On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 10:22:14 -0600, Barnyard BOb --
wrote:

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 15:52:33 GMT, "Bruce A. Frank"
wrote:


After trying to find a hole between traffic on a couple of highways the
pilot was flying parallel to traffic on his intended landing highway
when the engine quit. Flight time since loss of coolant at that point
was 15 minutes. The pilot and passenger in the Mustang II skidded on top
of a fence beside the road for several yards then tipped over into a
water filled ditch. Because of the recently installed roll over
structure he and his passenger walked away.

The plane had minimal damage and was quickly repaired. The engine when
disassembled was found to have not seized. Nothing wrong could be found
in the engine. After several days of running the engine the builder
finally discovered that the culprit was a water caused short in the
ignition system and steps were take to eliminate that weak point.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And my counterpoint is....
If this was an AIRCOOLED powered aircraft,
the failure could not possibly happen.

Keep on spinning away...
with talk of minimal damage, etcetera --

Barnyard BOb -- KISS - keeping it simple, stoopid

I recall Bill Phillips posting a story about test flying an RV (6 I
think) on it's initial flight. Bill agreed to make the flight for the
builder. The builder went with Bill on the flight, if I remember
correctly, although that fact doesn't matter in terms of the story.

The engine was a brand new Lycoming, again, if I remember correctly.

It blew out the front seal of the engine while in flight and emptied
all the oil everywhere, including the windshield.

Bill managed to get it down amidst a rock strewn opening in the
desert, with minimal damage to the airplane and engine.

This was an air cooled engine, he did not have 15 minutes to get it
down.

Corky Scott

PS, I don't see Bruce's post as a "spin" on the subject. Applying a
spin to a story implies twisting the facts to better suit an agenda or
to explain away ill thought through utterances. What Bruce was doing
was showing that yes in fact there had been a sudden and catastrophic
loss of coolant in a Ford powered airplane, after I'd said I did not
know of such an incident. That the engine was not damaged, even after
flying for 15 additional minutes after loosing all it's coolant isn't
"spin". It's what actually happened.