Yes, that is correct. I too have joined the elite group of knowing what a dead engine in flight sounds like. There is no sound and man is that one quiet cockpit when the engine ceases to sing. Yesterday as I was leaving the KR Gathering out of Mt. Vernon, Illinois, my engine hic-upped. I really did not think much of it thinking maybe an air bubble in the fuel line. Well I continued to climb and was at 2300' ASL when all of a sudden things got real quiet. I was not too far away from the airport so I executed a 180° and set up a glide to MVN runway 23 and announced that 6MJ had turned final. Next, flipped the toggle switch to my back up secondary ignition and hit the starter. The engine fired right up and we started climbing. Instead of continuing to land, I decided to keep climbing and circling. After three circles and altitude gained, I determined the problem was strictly electrical and not the engine. I tested the main ignition again and again the engine died but only for a half second as I immediately went back to secondary ignition. Probably not the wisest decision but I decided to head on to my first stop at Pontiac, Illinois which was 149 miles away. I was never out of gliding distance from an airport and made the leg there with no further problems. The haze was terrible and from 15 miles out I began calling my position to PNT traffic. I noticed there were several planes in the area and some calling taxi back on the runway. At five miles out I still could just barely see the airport. As I entered downwind for PNT runway 24, I noticed four planes in the holding area waiting for my arrival. On one mile final, I noticed there were at least two hundred folks sitting around the tarmac watching the runway. Needless to say, I made the worst landing I have ever made in my KR. I bounced two, maybe three times and then swerved back an forth on the runway. This was the one day out of the year they have their local fly-in and I dropped in right in the middle of it. Anyway, I pulled my cowl look for the problem and found that the condenser wire had broken at the coil. A pair of wire strippers and a wrench and two minutes later the problem was fixed. The only problem now was that I had drawn a crowd of pilots and spectators and the questions about the plane and engine started flying. An hour later, I managed to continue my journey which was eventless the rest of the way home. Moral of the story is: Redundancy will save your bacon. Don't fly without it.
Mark Jones (N886MJ) Wales, WI USA E-mail me at flyk...@wi.rr.com Visit my KR-2S CorvAIRCRAFT web site at http://mywebpage.netscape.com/n886mj
