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Unexpected Engine out.


alan_k

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Well I suppose you could say they are all unexpected, but this one particularly so.

I had found a failed plug on my last attempt to fly so had ordered a couple of spares and fitted one to the V5.

Took off about 5:20pm and was expecting to have an hour and a half flight, lovely conditions. Had just fitted a brand new spark plug.
About half way around felt a couple of little mis-fires, then a couple more. Thought I would go to max revs to gain more height, I was at around 1000 feet.

Lots of misfiring up to max revs then 1 second later silence (To put in aviation terms the donkey stopped). This sounds terminal I thought, gave it one pull on the starter but nothing. I was near the river Severn so middle of nowhere, looked around for a farm house with at least a car outside, spotted one and a suitable field opposite. Adjusted to slow trims for max glide distance but still had loads of time to descend, a little S turn to get into the field safely and I was down.
Folded the wing up then went and spoke to the farm occupants. Initially they were up for giving me a lift but then decided with the late hour the animals had to be fed before dark. No hassle, friendly people so I called my mate Geoff and he came and rescued me.

I am guessing the new plug has failed, I will be investigating later.
Now there is a tale for round the camp fire in the future.

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No, I have replaced one already on this machine last year (hence I'm getting ticked off). You need to pull the rotor off which is the difficult part, then all is revealed.

Bailey fitted a new one recently and I have only had 5 hours flying, so I have sent an email.

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8 hours ago, Steve said:

I've had similar - sadly, there are duff new plugs out there. 

Glad the landing was a good one. :-) 

It`s definately not unknown, at least in the motorcycle community, to hear of `dead on arrival` plugs.

Wasn`t an NGK by any chance  was it - they`re the worst offenders.....

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  • 2 weeks later...

Regarding new plugs not working... 

When we were into drag racing, we would buy our plugs by the pack of 50. It would not be uncommon for 5 (or so) of them to fail after the first few second in an engine. 

You DEFFO can have a dead, new plug. (thats one of the reasons that when you buy a Vitto engine you will notice that the plug has already been used for the factory test run. the same one is left in because it's known to be a working one :-)

SW :D

 

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