My engine quit!

Steve Schneider wrote:


I've managed to do this once at a high altitude airport. We've flown
into Big Bear (L35 eleveation 6752) many times in the Turbo Lance II. On
one particular landing the engine coughed and died as we rolled off the
runway. Mixture was just a bit richer than it should have been. Never
had it do that at lower elevations. Hot starts are always a pain, worse
so at elevation it seems -- but I did get it running again.


I see this every summer. We're here at 3650 MSL and you flatlanders fly
in here and go to full rich to land. Engine dies on rollout and you tie
up the runway while you pour good gas after bad trying to restart your
flooded beast.

Newps wrote:


Steve Schneider wrote:


I've managed to do this once at a high altitude airport. We've flown
into Big Bear (L35 eleveation 6752) many times in the Turbo Lance II.
On one particular landing the engine coughed and died as we rolled off
the runway. Mixture was just a bit richer than it should have been.
Never had it do that at lower elevations. Hot starts are always a
pain, worse so at elevation it seems -- but I did get it running again.



I see this every summer. We're here at 3650 MSL and you flatlanders fly
in here and go to full rich to land. Engine dies on rollout and you tie
up the runway while you pour good gas after bad trying to restart your
flooded beast.



There are many 'flatlanders' who fly into high altitude airports without
having had proper instruction on operating in that environment. The
typical problem is the high density altitude, overloaded departure that
ends up costing lives -- it happens a little too often at Big Bear.

That said, in many years of flying in and out of Big Bear (we have our
own tie down and keep a car at the airport, since we're up there quite
regularly) I haven't seen aircraft stalled on the runway or taxiways due
to a flooded engine being a common problem. In my case, I was perhaps a
1/4"-1/2" richer than normal on the mixture to keep the CHT down on a
particularly hot day (the turbo Lance is known for poor engine cooling
due to the cowl design), but far from full rich. However on any given
day, if you wander over to the fuel pit you'll often find the
un-initiated 'flatlanders' draining their battery trying in vain to
restart a flooded, hot engine after fueling.

When I learned to fly at NAS Alameda, the club would not permit pilots
to fly into airports above some specific elevation (which I've now long
forgotten) until they had logged a high altitude check out with a club
instructor. My indoctrination was in a Cardinal RG at Lake Tahoe back
in '81, by cracky. I know there currently are clubs down here in
flatland San Diego that don't have a similar requirement, but they
should. No doubt it would save some lives.

Steve

You call it a boost pump, this is a turbocharged engine?
Was it on high or low?

Paul Tomblin wrote:
I was doing my BFR last night in my club's Piper Lance (in case you're not
familiar: it has retractable gear and a IO-540 fuel injected engine). We
finished up with a bunch of touch and goes, demonstrating short, soft,
etc. The last landing, the instructor pulled the throttle and had me do a
forced landing. I had no trouble making the runway, and rolled off the
runway and over the hold short line. As I was tuning the ground frequency
on the radio, the engine died. And I was unable to restart it and neither
was the instructor - I ended up having to call the FBO to tow me back to
the tie down line.

It wasn't until some hours later that it hit me - during the forced
approach, I had the throttle at idle, the mixture at rich and the boost
pump on. Which is exactly how you prime it for a cold start - except for
starting you only do it for about 3 seconds, and this was for the whole
duration of the forced approach. So I figure I probably flooded it. So
what's the answer? Do you turn off the boost pump when doing practice
forced approaches? What about normal approaches? Does that mean turning
on the boost pump has to become a normal action on go-arounds and touch
and goes?

In a previous article, The Visitor said:
You call it a boost pump, this is a turbocharged engine?
Was it on high or low?

It's officially just called the "electric fuel pump", as opposed to the
engine driven fuel pump, but we call it "boost pump" for short.


--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
When C++ is your hammer, everything looks like a thumb.
-- Steven M. Haflich

I ask because the boost pump on mine is just that. I always thought it
was part of the difference being turbocharged vs not. It is suppose to
be off for TO and landing, unlike an electric pump. In low it is just
used (never had to) to fix a rough engine or vapour lock. High is a
massive fuel flow that will flood the engine if the mixture isn't moved
almost to the cut off position. High is only to be used in even of an
engine driven pump failure. The rocker switch is also gated to prevent
inadvertant actifation.

John

Paul Tomblin wrote:

In a previous article, The Visitor said:

You call it a boost pump, this is a turbocharged engine?
Was it on high or low?


It's officially just called the "electric fuel pump", as opposed to the
engine driven fuel pump, but we call it "boost pump" for short.

On Apr 4, 8:31 am, (Paul Tomblin) wrote:
I was doing my BFR last night in my club's Piper Lance (in case you're not
familiar: it has retractable gear and a IO-540 fuel injected engine). We
finished up with a bunch of touch and goes, demonstrating short, soft,

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
You'll get access to my computer room right after you pry the Halon test
key out of my cold, lifeless hands.
-- Simon Travaglia


What I would be interested to know is what did Maintenance find?

There is zero chance in my view that you flooded an engine under
combustion.

I have little or no experience with the engine in the Lance but a lot
with the Lyc's in a PIper Commanche (twin and single...up to the 400)
and this definatly should NOT happen.

Robert

In a previous article, Luke Skywalker said:
On Apr 4, 8:31 am, (Paul Tomblin) wrote:
I was doing my BFR last night in my club's Piper Lance (in case you're not
familiar: it has retractable gear and a IO-540 fuel injected engine). We
finished up with a bunch of touch and goes, demonstrating short, soft,

What I would be interested to know is what did Maintenance find?

It got flown a few times before the mechanic looked at it, and he was
baffled too, but whatever was wrong with it could have cleared up. It's
been starting and flying fine - no roughness, no indication of fouled
plugs, etc.


--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
I trust the cut & paste under Win2k's telnet about as far as I can
comfortably spit a rat.
-- John Burnham