pkoszegiMarch 28, 2014, 6:13am
A week ago my student on the Cora checked spark plugs and cht senders. (503 inverted engine) We flew 4 hours or so and about 15 landings since that. Yesterday we went x country. Landed safely after 140 km on a grass airport. It was 25 km/h headwind and a bit bumpy.
Than he went on a check ride with an other instructor (you cant release your student here without x check by and other instructor) the guy is a big guy together they were I think around 220-230 kg. They taxied to the runway and tried to take off, they aborted the take of half way. They taxied back and attempted an other takeoff. Well that was a long one.
On the pattern in about 1 minute later they heard a bang, engine was running, no power and weird noise and made a dead stick landing on the airport without problem (instructor handled the case).
They stopped in the middle of the airport.
As I arrived with a car and a rope to pull them back to the hangars I saw that a spark plug cable with a pug still inside it hanging down at the nose gear.
There was no damage nor the thread on the plug neither in the cylinder. There was no washer on the plug however which does not used to fall off easily. I checked all other 3 plugs. 1 of them were missing the washer, one other was very loose, the other was ok. The guy did not tighten them properly.
The spark plug after 4-5 hours and a number of takeoff simply screwed out by vibration.
I put it back, checked the engine on the ground by full rpm and there was no problem with it whatsoever. After this the plane flew an other 5-6 takeoffs and we managed back to our base airport 140 km in 1h 15 min, with a 25 km/h tailwind.
This is a story how much an engine or someone could be reliable and how much you can trust an ultralight and should be prepared at any time for dead stick landing.
Than he went on a check ride with an other instructor (you cant release your student here without x check by and other instructor) the guy is a big guy together they were I think around 220-230 kg. They taxied to the runway and tried to take off, they aborted the take of half way. They taxied back and attempted an other takeoff. Well that was a long one.
On the pattern in about 1 minute later they heard a bang, engine was running, no power and weird noise and made a dead stick landing on the airport without problem (instructor handled the case).
They stopped in the middle of the airport.
As I arrived with a car and a rope to pull them back to the hangars I saw that a spark plug cable with a pug still inside it hanging down at the nose gear.
There was no damage nor the thread on the plug neither in the cylinder. There was no washer on the plug however which does not used to fall off easily. I checked all other 3 plugs. 1 of them were missing the washer, one other was very loose, the other was ok. The guy did not tighten them properly.
The spark plug after 4-5 hours and a number of takeoff simply screwed out by vibration.
I put it back, checked the engine on the ground by full rpm and there was no problem with it whatsoever. After this the plane flew an other 5-6 takeoffs and we managed back to our base airport 140 km in 1h 15 min, with a 25 km/h tailwind.
This is a story how much an engine or someone could be reliable and how much you can trust an ultralight and should be prepared at any time for dead stick landing.
