THAT noise sounded expensive!! A pilot's nightmare.

[Tony Hill]

Way back in May 09 Builder of the Month, I told Michael that I thought flying was VERY important whilst building..but that I was guilty of not doing that...well now I am trying hard to make up for that. So:


I had my first planned and "live", cross country flight a while back as I had a couple of hours spare but not anything "build" wise that I could do in that time and SWMBO wasn't home to help with videoing. …I took off from Bunbury and headed north for Jandakot (about 90 NM) and return. I planned to cruise at 20,000ft, at least for the 10 or 15 minutes each way that I would not be on climb or descent!! It was a cloudy mucky late afternoon (realtime weather) and I was glad of the “big blue compass” (WA coastline) that made needing to see much of the ground superfluous. This would help later on as well, because the last part of the flight would certainly be Night VFR.

It went really well, a hard climb at +9 Boost / 2850 RPM, but temps and pressures stayed in the green and all was right with the world. I wasn’t sure what the poor people were doing and couldn’t have cared less.

The new trim wheels gave a much better feel, the lights were working, the switches were all working, the throttle is now adjusted to feel “right”. The new head tracker is great and clipped onto the Type C Helmet without having to make any modification to either. The helmet, mask, goggles, Mae West, Sutton Harness and heavy jacket were suitably awkward and uncomfortable and I was not in a my computer room but “there”.

Everything was perfect, …until Myalup (1/3 of the way to Jandakot).

There, at 16500ft the engine gave a loud cough and promptly dropped 800rpm. Training immediately took over !! It ran rough for as long as it took me to trim for the speed I deemed appropriate given the spare altitude I had (about 120mph as a compromise between controllability whilst putting most of my attention inside the cockpit and on the engine…and best glide, which is actually about 90mph).

Then it died altogether. My first ever non Accusim, unplanned engine failure in FSX.

I glided in circles around Mylup as there is a small private strip there. I tried the starter…no good. Mixture full rich then back to about almost where it had been, no good, Mags off and on again…nothing.

I shut everything down, noted height (12,000 odd ) and position (still nice and near Mylup). Ok, plenty of time for another go. Fuel on, throttle back as far as possible (given the link between throttle and mixture and the need for a lean mixture at that height), prop full RPM, flick mags, press starter. Bang and off she went but ran rough and the revs wildly varied at any throttle / pitch setting that gave over 2300. So I set +2 / 2250 and it seemed to settle down. I also found that I could maintain height and even climb a little (200-300fpm) at this setting and about 140-150 indicated, temps OK.

So I thought long and hard about it and decided to limp back to Bunbury, 35NM or so. It was a big call with Mylup strip in sight but that is small and rough and has some nasty trees. I know there is a little CALM (government) water bomber strip between me and Bunbury (even though I was not sure exactly where and it isn’t marked on the map) and so I figure, between the three fields 10 miles is the furthest I should have to glide even if I’ve made a bad decision and she packs up all together. Speed is life but altitude is life insurance so even at the height I was, I decided climbing at the expense of a little forward speed was well worth the trade off (not sure this was the right decision really). And if all else fails the area below is pretty flat farm land for the most part. So +2 / 2250, 300fpm climb and head south….

I got up to nearly 14000 but then the temps started to climb rapidly. Throttle back to +0..stabilize. But after a couple of minutes the temps went wild again and it sounded worse than Lee Marvin singing “Wandering Star” and was running rougher than a Derry night club on 12th July.

I glided for 30 seconds but was losing too much height so I decided to let her have about 500fpm and -4 / 2250, that did the trick. There followed 15 odd minutes of watching temps like a hawk and watching for suitable fields below, between the clouds. I particularly enjoyed entering 8/8 cloud at 8000 and not being able to see a thing…but broke out at 6000 just north of Bunbury strip. So not too bad there. By the time I joined mid downwind I had decided on a glide approach but a bit quick and a bit high. I aimed for a third of the way down the strip even though I had some power assisting the glide so if she quit I was already pretty much on a “glide approach”. Bunbury is a long strip for a country field so no problems over-running.. The engine seemed to be behaving much better at the lower altitude but I wasn’t taking any chances.

In the end I made a nice three pointer but with a bit of a hop. This finished an interesting flight. Total time mount to dismount was 48 minutes. I still have no idea what happened but hey, that is for the L.A.M.E to sort out. One valuable aircraft back on the ground, in one piece and my drycleaner will not be unhappy

Having had an unnervingly similar experience in real life a few years ago (but in clear weather, in a 172 and at 5000, 10 miles out) I was pleased to notice that my palms weren’t TOO sweaty and that the decisions I had made that day held true in the sim.

The helmet, Mae West, gloves, cockpit, TiR5, flight model and the brilliant ORBX/OZx scenery made it a flight to remember.

[Nick1150]

Great story Tony,

Thanks for sharing

Not only you have a talent in building, but also in writing... I must admit I lived every minute of it

[Tony Hill]

Great story Tony,

Thanks for sharing

Not only you have a talent in building, but also in writing... I must admit I lived every minute of it

Thank you Nick,

I must admit, it took me a couple of seconds when the engine dropped revs to bring myself back to the computer room! The sim with all the gear on is pretty convincing.