engine failure

I recently acquired a 1973 P337 Skymaster and had a bit of trouble with
it on a flight to New Jersey when I lost an engine enroute. I left
Magnolia Arkansas in the morning and flew to Knoxville for lunch and
refueling, then on to CDW --Essex County, New Jersey. Over Allentown,
I noticed fluctuations in manifold pressure on the front engine and
rough operation. The EGT and cylinder head temps were fine, but my oil
pressure was down to nothing, so I shut down the engine and feathered
the prop. I called ATC and let them know. Then I flew the plane on
towards CDW keeping a close eye on the rear engine guages. Since the
engine is turbocharged, I had no trouble holding altitude on one engine
and therefore decided to continue to my destination (about 15 min
more). When I arrived at CDW, they had men and equipment waiting and
let me use whatever runway I wanted. I chose 22, entered a right
downwind, and put my gear down. But it wouldn't go down. So I circled
and pumped it down. Then no gear light came on. I tried to call the
tower, but I had lost all electrical. (Hence the gear light failure).
So I lined up on final and landed the plane.

The mechanic at CDW looked everything over the next day and reported
the front engine had blown an oil seal for one of the cylinders, and
the rear engine's alternator was bad. In addition he said the fuel
line to the rear engine had eroded through and there was a gas leak in
the rear engine compartment. He noticed this because of a leak of gas
on the hanger floor. I swear there was no leakage of gas under the
plane prior to the trip. So I had three systems fail in one leg of the
trip.

The plane was one month new to me. I had 30 hours on it since
purchasing it and had fortunately practiced single engine landings and
manual gear extension. For 30 hours there was no excessive oil
consumption or leaks or ther signs of trouble. So it's hard to blame
the mechanics who worked on it last. Just fate I guess.

Glad to hear you were able to land safely! That second engine sure can
come in handy, in a pinch, ehhh?

Best Regards,
Todd

The second engine is very handy, and I like the in-line aspect, at
least in this case.

One interesting thing about this emergency--my autopilot wouldn't work
after the electrical failure, so I had to pump the gear down and fly
the plane at the same time. When the gear came out, the increased drag
caused a loss of airspeed, and I dropped below "blue line" for a short
while. That's not really a problem in the 337, but if I had been in a
conventional light twin, that might have been disastrous. I found it
hard to manually fly the plane, holding course, altitude, airspeed, etc
and bend over and pump the gear down at the same time.

three-eight-hotel wrote:
Glad to hear you were able to land safely! That second engine sure can
come in handy, in a pinch, ehhh?

Best Regards,
Todd

On 2006-06-08, swag wrote:
caused a loss of airspeed, and I dropped below "blue line" for a short
while. That's not really a problem in the 337, but if I had been in a
conventional light twin, that might have been disastrous.

Dropping below blue line in a conventional twin has exactly the same
consequences as dropping below blue line in a C337. I think you are
thinking about red line (which is something a C337 won't have)

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"swag" writes:

[...] When the gear came out, the increased drag caused a loss of
airspeed, and I dropped below "blue line" for a short while. That's
not really a problem in the 337, but if I had been in a conventional
light twin, that might have been disastrous. [...]

You are probably mixing up the red (Vmc) & blue (Vyse) lines. Still,
neither is that bad if one has some altitude to spare and avoids being
hamfisted with the throttle.

- FChE

The landing gear doors on the C337 and the C210 models with
doors, open like big flat plate air-brakes. The gear is
best left down and locked if you have an engine failure
below 500 feet.




--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

"Frank Ch. Eigler" wrote in message
...
|
| "swag" writes:
|
| [...] When the gear came out, the increased drag caused
a loss of
| airspeed, and I dropped below "blue line" for a short
while. That's
| not really a problem in the 337, but if I had been in a
conventional
| light twin, that might have been disastrous. [...]
|
| You are probably mixing up the red (Vmc) & blue (Vyse)
lines. Still,
| neither is that bad if one has some altitude to spare and
avoids being
| hamfisted with the throttle.
|
| - FChE

you're right about the def's of blue line and red line. I guess I was
just trying to make the point that pumping the gear down in the pattern
adds another potential problem to the scenario that might be magnified
by off center thrust. It would feel more comfortable to be above
pattern altitude, but I didn't feel like I had the luxury to climb and
take my time. I probably did...but my fuel guages went to zero when I
lost electrical, and although I "knew" I had over 40 gallons of fuel
left, I was really too nervous about everything to choose the best
course of action-- which would have been to circle up over the airport
to maybe 3000 agl and then pump the gear down. (If my fuel guages were
right and a bad fuel leak had developed I would still be ok if I was in
gliding distance of the airport)

Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
"swag" writes:

[...] When the gear came out, the increased drag caused a loss of
airspeed, and I dropped below "blue line" for a short while. That's
not really a problem in the 337, but if I had been in a conventional
light twin, that might have been disastrous. [...]

You are probably mixing up the red (Vmc) & blue (Vyse) lines. Still,
neither is that bad if one has some altitude to spare and avoids being
hamfisted with the throttle.

- FChE

The plane was one month new to me. I had 30 hours on it since
purchasing it and had fortunately practiced single engine landings and
manual gear extension. For 30 hours there was no excessive oil
consumption or leaks or ther signs of trouble. So it's hard to blame
the mechanics who worked on it last. Just fate I guess.

Crikey! Three separate systems failed during a single flight?

Either the odds played out against you in the worst way possible, or the
folks who did your pre-buy inspection missed a bunch of stuff.

Glad you made it down okay...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Well I must confess that I didn't get a pre buy inspection. The plane
had just gone through an annual, and I went over the plane with the
shop that did the annual (St Cloud Aviation). Maybe this speaks to the
value of a pre buy, although I have a hard time believing they could
find something that was "about" to fail.

Jay Honeck wrote:
The plane was one month new to me. I had 30 hours on it since
purchasing it and had fortunately practiced single engine landings and
manual gear extension. For 30 hours there was no excessive oil
consumption or leaks or ther signs of trouble. So it's hard to blame
the mechanics who worked on it last. Just fate I guess.

Crikey! Three separate systems failed during a single flight?

Either the odds played out against you in the worst way possible, or the
folks who did your pre-buy inspection missed a bunch of stuff.

Glad you made it down okay...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"swag" wrote in message
oups.com...
Well I must confess that I didn't get a pre buy inspection. The plane
had just gone through an annual, and I went over the plane with the
shop that did the annual (St Cloud Aviation). Maybe this speaks to the
value of a pre buy, although I have a hard time believing they could
find something that was "about" to fail.


snip


There are plenty of things that they could find that are ""about" to
fail"...




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