REFLECTOR: N4PE flies but not so good at the end

[Dennis Martin]

I went to Cincinnati and left my laptop behind. What a shock to see this
email. Your preflight preparations are impressive and remind all of us how
critical it is to cover all the bases. I'm close to 12 years on my project
and can't imagine how disappointed you feel, but I'm so glad that you're in
one piece.

I've also got electronic ignition/fuel injection. I'll do all I can to make
it perfect before rotating, but there's no guarantee that ground testing is
the same as flying. All the best in your Phoenix project.

Dennis

2009/3/29 Brian Michalk <michalk at awpi.com>

> Group,
>
> Today was my first day to fly.  Unfortunately it resulted in an off
> airfield landing.  It's been a long day, and I wanted to get this out
> there before the FAA notice was posted.
>
> I have several theories at this point as to what happened, and I'll go
> through each one trying to identify the smoking gun.
>
> First, the flight.  Approximately 12:30 pm with a 5 knot southern wind,
> I prepared for takeoff.  Some people think I am a bit cautious, and
> maybe so in many cases, but today was a good day to be cautious.  I had
> the local fire department notified, and they were standing by.  Pretty
> nice folks, and I think they liked having something interesting to do.
> Dean Norris with a sharp eyed passenger took off in his Velocity to fly
> chase.  I had maps made, and distributed to everyone with big letters to
> help direct ground crews in a bad event.  Dean took off, and I waited
> for him to get on downwind before starting my roll.  Previous to today,
> I had been doing a bit of fast taxiing, and nothing abnormal ever showed
> up.  I rotated several times during fast taxi tests at about 65mph.
> Today, as I accelerated through 70, I remember thinking how odd it was
> that I had not yet rotated, but this was the first time under power.
> Rotation speed is lower without the power vector pushing the nose down.
>
> I accelerated, and lifted off about 75kts.  The plan was to climb to
> 1000'AGL at 90kts.  I reached my 90kts very quickly, and kept pulling
> nose up a little bit more.  Man, there was a lot of power.  The plane
> flew straight.  No major stick forces that I can recall.  I reached
> about 900 feet, and the engine began losing power.  I immediately turned
> crosswind to downwind.  I wish I could say I was maintaining optimal
> airspeed, but I don't recall any airspeeds after that point, and looking
> back would have been the absolute best thing to maintain.  I pulled out
> some throttle, and regained some engine power, but not enough to arrest
> the descent.  I was still on downwind, and picked out a field north of
> the field to put down in.  Then I changed my mind.  With the bit of
> power I had, I decided to turn south into the find to reduce my ground
> speed.  I picked out a field, and turned to it.  I ended up about 600
> yards north from the end of the runway facing south.
>
> I will remember this day forever, and will play back the choices into
> eternity.
>
> The plane contacted ground, and came to a stop within 47 yards.  I
> stepped it off.  The ground was quite soft.  The gear all had been
> sheared off.  The right tip of the canard dug into the ground, and when
> it did, caused compression crumpling on the right side of the fuselage.
>  Next, the plane wanted to move left, and that's when the main gear
> really dug in and sheared off, which was quite a jolt.
>
> Nothing broken for me except my ego.  I literally have a minor scratch
> on my left hand, that's all.  Amazing.  I'm not even sore ... yet.
>
> Going back to the causes, I have a few theories that need to be
> researched.  As I taxied over to the fuel pumps, I saw the low fuel
> light was on.  After taking on five gallons each side, I noticed the
> warning light had turned off.  When the engine lost power after takeoff,
> the light was on.  However, I'm not sure fuel starvation is the reason
> for the power failure.  There's 4.9 gallons in that sump.  That's a lot
> of time, and there is no way I could have emptied it.  The other theory
> is that I was running too rich.  The electronic injection system was
> tuned out to 2250 RPM's, because that's the limit I could do in ground
> testing.  I then extrapolated out to 3000 RPM's (red line at 2800), and
> then richened up the whole table to be on the safe side.  One thing I
> wish I had done during high power testing was to see how much more rich
> I could go before killing the engine.  I pulled the spark plugs, and the
> plugs closest to the firewall were very sooty.  The other four plugs
> looked very good.
>
> After 12 years of building, it looks like I have a little bit more to
> go.  The belly of the plane looks good.  The compression buckling
> worries me as to how I will fix that.  The wings are also showing
> compression buckling just outboard of the spar attach bolts.
>
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-- 
All the best,
Dennis
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