I am a bit embarrassed to report this but it is worth passing on to motorglider owners. Although it is Falke with Jabiru it could happen with any glider.
We have had an issue with either running real rich on take off (you could see black smoke and fuel flow jumped to 38 lit/hr) and then it may loose full power and usually land ahead OR if airborne at 75% all was well Clearly it was a full power issue but take off on lower power no problem. Carb (BING) removed and checked, Airfilter was K&N and changed, outside pressure air to carb removed. fuel flow electric and mechanical checked. After calls to Don at Jabiru so again back to Jabiru AND looked between full power jet and cruise jet and finally a tiny bit of curly piece of stuff was there but how did it get there as we have all new hoses and gascolator. Finally after 3 weeks of working we worked out it was a tiny bit of fire sleeving inner white insulation and must have happened 5 years ago when it was all put together and the hose was pushed through the fire sleeving. The fire sleeving was orange US stuff from Aircraft Spruce not the grey from Germany.. *Lesson ALWAYS when pushing fuel hose through fire sleeving with a piece of tape over fuel hose*. I should explain Jabiru has one BING carb and I recon I have read how they work about 5 times and understand it all. It would appear this piece would rise and get under top needle and then later on would finally drop down. My LAME friend always seals the end of fire sleeving with orange silastic but this would not solve my problem. Hope nobody else gets caught. Ian McPhee
