My short Bonanza flight!

[Bill Greenwood]

My BE36 TC Bonanza has been down about 2 months for an engine change. I picked it up yesterday near CO. Springs and hesded north. Then engine began to cut out and fortunately there was a small airpark near, Kelly so I made it in there.
The engine has 440 since new. It ran fine on the ground, compression test was good, then ran fine for about a 45 min test flight, then we did an oil and filter change before I departed. It climbed out strong, but about 10 min out began to half run and switching tanks did not help, seems to be some kind of fuel blockage as it will not generate much fuel flow on the ground with electric boost pump on. So we will go back and check matters today.
It was good to fly again at least for a while. I was lucky it ran long enough to get me to that runway. It is the one I had done a practice landing at.

[b29flteng]

Glad you and the plane are OK. Nothing like that to get the old heart pumping.

[skybolt2003]

Bill,
So you bought a low-time engine to replace yours? You didn't OH yours? I posted in the maintenance section earlier where I forgot to plug the fuel line during an engine mount swap out. The plane sat for a couple of weeks and a mud dauber built a nest in the line causing a partial obstruction.
Did you replace the fuel lines?

[Bill Greenwood]

Ist, some dummy PIC saw all the LED bars illuminated on the Insight indicator and thought if all cylinders are at max EGT, then there must be a big problem and it is probably fuel flow. What this eagle eyed pilot did not realize was that the afternoon sun was shining on the instrument and lighting up the display all the way to the top. I'm not sure who to blame for this as I was solo. When it happened again today I was a little more aware and shielded the sun with my hand and could see the reading was normal. That took a load off my mind.
As for the engine, my old one had a cracked case in a place not weldable. So I found a low time one. I was alert for any problem, so read more into the Insight than I should. I don't think I imagined the whole thing as it would not make full fuel flow on the ground with the boost pump on. It did today and I flew about 45 minutes ok, after cleaning and checking by the A&P .He found a hose kinked a bit and a control diaphram that may have been leaking. Otherwise no debris in the lines or filter.
I didn't do any or the work on the swap, but I know the lines on the new engine were capped and clean.
It worries me some that we did not find a conclusive problem to account for this .

[b29flteng]

You might complain to the union... At least the PIC did a good emergency landing and didn't damage anything..... When I flew the C-130, we were taught by the old timers to always look for a secondary indication to confirm the first if possible.

[skybolt2003]

My thought with the rebuild was that maybe the fuel injection wasn't set up properly – my understanding is that not a lot of shops know how to do it properly. The thought about fuel lines was that maybe you had a deterioratinag line that was collapsing. What about the exhaust sysytem? Maybe the muffler is breaking down causing a back pressure situation?

-Bret

[Bill Greenwood]

Sky, thanks for the ideas. The engine was pretty much a straight swap, not a rebuild, and it came with most accessories. The new engine was removed from a fairly new Be 36 TC at 440 hours since the owner wanted the turboprop conversion. He was from S America, lived in California and flew the plane all the way down there and back. So the muffler has not changed nor are the fuel lines old. The fuel controler may have had a leak, we could not see any pinholes, but it was wet on the side which is normally dry. We will see.
It did show me that being prepared for a forced landing is different when you are involved in one that seems real rather than just reading about it.

Last edited by Bill Greenwood on Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

[muddyboots]

pucker factor?

[b29flteng]

You're already a better pilot for it Bill.

The pucker factor (shakes) comes after the emergency is over, during it you're too busy getting set up for landing.

[Bill Greenwood]

B-29, That is very good advice to confirm any unusual indications by cross checking other instruments. If sitting in a classroom doing a written test I think I might have done just that. It was getting late in a long day and I was on my way back with daylight drawing to a close. I had already done a test flight that day, even landed at the same small strip I ended up at. I monitored the engine gauges pretty well on climb out then relaxed a bit when leveling off in cruise and began to think about staying outside the Denver class B space. When I reduced power and began to lean for cruise I glanced at the Insight monitor to confirm leaning and wham, there was all my new cylinders at full scale. So I reacted by richening mixture, and then turned on low boost pump. I switched tanks. I may have looked at the fuel flow gauge, I can't recall the next day. I turned back toward the airport behind me, then realized I might not make it the 15 miles and I needed to find the best place to go. Lot's of fields, but none of them looked like Duxford, I saw a road, but it is hard to see power lines. Then I was real glad to see Kelly Park. We did find a fuel hose fitting not fully tight on the engine despite intact factory marks. Who knows what was the real story?

[Cvairwerks]

Bill: Most fuel lines are of a sufficently small diameter that any kink or creasing will allow enough pressure to the system, but not enough flow. Now that you also know that you have had a fuel line kinked, plan on replacing it pretty soon. The area that was kinked has been weakened and will eventually cause a problem again.

[Bill Greenwood]

Cvair, We could not find any one cause that definitely would starve the engine. As for the fuel line, "kinked" is really just my word and too strong. The plane ran fine Mon on the ground for a long warm up and taxi, then a full power run up by the shop. Then check for leaks, etc. Nothing else done. I arrived Tue and did a warm up, careful check and run up and then a full power takeoff and a 45 min flight with 1 more landing taxi and takeoff. Then the oil, filter were changed, along with a fuel transducer(it monitors the fuel flow for the gauge, does Not in any way control the flow). This took a few hours, then I departed and had good strong climb and normal cruise until I thought I saw the peak temps on the Insight monitor. I could almost imagine that I caused the whole thing by going to full rich, then turning the boost pump on low. But I could not even get enough power to taxi off the runway when I tried to restart and the mech verifyied it would not reach full fuel pressure when trying to prime with the boost pump that night. He found the filter, lines, sumps, nozzels clean. He rerouted the one fuel line, as he didn't like the way it was secured. He surmised one hose fitting was not fully tight and might have sucked air(when I questioned further we realized this was under pressure and not suction) so much for that idea. It still had a factory paint tell tale mark on it. The only other thing was the the diaphram in the controler was wet on the back side, might have leaked, even though we could not find any pin holes even in sunlight. We are not sure that a tiny leak would shut off fuel, but the diaphram was replaced. A plug was checked, no sign of lean overheating. Then all was normal, prime, start, taxi, runup, takeoff, and about a 30 min flight back. That is when I noticed how the sunlight could make the Insight light up full scale and how it had fooled me.

[Bill Greenwood]

I can think of a few solutions. Only fly inverted or on cloudy days so the sun can't shine in and illuminate the LED bars on the gauge. Or get rid of all those fancy gauges in there, and make it like a Spitfire with automatic mixture control.