About every 7 years of my flying I have heard of a slick magneto failure. On 3 occasions aircraft became difficult to start and last occurrence was to me 4 weeks ago while returning from gulf where it was real hard to start. Those at Gulf a few years ago may remember Diane Davey has real trouble with the falke & finally failed at tocumwal on beer way back to. Melbourne.
With me we then used electronic to start then turned on magneto (UN earthed it) Finally on the last day was total mag failure so we came home from Thangool on electronic. Fortunately all the time home I was less than 20nm from airports (flew right over Amberley) all the way back with good paddocks as back up. Other issue about 18monthd ago I have had is the impulse spring break and just will not start. An electronic would have solved that one also. When I wire up dual ignition I do it like a 2 way light in your house so starter button will only work if one switch is UP & other DOWN or vice versa as you must not start on both as you will get a back fire which may damage carb diaphragm. Rob Handbury with his Stemme 10 with L2400 has had mag failure at Burketown right now. He only has single ignition. This has all made me think leave the heads same and fit electronic ignition & if you have a mag issue while away then just change the leads over & fly home. It is like carrying a jump start battery in your car. I gather Limbach will supply heads with dual plugs but notice those heads all have much longer threads on the spark plugs so must be a different casting head. When Ziggy in WA added extra plug to aeropower engines think it was 10mm (or was it 12mm) diameter plugs. It was not 14mm normal plug. I talked to LAME at Aero Enterprise Lismore & they do recommend 1inch SCAT hose of air onto the slick but when I asked the LAME at Mach 1 electrics he was less concerned. I do know Russell White and John Williams have dual ignition in their aircraft & if you do have trouble with slick magneto it could be extremely difficult & expensive to fix if in the outback as Rob is going through right now My bottom line is consider a dual ignition in your motorglider. Ian. Mc Phee 0428847642 Box 657 Byron Bay NSW 2481 AUSTRALIA
