
The smell dissipated in about 30 seconds, and several checks of the gauges confirmed all was fine, so I finished up playing and headed back to the barn. After I shut down and climbed out, mys first thought was "my, those are pretty streamlines on the left upper gear leg faigin..." oh nuts - Guess I DID spill some oil. I saw a little running out the back of the cowl into the NACA scoop - there was the cockpit smell! Not one to leave things to speculation, I pulled out the screwdrivers and got the top cowl off. Sure enough, there was oil over on the left side of the lower cowl and most everything in the lower left quadrant. Off came the lower cowl, and a quick glance up the breather confirmed it had spat out the messy stuff. I grabbed a bunch of paper towels and some Coleman fuel and spent a good quality hour with the Val cleaning things up. There was no measurable drop in quantity on the dipstick, but a little bit of oil with a slipstream goes a LONG way!
I guess that this is one argument that if I had my breather outside the cowl, instead of inside, over the exhaust, I might have had less mess (that was an interesting thread in the last week!). But I still like the overall less belly mess of having it that way, and this was the first time I'd had this problem in all the hours we've been flying together, so I think I'll keep things the way they are. Still, I was amazed that I actually had oil DRIPPING off the tail wheel knuckle! Like I said, a little oil goes a long way.....
Ah well, all in all, an hour of cleaning for the joy of acro in the cool clear air above the cumulus-laden, hot and humid gulf coast air is not a bad trade. I'd spent three days in MCC working the detailed contingency plans for Hurricane Dean, and now that we have those plans in place, and the storm no longer looks threatening, I could take the time to relax and enjoy. I have to go back on console tomorrow until the end of the mission, but it's nice to be able to get away and relax the way I like - throwing the val around a bit in a mutual enjoyment of life!
As I closed up the hangar, I looked both ways to make sure no one was watching, then patted the spinner and said "sorry about that...I'll try not to let it happen again." I think that Val smiled, accepted my apology, and I pulled the door shut for the evening.
Paul
The smell dissipated in about 30 seconds, and several checks of the gauges confirmed all was fine, so I finished up playing and headed back to the barn. After I shut down and climbed out, mys first thought was "my, those are pretty streamlines on the left upper gear leg faigin..." oh nuts - Guess I DID spill some oil. I saw a little running out the back of the cowl into the NACA scoop - there was the cockpit smell! Not one to leave things to speculation, I pulled out the screwdrivers and got the top cowl off. Sure enough, there was oil over on the left side of the lower cowl and most everything in the lower left quadrant. Off came the lower cowl, and a quick glance up the breather confirmed it had spat out the messy stuff. I grabbed a bunch of paper towels and some Coleman fuel and spent a good quality hour with the Val cleaning things up. There was no measurable drop in quantity on the dipstick, but a little bit of oil with a slipstream goes a LONG way!
I guess that this is one argument that if I had my breather outside the cowl, instead of inside, over the exhaust, I might have had less mess (that was an interesting thread in the last week!). But I still like the overall less belly mess of having it that way, and this was the first time I'd had this problem in all the hours we've been flying together, so I think I'll keep things the way they are. Still, I was amazed that I actually had oil DRIPPING off the tail wheel knuckle! Like I said, a little oil goes a long way.....
Ah well, all in all, an hour of cleaning for the joy of acro in the cool clear air above the cumulus-laden, hot and humid gulf coast air is not a bad trade. I'd spent three days in MCC working the detailed contingency plans for Hurricane Dean, and now that we have those plans in place, and the storm no longer looks threatening, I could take the time to relax and enjoy. I have to go back on console tomorrow until the end of the mission, but it's nice to be able to get away and relax the way I like - throwing the val around a bit in a mutual enjoyment of life!
As I closed up the hangar, I looked both ways to make sure no one was watching, then patted the spinner and said "sorry about that...I'll try not to let it happen again." I think that Val smiled, accepted my apology, and I pulled the door shut for the evening.
Paul
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