On Sun, 05 Oct 2003 08:02:56 -0500, Barnyard BOb -- wrote:


"RSwanson" wrote:

Final line of the report:
"The pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed which resulted in an
inadvertent stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's lack of
experience in this type of airplane." And THAT has something to do with
his engine choice?????????
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You don't comprehend the TOTAL scenario for beans, do you? This is a
tragic comedy of errors.. not jerror.

You can't cherry pick a last line and expect to learn squat or argue in
an intelligent manner.

To begin with... the prop/engine combo could not pull the plane though
the air with sufficient airspeed above a stall. The pilot-builder
committed a number of errors before, during and after take off that
doomed him.

If the nuances and details of the report escape you , sorry. The loss is
yours.


Barnyard BOb -- 50 years of flight.

I have to agree with BOb on this one.

You could conclude that the thrust problem was due to the prop pitch being
set too fine, which it apparently was. The engine didn't fail. Now, why
was the prop pitch set so fine? Two possibilities: the engine wasn't
putting out enough power, or the builder simply screwed up with this
"non-standard" prop. Why was he using such a "non-standard" prop? He had
that prop because of the "non-standard" engine installation.

If you stick with a "standard" aviation engine and prop, there is no
guarantee they will be problem free, but at least the usual problem areas
are well known and you should be able to watch out for them. If you go
with a "non-standard" engine and/or prop you don't know what problems to
look out for, so you can get bit, as happened in this case.

From what I can tell the core engines seem to do OK in the automotive
conversions, but it is the other stuff that causes problems - PSRUs,
ignition systems, fuel systems, cooling systems, props, etc. But if you
have a power loss it doesn't matter whether it was the core engine or some
other part that let you down. You are in the trees either way.

A local Murphy Rebel flyer had a Subura conversion, but he eventually
pulled it out and went with a Lycoming. He had scared himself a few too
many times with various failues of his home-brew conversion.

--
Kevin Horton RV-8 (finishing kit)
Ottawa, Canada
http://go.phpwebhosting.com/~khorton/rv8/
e-mail: khorton02(_at_)rogers(_dot_)com