Had to abort my flight today

Skydreamer2015

Skydreamer2015

Pre-Flight
Joined
Feb 10, 2015
Messages
59
Display Name
Display name:
Skydreamer2015
I'm a little bummed, confused, thankful & concerned. Flew a rented Piper Arrow to my hometown with no issues and overnighted. Did my preflight and crawled in with my dad as a passenger. Did my prestart checks & started up the bird. Did my post start & pretaxi checks and throttled up to start my ground roll. Throttled back a little once I started my ground roll. Got to the end of the apron and throttled back some more to around 1000-1200 RPMs & the engine quits! Never had this happen before. I started the plane back up & got it running and every time I would throttle back to less than 1500 RPMs the engine would quit. I did this probably a dozen times. Near one of the last start ups, I decided to see what the plane would do if I did a complete run up and when I did a mag check, both mags dropped about 250 RPMs. A bystander on the ramp said the plane was smoking black smoke out of the exhaust as well. Obviously I wasn't going to take this plane flying, but it is concerning what "could of been" if I had issues in the air especially flying over the mountains at 10,500'. I will contact the FBO tomorrow and let them know what is going on since they are closed today, but can anyone enlighten me as to what is going on with this plane?? I will know soon enough from a mechanic, but what a way to ruin a good day for flying!!
 
Where did you start from? How much did your altitude change? Could this be a lean/rich issue, at least in part?
I'm not familiar with Arrows, but were the fuel pump(s) set correctly? Fuel tank selectors? How much gas? Fresh gas? Did you sump? How'd it look?

I think more info is needed for diagnosis. Glad you aborted the flight and did not take off. Happy you are safe, and hope it's something simple and easily solvable.
 
Good call on the abort.

You say it would quit when you reduced power below 1500. What was the RPM when you started it up and before you taxied out of the parking spot?
 
Sounds like an FI problem, what was the pressure/flow meter reading?
 
G-Man said:
Where did you start from? How much did your altitude change? Could this be a lean/rich issue, at least in part?
I'm not familiar with Arrows, but were the fuel pump(s) set correctly? Fuel tank selectors? How much gas? Fresh gas? Did you sump? How'd it look?

I think more info is needed for diagnosis. Glad you aborted the flight and did not take off. Happy you are safe, and hope it's something simple and easily solvable.
Click to expand...

Started out at 4500' & I was departing today at 7100' I have flown this route before with a couple hour stop just not overnight. Fuel pumps set correctly. Fuel selector set. I was on the full tank. Tanks were topped off when I took off yesterday. Only 2 hours burn off of fuel. Slumped all drains & came out clean. I'm a checklist fanatic so feel pretty confident that nothing was over looked
 
As others have asked, what is the airport elevation? Above 3000 feet the engine mixture needs to be leaned out a little.

Then again, I haven't been in a Piper Arrow in years so I am not familiar with operations.

Safety first though, you did good.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Good call on the abort.

You say it would quit when you reduced power below 1500. What was the RPM when you started it up and before you taxied out of the parking spot?
Click to expand...

I kept the RPM around 1000 after start up per the checklist. That's why I'm confused
 
Sounds like too rich/lean. It ran fine at 1000rpm after start? I would guess you taxi at 1100-1200 to get it moving then back to 1000 or so? I don't think I would have restarted it a dozen times. After 3, I'd be focused on just getting back to the hangar/tie-down.
 
Skydreamer2015 said:
I kept the RPM around 1000 after start up per the checklist. That's why I'm confused
Click to expand...

Did you try leaning? Did you look at the pressure gauge? You were far too rich which makes me suspect either a regulator or servo problem.
 
Henning said:
Did you try leaning? Did you look at the pressure gauge? You were far too rich which makes me suspect either a regulator or servo problem.
Click to expand...

That's what I'm thinking. I'm curious if OP leaned to taxi (I suspect not). Not saying he should have taken off, but this does sound like waaaay over rich.
 
Is the primer open? What was the density altitude? Was the intake clear?

Sounds really, really rich.

Regardless, this is definitely a better time to figure it out than at 100 AGL.
 
I'm not familiar with Piper's, but in a 172 we lean it out about an inch after start up at 4200', probably around 1.5" at 7100'. Not doing so can foul plugs and maybe result in what's going on with your plane. Let us know when you find out though.
 
You started it 12 times after it quit? Just curious, if after it did it 8 times and didn't the next, would you fly it? I think I'd be hanging up the keys after the first time.
 
At 7100' you need to lean the hell out of it! It was beltching black smoke due to being too rich. The only time you need full rich is on take off (and only below 3,500'). When above 3,500 lean on take off to best power and add a little.

CFI's do a huge disservice (and dangerous) by making students always think full rich except for cruise. It is a waste of fuel and hard on the engine.
 
Last edited:
woodchucker said:
I'm not familiar with Piper's, but in a 172 we lean it out about an inch after start up at 4200', probably around 1.5" at 7100'. Not doing so can foul plugs and maybe result in what's going on with your plane. Let us know when you find out though.
Click to expand...

You should be leaning to the point it stumbles then bump in a little. If you throttle up, it should stumble from starvation.


Aggressive leaning for ground ops keeps plugs happy.
 
If the field elevation was that high, you need to be leaning (almost till it dies) for ground ops and leaning for best power prior to take off.

What was the density altitude?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Unit74 said:
You should be leaning to the point it stumbles then bump in a little. If you throttle up, it should stumble from starvation.
Click to expand...

This. I lean WAY back at my 4500' home field - I taxi at under 1100rpm and if I get it up to 1300 it will stumble. After start, I throttle to 1000rpm and lean until it runs a slightly rough, then enrichen about 1/4".

Only when I do the run-up do I push the mixture up and the first part of my sunup is to lean for best power, then do the mags, carb heat, prop etc.
 
Geico266 said:
At 7100' you need to lean the hell out of it! It was beltching black smoke due to being too rich. The only time you need full rich is on take off (and only below 3,500'). When above 3,500 lean on take off to best power and add a little.

CFI's do a huge disservice (and dangerous) by making students always think full rich except for cruise. It is a waste of fuel and hard on the engine.
Click to expand...

I missed the 7100' runway, yeah, you need to lean way back for that.
 
Yeah, the 7000' elevation is likely the main factor. Now that you are on this track I'd let the mechanic look over the plane tomorrow, it may need attention of some sort.

Regardless of the reason for the 'fouled' run up, it was the correct decision to abort. It may be something else.

Rule #1, never take a defective plane airborne(let's not split hairs with talk of failures past V1 with a multi).
 
7000 field elevation could mean 10,000 or more DA in summer.

I'm surprised it started. At that kind of DA, I often need to crank leaned.

It seems this is not a turbo Arrow, so estimate the DA at your mountain crossing altitude and make sure the plane can do it. Leave a lot of margin, and consider a just-after-dawn departure.

PA28s seem kinda weak at those altitudes, even compared to equivalent Cessnas. Be careful.
 
MAKG1 said:
7000 field elevation could mean 10,000 or more DA in summer.

I'm surprised it started. At that kind of DA, I often need to crank leaned.

It seems this is not a turbo Arrow, so estimate the DA at your mountain crossing altitude and make sure the plane can do it. Leave a lot of margin, and consider a just-after-dawn departure.

PA28s seem kinda weak at those altitudes, even compared to equivalent Cessnas. Be careful.
Click to expand...

You don't crank an Arrow leaned, you crank it mixture ICO.
 
First reaction would be really foueled plugs. Black smoke indicates incomplete combustion. Some rentals often foul a lot because folks just fly them around full rich all the time.

Did you lean on the flight in? Also did you try the procedure for cleaning fouled plugs and did that do anything to the runup RPM drop?

Had something similar happen a while back. Had to lean a bunch around 2k rpm for a few min the burn off all the crap that had built up. After that the runup went smoothly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top