Glen,
Excellent thought and experience--thanks for sharing. John N2138H
--- On Tue, 4/7/09, Glen Davis <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Glen Davis <[email protected]>
Subject: [ercoupe-tech] emergency landing Sunday
To: [email protected], "Howard Mosher" <[email protected]>
Cc: "John Brier" <[email protected]>, "Jessica Cox"
<[email protected]>, [email protected], "Jose Gibert"
<[email protected]>, "Ken Lamb" <[email protected]>, "Kelly
Brown" <[email protected]>, "Jose Luis Gibert" <[email protected]>,
"Jose Gibert" <[email protected]>, "Geoffrey Davis" <[email protected]>,
"Bob Granato" <[email protected]>, "Bill Merrill" <[email protected]>, "Allan
Seymour" <[email protected]>, "Bob Steward" <[email protected]>,
"Eldridge Dan" <[email protected]>, "Ed Benguiat" <[email protected]>,
"Cheryl Gilmer" <[email protected]>, "Charles Stites"
<[email protected]>, "Larry Schwartz" <[email protected]>, [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], "Peter Guerlain" <[email protected]>,
"Victor Rodriguez" <[email protected]>, "Syd Cohen" <[email protected]>,
"Robert Bondy" <[email protected]>, "Rich Karlgard" <[email protected]>,
[email protected],
"Michael Dzurny" <[email protected]>, "Michael Brown" <[email protected]>,
"Lynn Nelsen" <[email protected]>, "Levin Horton" <[email protected]>,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], "Merrill Vaughn" <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 7:25 AM
Gang
I was ferrying N99828 from Florida to Mid Valley,
Texas this past weekend, delivering this beautifully restored Coupe to
its new owner. I had to make an emergency landing (in a farmers field) due
to a loss of power while at cruise. What I found should be a lesson to all
and an added item to everyone's pre-flight inspection list.
I was at 1500 feet, 2450 RPM, mixture leaned.
Weather was good VFR. Right at the three hour point, I was only 12 minutes
from my next fuel stop. At this point, I expected my mains to be dry and
starting to use the 5 gallons in the header tank. As expected, the fuel
bobber in the header tank started to sink slightly. No problem, I
thought. I have one hour of fuel in that tank and only 12 minutes to my
destination. In short order, I noticed by sound, then by reading the
tachometer, that I had lost 100 rpm. I gently added throttle and brought
it back up to 2450 RPM. Within a few seconds, I noticed another drop in
RPM, slightly more than the last drop. I pulled the carb heat but did not
notice much change except the normal slight drop in RPM. That told me it
was not carb ice. At that point, I decided that I may lose all power at
any point so I pushed the mixture rich, the throttle full forward, initiated a
climb to get as much altitude as possible before the engine quite, hit the
nearest button on the 496 and turned toward the closest airport, which was five
miles away. The engine seemed to develop full power in the climb and did
not stumble. In about three minutes I was at 4000 feet and according to
the GPS, I was over the private 2200 turf runway in about 4 minutes, at least
according to the GPS. I circled three or four times looking for the runway
but could not find it. I only saw farmers fields below me. There was
one long one that looked like a good place to land except for the tractor right
in the middle! I thought about flying to the next closest airport but it
was about 20 miles away and I didn’t know if the engine was going to die.
I decided to land on that long field where the tractor was parked as there
was enough room on one side of the tractor for the Ercoupe pass by. The
landing was successful and the engine was still running. The farmer
immediately came over to see if I needed help. As it turns out, what I
landed on was his runway, but he had abandoned it as a runway years ago and now
leases it to another farmer. He made a few phone calls and was able to
reach an A&P mechanic who was willing to come out to help. We spent
about 3 hours looking at the fuel system, removing fuel lines and checking for
flow problems. None could be found. We also checked the air filter
to see if part of it was ingested into the carburetor causing a partial
blockage. There was no problem there either. A called a few friends
for ideas and one suggest inspecting the fuel vents in the tank caps. I
removed the header tank cap and tried to blow through the vent. No air was
passing through the vent hole. We poked a wire through the vent hole and a
chunk of black goo came out the bottom. My guess it was a bug the got
smashed into the vent hole during the flight. I surmise that while the
main tanks had fuel in them, they were pressurizing the header tank, keeping
the
fuel flowing. As soon as the mains went dry, with the bug in the vent
hole, the header tank became a vacuum.... like holding your finger over a
straw and lifting milk out of a glass. I believe that the longer I flew
using only the fuel in the header tank, the worse the problem would have
become. The rest of the trip to Texas was uneventful, except for the winds
26, gusting 40, but that is another story.
The moral is check your fuel vents before you fly
to make sure they are not plugged up, especially the header tank. And, if
possible, always land with some fuel in the mains, just as a safety
factor.
Glen
Glen Davis
917 297 1111
www.ishootpictures. com
