REFLECTOR:Catto prop incident ....

[Scott]

Jim,

Its always good to hear of a "good" accident!

I also am being pushed around by a Catto.

I've eaten 2 cowl screws.  I also had a 5/8 nut come off my alternator 
mount, it of course went through the prop.

I didn't hear it like you did, but geezz was I surprised  when I 
pre-flighted the next flight and found a big ol gash on the back side of 
one blade.  Another much smaller gash on the backside of another blade(the 
washer of course).  The bolt hit the back side so hard it blew the paint 
off the front side of the blade.  I sanded it down and did a standard 
fiberglass repair to fix the two layers of fiberglass it fractured. There 
were a whole lot more layers of glass under the fractured ones but they 
were undamaged.

I called Craig when I was ready to paint, to get the color.  He said I 
could have just filled it with flox and run with it.  Oh well...

Its nice to know your flying with one tough son of a bitch prop that eats 
5/8 nuts for lunch and doesn't even burp.

Scott

Go Catto!!!

At 12:20 PM 12/9/2003, you wrote:
>All,
>Just getting around to writing this story.  Wife and I flew our
>Velocity 173 FG IO-360 to Destin FL for the Thanksgiving
>holiday.  Coming back we went by way of Greensboro NC to spend
>Sunday night with relatives.  APC vectored me to a downwind
>about 5 mi abeam the runway.  About the time we leveled out at a
>couple thousand feet, we heard a bang ­ “… what the hell was
>that …?”.  I turned toward the runway and switched to tower and
>started checking the gauges.  Nothing unusual.  Had a nice
>undershooting x-wind so it took a while to get on the ground.
>After shutdown we inspected the plane and found a dink in the
>leading edge of the prop that you could put a kidney bean in,
>and a scratch on another blade.  Damage was greatly reduced IMO
>by the leading edge protective tape on the Catto prop.  No
>screws or anything missing off the cowl.  Then I saw it ­ about
>6” were missing off of the port side exhaust pipe.  It broke off
>right at the runner from #1 cylinder, squirted right out the
>exhaust nipple in the cowl and through the prop.
>
>There practically NO damage to the prop.  Amazing!  I called
>Craig Catto for advice on repairs and he reassured me that a
>little flox would fix it. We called Velocity Monday AM and
>Natalie was able to overnight us a regular steel pipe to use
>while she gets hold of a SS pipe for us.  We put it on Tuesday
>noon, wadded up some bread dough, stuffed it into the dink,
>covered it with duct tape for the uneventful flight home to CSV.
>
>Craig told me he has had several customers who have shed exhaust
>pipes, fuel caps, etc. through his props and incurred no
>significant damage. He said that a Long-EZ once shed its ENTIRE
>LOWER COWL through the one of his props and the airplane flew
>back home no sweat.  I contrast that with the Cozy a couple of
>years back that shed about the same size piece of exhaust as I
>did through a Performance prop ­ it broke one blade off, tore up
>another and the engine nearly shook out of the airplane in the
>time it took him to reach over and shut it down.  He was able to
>dead stick to a nice 5000’ runway, hitch hike home, get a new
>prop and retrieve his airplane a month or so later.  I never
>could have made the field from where my exhaust broke off.  That
>Catto prop of mine saved my bacon sure ‘nuff.
>
>All hail Catto …. Jim S.
>
>
>
>--
>Jim Sower
>Crossville, TN; Chapter 5
>Long-EZ N83RT, Velocity N4095T
>
>
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