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I picked this up from the gyrocraft board to which I subscribe. Regards, John We've lost two pilots to fatal crashes from my hangar row over the last couple years and almost had a 3rd one Saturday. Guy and his wife fly an Ercoupe hangared across the row from me and 2 over. He's known as "Capt. Fred" and does a public access airplane show on Sunday evenings. We've been neighbors for at least 15 years. He's kind of an over-weight cornball who wears a leather jacket and a long silk scarf while he's narrating and interviewing and even a leather helmet and goggles in the shows intro and closing. He's like an affable nerd and his wife is constantly getting awards for working with Girl Scout groups, etc. and getting them interested in aviation. I get cornered once in awhile on Saturday mornings when she has a group in her hangar and they want to look at different aircraft. They all want a photo of themselves sitting in the gyro, so I have to make sure they all get in and out safely without breaking any wires or scratching anything. We're talking groups of 50 or more. I gripe about it, but I love it. Fred did a show on me a few years ago and I got slightly P.O.ed. We did about 3 hours of air-to-air shots and Fred used about 3 minutes of them, if that. He's a big ham and likes talking and yakking about all his trivia knowledge instead of showing the planes in action. Anyway, my hangar partner Bill is a retired Southwest Airlines jet mechanic, and now that he's retired, he does annuals, repairs, etc. on the field and for a large flight school. He's an A&P and A.I. (or I.A. I can never get it straight). Fred and Anna's Ercoupe needed an engine rebuild, so Bill sent it a little north to a guy that has a good reputation for rebuilding aircraft engines. Bill got the engine back after about 5 months (!) and $8,000 worth of work and parts. He had everything rebuilt, like the mags, starter, charging system and had a new fuel pump put on. Bill then redid all the 50+ year old baffling with new, both the rubber and aluminum sheet portions. I took a "Wannabee" for a ride Saturday a.m. and noticed that Bill and Fred were there and running up the engine. We went for about an hour ride and when we came back, they were still running up the engine. My passenger offered to buy breakfast, so we left the field and went to IHOP for some food. We shot the baloney awhile and I drove him back to the airport to get his car. I then went to buy a small light for my gyro, and when I pulled in at the airport, I noticed the usual contingent of about 8 to 10 airport rats standing around as when someone is doing a first flight or something. I parked and walked up to the group and asked what everyone was watching. I was then pointed to look at the east end of the runway to see Capt. Fred's Ercoupe laying on the adjacent freeway just past the thresh-hold, upside down. I then noticed all the flashing lights and that the Mercy-Air heli was parked there on the freeway. Just then, Bill drove in. He was at the scene and said Fred was pretty banged up, but managed to crawl out by himself. They life-flighted him to Sharp hospital, where later we found out he had damage to his spleen and some other possible internal injuries. Bill said his face was like a piece of raw meat as was one of his arms. Fred never did install shoulder harnesses in his plane, so that lap belt was just a pivot point to slam his face against the panel. No word so far on the cause. Fred was up about an hour and a half, supposedly running the engine at full power and circling overhead. The story gets a little muddled here. Some say that Fred did stay over the field and just misjudged when the engine quit and overestimated his glide range. Some others said that he wandered away from the field, as much as several miles, against Bill's advice. I could see that Bill was upset, but then he started shaking uncontrollably and started having crying jags. It was sad all around. Fred's wife, Anna, was watching him come in through binoculars and saw him crash. There's an evergreen nursery on the east side of the freeway, and Fred's wheels caught the chain-link fence and it pretty much stopped him, but flipped him upside down onto the freeway. Luckily, there was a break in traffic. Hopefully he'll pull through O.K. Bill said that when he crawled out, he asked for Bill, and when Bill showed up in a minute, Fred said: "The engine stopped! It just stopped!" The weather wasn't conducive to carb-icing, in fact it is extremely rare in this area, due to the desert-like conditions. If the fuel pump was not working, the 6 gallons in the header should not have been enough for him to stay up that long, especially at full power. There is also a bobber gauge right in front of the pilot's nose. If that thing goes down a 1/2 inch, any Ercoupe pilot would notice it immediately. The 2 wing tanks are joined and the fuel pump merely pumps fuel up to the header tank, where it garvity-feeds to the carb and the excess flows back to the wing tanks. I have one idea, but don't know if it's valid. When I bought one of my Coupes, the engine had just been rebuilt and they forgot to put the fire-sleeve back on the short hose that feeds the fuel from the header to the carb. It passes right next to some exhaust components. On hot days, I started having my engine sputter, especially on climbout. Putting the nose down would usually clear it. Winds up it was vapor-lock, and it cleared with the nose down, as there was enough pressure to overcome it. In a climb, that fuel line was almost horizontal. After installing a short piece of fire-sleeve, the problem never appeared again. I asked Bill if there was a fire-sleeve on that hose, and he said there wasn't one. I'm guessing that previously, with the baffling all broken and ratty, there might have been enough air to keep it cool. After Bill redid all the baffling, maybe there wasn't enough airflow around that hose and vapor-lock took over. Apparently it didn't clear when he was nose down like mine would, but with new, efficient baffling, maybe it kept enough heat in where that wouldn't overcome it. No one knows for sure where the engine exactly quit. I talked with the Mercy-Air pilot, and he said that Fred got a "Mayday" out a little before he crashed. He was on his way in when the tower asked him to loiter awhile, as they had a plane in distress. The pilot said in a few moments he asked where the plane now was and was told it crashed onto the freeway. They got there and landed within a minute, as they were hovering or circling on the other end of the field. Pilot said that was the very first time that he was ever the first one on a scene. Fred's plane had all 3 lanes blocked, so he was able to land right next it. Anyway, that's the latest from "Charlie" row at Gillespie Field, CA. -- MACINTOSH®...because everything else is just a peecee. WINTEL...the cubic zirconium of computers.© "What a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent." - Samuel Adams (1768) "A true man, like a true horse, runs with his own breed." -From KIM by Rudyard Kipling ================================================================== TO UNSUBSCRIBE go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm
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