Lycoming engine fails! Pilot survives!

On 22 Nov 2003 09:13:08 GMT, (B2431) wrote:

:From: (BllFs6)
:Date: 11/21/2003 6:47 PM Central Standard Time
:Message-id:
:
: He elected to fly a single engine for the simple reason he couldn't see
: dragging a second engine if one failed.
:
:
:which brings up an interesting concept....
:
:a twin engine plane where you can dump/drop the bad engine when it quits
:working....
:
:
:certainly not a trivial thing......but with modern explosive bolts and/or
:other
:clever mechanical means ya never know.....
:
:dumping a bad engine over land or near the airport probably NOT worth the
:bother....
:
:Being able to drop a bad engine halfway across crossing the ocean....probably
:more worth considering.....
:
:take care
:
:Blll
:
:
:I wonder if Burt Rutan considered dropping one of voyager engines at some
:point
:in the voyager flight?
:
ropping an engine would tend to mess up one's center of gravity a tad.
:
:The only case I can see where it might work would be in the Ju-52(3M). It
rigionally flew with only the nose engine. I guess punching off the outboards
:might not mess up things too bad unless you are on the ground an catch one.
:
:The question is why throw away a few kilodollars worth of perfectly good
:engine?

It would violate the rules of the NAA and FAI, the groups that award
the records, or they certainly would have used drop tanks. They
didn't even drop out their - ahem - used food.

Kevin Horton wrote in message ...
On Sat, 22 Nov 2003 00:40:36 +0000, Blueskies wrote:


On 21 Nov 2003 21:41:13 GMT, (B2431) wrote:

From: (Fred the Red Shirt)

(Jay) wrote in message

"It's just one of the risks you take when you play the game with a
single-engine aircraft," he said.

Well said Mr. Swears.


OTOH if your two-engine plane is too heavy to fly on one engine alone
you face
twice the risk you do in a single-engine.


FF

Some guy named Lindbergh flew a little airplane across a pond a long
time ago. He elected to fly a single engine for the simple reason he
couldn't see dragging a second engine if one failed.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired


From all I have read Lindbergh wanted a single, reliable engine; that is
why he chose the Wright engine. He knew it would run for the required time
and he was very careful with the breakin and initial runs...

I would imagine that given the large fuel load required, the weight for a
significant portion of the flight would have been high enough that the
aircraft would not have been able to maintain altitude if one engine
failed. So in this case all a second engine would have done would be
double the odds of ending up in the drink for a significant portion of the
flight.

Yes. Lindbergh's decision to fly a single engine aircraft was the
example an old engineer used when explaining to me the difference
between redundancy and multiple opportunities for failure.

--

FF

Probably a Massey Harris, not a Massey Ferguson and, most likely, a model
101. Same company, but nothing similar to an aircraft engine. Up to about
20 years ago, guys slapped a turbo on them, revved them to about 5500 rpm,
and used them for tractor pullers. Stock they had about 50 hp, I've seen
them pull over 250 on a dyno running about 20 psi boost. Haven't seen one
modded up like that for years, though. Massey used a lot of Continentals
and Standard engines as well as their own engines back then.

Now that I think about it, though, I do think they used a Continental in the
135 and 235 series of MF tractors, 4 cylinders, something like 35 hp.
Anything bigger than that in MF, though, was either a Waukesha, Perkins, or
their own.

Massey used Continentals in a few things including combines and other
equipment.

John Stricker

"Brian Cox" wrote in message
om...

Lycoming started life manufacturing piston engines for automobiles and
marine applictions.

Guess their curraent engines are just auto conversions G

Big John
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I once owned a 1938 Auburn with....
LYCOMING STRAIGHT 8.
http://www.prime-mover.org/Engines/Pictures.html
http://auburn-duesenberg-museum.visit-indianapolis.com/

Kaiser and Fraiser enjoyed....
auto engines by CONTINENTAL.
http://www.geocities.com/gaac_oh/195...Manhattan.html


Barnyard BOb -- a wealth of useless information

My father-in-law has a Massey Ferguson tractor. The nameplate on the
engine indicates that it was manufactured by Continental in Kalamazoo,
MI. The logo is the same as on my Continental IO-470s.

"John Stricker" wrote in message

Now that I think about it, though, I do think they used a Continental in
the
135 and 235 series of MF tractors, 4 cylinders, something like 35 hp.
Anything bigger than that in MF, though, was either a Waukesha, Perkins,
or
their own.

Massey used Continentals in a few things including combines and other
equipment.

John Stricker

I worked on a friend's MF, and to my surprise, it had a Cessna hydraulic
pump, used for the power steering!
--
Jim in NC

"Brian Cox" wrote in message
om...

Lycoming started life manufacturing piston engines for automobiles
and
marine applictions.

Guess their curraent engines are just auto conversions G

Big John
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I once owned a 1938 Auburn with....
LYCOMING STRAIGHT 8.
http://www.prime-mover.org/Engines/Pictures.html
http://auburn-duesenberg-museum.visit-indianapolis.com/

Kaiser and Fraiser enjoyed....
auto engines by CONTINENTAL.
http://www.geocities.com/gaac_oh/195...Manhattan.html


Barnyard BOb -- a wealth of useless information

My father-in-law has a Massey Ferguson tractor. The nameplate on the
engine indicates that it was manufactured by Continental in Kalamazoo,
MI. The logo is the same as on my Continental IO-470s.

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:41:37 -0600, Big John
wrote:

Corky

Have you enough ammunition on auto engines to stop the nit picking in
this group? Both Lyc and Con started life with auto engines G

Big John

Big John, to the best of my knowledge, I try not to nitpick. I try to
present facts as I know them.

I believe that there are various auto engines that can be successfully
converted and I believe it strongly enough that I'm assembling a Ford
V6 in my shop that will be the engine I fly behind.

You weren't here when this subject was first aired many years ago, but
there were many sceptics... actually that's not a strong enough word.
There were some extremely vocal critics of the concept who felt that
no auto engine would work in an airplane. One of them was an auto
engineer, a guy who used to work for the Chaparal Racing Team with Jim
Hall. He was absolutely positive that V configured auto engines would
disintegrate (literally) under the stress. He also believed they
could not cool because the coolant passages were too small and the
cylinders too close together. He was wrong.

In order to build a reliable auto conversion, you do have to do your
homework. You have to safety wire just about everything that could
come off including the oil pan bolts. You have to build using
accepted aviation practices. There have been guys who screwed gas or
oil lines into the block and then ran them to the firewall. They
broke. You can't mount pipes solidly to the block and run them for
any distance, prop vibration will eventually crack them.

The guy who developed the Ford V6 discovered that the stud that holds
the air filter can and will unscrew and drop into the engine, if you
don't safety wire it. How did he discover this? Because it did. It
was one of the many flights in which he coasted back to the runway.

By now, many guys have successfully built and flown the Ford V6. One
guy accumulated more than 2,000 hours without anything falling off or
failing. Others are in the over a thousand hours hobbs time category.
For some reason, success stories like this don't seem to matter to
those who feel using an auto engine won't work.

I do intend to test run the engine extensively. I'm fabricating an
engine test stand along with the engine assembly process. While it's
true this doesn't exactly duplicate the stresses encountered during
flight, it's the best I can do, and better than just hanging it on the
airframe and testing the engine during the very first flight. One
thing at a time please.

Corky Scott

To walk before you run.

Didn't mean to draw a long history Corky. I've followed the discussion
here for a while and inspected and evaluated converted engines, etc.
for many years. I just wanted to point out another bit of triva that
you could use in protecting yourself from the 'nit pickers' who have
taken you to task on the Group.

Big John


On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:48:22 GMT,
(Corky Scott) wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:41:37 -0600, Big John
wrote:

Corky

Have you enough ammunition on auto engines to stop the nit picking in
this group? Both Lyc and Con started life with auto engines G

Big John

Big John, to the best of my knowledge, I try not to nitpick. I try to
present facts as I know them.

----clip----

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:48:22 GMT,
(Corky Scott) wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:41:37 -0600, Big John
wrote:

Corky

Have you enough ammunition on auto engines to stop the nit picking in
this group? Both Lyc and Con started life with auto engines G

Big John

Big John, to the best of my knowledge, I try not to nitpick. I try to
present facts as I know them.

I believe that there are various auto engines that can be successfully
converted and I believe it strongly enough that I'm assembling a Ford
V6 in my shop that will be the engine I fly behind.

Who is the guy near Lakeland that uses, or used the Aluminum small
block Chevy in the Lancair IV-P? Think it was just shy of 400 cu
inch.

He did a lot of testing including dyno work.
After he had the front web separate on take off he went out and
purchased the equipment to cast his own blocks. He figured the front
web was too weak to take the PSRU stresses.

I talked to him at Oshkosh a few years back and he figured that he had
over 7 figures into the engine operation at that time.
Admittedly there are few of us who can afford to do that, but he was
developing a lot of useful information the rest of us could, or might
be able to use.

He had flown the rig to Oshkosh from Lakeland in about 3 hours, so
that sucker did haul. Don't know about engine life and durability
though.

You'll have to fix the return add due to dumb virus checkers, not spam
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair?)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 22:40:13 GMT, Roger Halstead
wrote:


Who is the guy near Lakeland that uses, or used the Aluminum small
block Chevy in the Lancair IV-P? Think it was just shy of 400 cu
inch.

He did a lot of testing including dyno work.
After he had the front web separate on take off he went out and
purchased the equipment to cast his own blocks. He figured the front
web was too weak to take the PSRU stresses.

I talked to him at Oshkosh a few years back and he figured that he had
over 7 figures into the engine operation at that time.
Admittedly there are few of us who can afford to do that, but he was
developing a lot of useful information the rest of us could, or might
be able to use.

He had flown the rig to Oshkosh from Lakeland in about 3 hours, so
that sucker did haul. Don't know about engine life and durability
though.

You'll have to fix the return add due to dumb virus checkers, not spam
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair?)
www.rogerhalstead.com

That would be Jim Rahm of Enginair. In a former life he was the no. 2
guy behind "HURST" as in Hurst shifters. Auto's and hotrodding were
his life, until he discovered aviation. Hotrodding an airplane just
seemed a natural to him.

You're right, the engine had a LOT of engineering and dyno development
and so far has performed flawlessly. The PSRU on the other hand, has
been problematic. The PSRU was the one thing he felt should be done
by people who knew how to do them, and contracted NIS to develop one.

To make a long story short, the PSRU did not work well and things have
been in litigation for a while. Making a PSRU to handle 120 to 180
horsepower is one thing, making one to handle over 400 horsepower is
something entirely different.

Corky Scott

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 17:20:55 GMT,
(Corky Scott) wrote:

The PSRU was the one thing he felt should be done
by people who knew how to do them, and contracted NIS to develop one.

To make a long story short, the PSRU did not work well and things have
been in litigation for a while. Making a PSRU to handle 120 to 180
horsepower is one thing, making one to handle over 400 horsepower is
something entirely different.

Corky Scott

Sorry, that should be NSI.

Corky Scott

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 12:57:49 GMT,
(Corky Scott) wrote:

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 17:20:55 GMT,
(Corky Scott) wrote:

The PSRU was the one thing he felt should be done
by people who knew how to do them, and contracted NIS to develop one.

To make a long story short, the PSRU did not work well and things have
been in litigation for a while. Making a PSRU to handle 120 to 180
horsepower is one thing, making one to handle over 400 horsepower is
something entirely different.

Corky Scott


Thanks Corky,

I appreciate the info.
As I see it (and I don't know squat about PSRUs except their goal) a
high ratio PSRU as used in a turbo prop which has a very high ratio
(planetary) is easier to build than say the 2:1 or 3:1, BUT the
planetary also has the advantage in being used on an engine without
pulses being inherent in their operation.

The life of a PSRU on a piston engine has to be complicated. It not
only has to handle linear torque and thrust, but virtually any other
imaginable angle as well. Then it has to be designed to avoid any
resonances with those power train pulses AND take the positive and
negative torque without beating the snot out of the gears which means
next to nothing for slack (which brings its own set of problems).
Helical, double helical, spur, planatery...each with it's own set of
pluses and minuses.

BUT, didn't the big 12 and 16 cylinder Vs in WWII have PSRUs? Course
those engines had very short TBOs too. Then again they weren't
exactly babied either.

Also...How did the guys make out using the Olds chain drive in the
Legend? It "appeared" to work great for at least a short time, but
they were running 400 to 500 HP through a chain that was used in a
drive train that only had about 200 HP on the other end. When I
talked to the one guy at Oshkosh some years back he thought it had
plenty of reserve.
I always like that airplane. Last I saw it had a turbine up front.

Sorry, that should be NSI.

I know when he used the original "so called" chevy big block aluminum
based engine he felt the front web was the weak spot. Course that was
right after planting his IV_P off the end of the runway when the web
broke. (or did he make it back on that one?) At any rate the web
broke and it was a high pucker factor.

That sucker sure did go though. The only thing that would have been
able to beat him from Lakeland to Oshkosh would have been a jet and it
would have had to have been a direct, non stop flight.

You'll have to fix the return add due to dumb virus checkers, not spam
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair?)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Corky Scott