MichaelFarley56 wrote:I for one am thrilled that Robbie has started this post. I really hope that this will ultimately lead us as a community of friends, builders, and pilots into a new direction of safety oriented discussions, stories, and recommendations. I know there are a lot of people out there reading these posts with questions about building, flying, and maintaining these airplanes; if you're one of them, this is an excellent place to voice your question or story!
If you all don't mind, let me begin by offering my two cents on the subject. First off, for those of you who were at Crossville this year, you heard me talk about my one and only experience with mixing 100LL with automotive fuel which had ethanol mixed in. This led to me losing my engine in flight, but thankfully I was able to glide back to the airport. Little did I know at the time, but ethanol eats into rubber so as I departed my home airport, my SS braided fuel line was slowly deteriorating as I took off. Ultimately it took around 8-10 minutes for the ethanol to eat into my fuel line which caused small rubber chunks to block my needle valve in my AeroInjector, thus causing fuel starvation. The first thing I noticed was a spike in EGT's, and as soon as I saw that, I immediatlely began heading back to the airport. After another moment my engine began to miss, so I began looking for farm fields where I could land, just in case. As I approached my airport the engine ran worse and worse, but it kept producing power until I was turning onto Final Approach in a position where I could make a normal landing, which is what happened.
Moral of the story? First, I certainly don't recommend using automotive fuel with ethanol, but if you do, stay close to your airport when you first begin to test that fuel. This wasn't the fault of the engine or airplane; I should have never tried that fuel. Also, always remember to have suitable landing sites in mind as you're flying, just in case. When is the last time any of us practiced "Engine Out" procedures we rehearsed during training? It's probably been a while...just a thought...
My second story is actually on a non-Sonex path, but there's still a lesson to learn. In my "day" job as a corporate pilot, I normally fly our airplanes to and from maintenance events. There's a common joke among corporate flight departments; If you want your airplane to break on you, take it in for an inspection! The first time I flew our Hawker jet in for a phase inspection, I did a post-inspection test flight and it all seemed to go well until we landed. After landing, I did a walk around check only to find the entire aft fuselage and tail was covered with hydraulic fluid! It turns out the maintenance staff over tightened a hydraulic line on a thrust reverser and cracked a steel fitting, leading to a big hydraulic leak.
Just yesterday I was test flying a KingAir 350 and as I was climbing out around 9000' in IFR and icing conditions, I had one engine roll back to 'flight idle', which is a fancy way of saying idle power. After returning to the engine shop it turns out the mechanics forgot to tighten and safety wire a pressure control line to the engine's fuel control unit, and when the nut backed off the line I lost throttle control due to this pneumatic leak.
Moral of this story? It's always a good idea to have an extra set of eyes to check things over during inspections. Be cautious and check your airplane over with a fine-tooth comb after a Condition Inspection, because you never know. Consider enlisting the help of an A&P to check things over, or if you use an A&P for your Condition Inspections, don't be nervous to check things over yourself. The more sets of eyes that look at things, the less the chance that something will get missed.
Does anyone else have any stories or questions? I hope this is a conversation that will continue! I have plenty of stories but I'd rather hear what you all say...
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