hindsight2020
Final Approach
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2010
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hindsight2020
...cuz I'm gonna be airplaneless for a while.
Took ye ol lawnmower for the monthly run and do some intermittency troubleshooting on the gear I've been battling for a year since the last annual. Halfway up the climb I feel a somewhat abnormal vibration, which doesn't say much, as these lycos rattle like a paint mixer on a normal day. First I thought it was a mag dropping offline, and it sorta seemed that way when I isolated the left vs the right. Went back to both and kept climbing but decided to turn back to home plate as the spidey senses kicked in. The vibration then went from a hum to a bop bop bop bop, then whaaaapapa pap pap pap!! and all hell started shaking out front.
Pulled power swung back to home plate and started throttle jockeying, it didn't get better so left it pulled back. Declared the E-word and managed to hit high key on partial power at 6k. The gear came down without intermittency (would have been a hell of a day to have a compound emergency).... and the ipad overheated. I thought that was rather apropos (don't bring toys to do a man's job type of thing).
At any rate, hit tower up and told them the plan. Thankfully the class D had just emptied and was able to time my descent without concern for traffic. There was not gonna be go-around power, not with the vibration I was experiencing at any power above idle. Uneventful landing all in all, I really got lucky my go-nowhere profile is one of climbing WOT to 10.5k within 10 miles of the field. So that gratuitous habit ended up working out. Otherwise, with the glide ratio of this greased brick, I was looking at having a chat with the boys at Texas DPS to call the frau and tell her homeboi was effing off at the airport instead of watching the kid (sue me ) and now needs a ride at the county line.
Made the runway, thanked tower for their help as I'm rolling, and managed to cut the engine with enough momentum to tokyo drift into the hangar row.
Now the waiting game. Mechanic won't be around for two weeks. Did get a local one to help me take a lookie loo, since I didn't find any oil, no loss of oil pressure, and no oil all over the windscreen like we usually get with power losses. The initial look inside the cowl wasn't too surprising given the symptoms.
So yeah. I think it's f%(^d. Love how the nuts ended up neatly and symmetrically aligned on the baffling, ready to greet me with the one finger salute, even after all that slipping and yawing. Looks like the studs failed in shear, and probably forward to aft in sequence, which explains the change in vibration amplitude and freq. So it was really a good call to pull power, I guess I could have pulled sooner given hindsight (badum tsk), but I would have not been able to make a key if I had pulled any earlier. Meat bag over metal loss at this point, honestly.
Now the waiting game. #3 cylinder. The thrustuds are trashed, so that alone means bad news probably. We will see what transpires once the mech pulls the barrel and we take a look. I am curious to learn what we can find out about the root cause of the stud failures. Some theory on simple fatigue based on the shear faces, but it's too soon to tell, since we don't know which one failed first. Once we pull the barrel I think the picture will become more clear.
I am glad it happened solo, also glad it didn't happen 2 years ago when I decided to cross the bermuda triangle lol. What a hobby.
We'll see what kind of damage an IRAN on this nonsense will end up running, but if it gets close to an OH, she's probably done. I had no plan to continue to own this thing for another 12 years. Certainly not the way I wanted to transition airplanes, but that's how life goes.
I'll keep you good folks updated on what we find out, depending on what we're looking at I have a fork on the road incoming, so if anybody has good leads on a well worn RV-6A, this is as good time as any. Everybody stay safe out there.
Took ye ol lawnmower for the monthly run and do some intermittency troubleshooting on the gear I've been battling for a year since the last annual. Halfway up the climb I feel a somewhat abnormal vibration, which doesn't say much, as these lycos rattle like a paint mixer on a normal day. First I thought it was a mag dropping offline, and it sorta seemed that way when I isolated the left vs the right. Went back to both and kept climbing but decided to turn back to home plate as the spidey senses kicked in. The vibration then went from a hum to a bop bop bop bop, then whaaaapapa pap pap pap!! and all hell started shaking out front.
Pulled power swung back to home plate and started throttle jockeying, it didn't get better so left it pulled back. Declared the E-word and managed to hit high key on partial power at 6k. The gear came down without intermittency (would have been a hell of a day to have a compound emergency).... and the ipad overheated. I thought that was rather apropos (don't bring toys to do a man's job type of thing).
At any rate, hit tower up and told them the plan. Thankfully the class D had just emptied and was able to time my descent without concern for traffic. There was not gonna be go-around power, not with the vibration I was experiencing at any power above idle. Uneventful landing all in all, I really got lucky my go-nowhere profile is one of climbing WOT to 10.5k within 10 miles of the field. So that gratuitous habit ended up working out. Otherwise, with the glide ratio of this greased brick, I was looking at having a chat with the boys at Texas DPS to call the frau and tell her homeboi was effing off at the airport instead of watching the kid (sue me ) and now needs a ride at the county line.
Made the runway, thanked tower for their help as I'm rolling, and managed to cut the engine with enough momentum to tokyo drift into the hangar row.
Now the waiting game. Mechanic won't be around for two weeks. Did get a local one to help me take a lookie loo, since I didn't find any oil, no loss of oil pressure, and no oil all over the windscreen like we usually get with power losses. The initial look inside the cowl wasn't too surprising given the symptoms.
So yeah. I think it's f%(^d. Love how the nuts ended up neatly and symmetrically aligned on the baffling, ready to greet me with the one finger salute, even after all that slipping and yawing. Looks like the studs failed in shear, and probably forward to aft in sequence, which explains the change in vibration amplitude and freq. So it was really a good call to pull power, I guess I could have pulled sooner given hindsight (badum tsk), but I would have not been able to make a key if I had pulled any earlier. Meat bag over metal loss at this point, honestly.
Now the waiting game. #3 cylinder. The thrustuds are trashed, so that alone means bad news probably. We will see what transpires once the mech pulls the barrel and we take a look. I am curious to learn what we can find out about the root cause of the stud failures. Some theory on simple fatigue based on the shear faces, but it's too soon to tell, since we don't know which one failed first. Once we pull the barrel I think the picture will become more clear.
I am glad it happened solo, also glad it didn't happen 2 years ago when I decided to cross the bermuda triangle lol. What a hobby.
We'll see what kind of damage an IRAN on this nonsense will end up running, but if it gets close to an OH, she's probably done. I had no plan to continue to own this thing for another 12 years. Certainly not the way I wanted to transition airplanes, but that's how life goes.
I'll keep you good folks updated on what we find out, depending on what we're looking at I have a fork on the road incoming, so if anybody has good leads on a well worn RV-6A, this is as good time as any. Everybody stay safe out there.