Good job Here are some links to the story http://enewscourier.com/local/x1507929149/Pilot-makes-quick-landing-on-I-65
http://www.whnt.com/news/whnt-plane-emergency-landing-interstate,0,6333412.story?track=rss video- http://www.waff.com/Global/story.asp?S=13414658 --- On Sat, 10/30/10, Mark Langford <n5...@hiwaay.net> wrote: From: Mark Langford <n5...@hiwaay.net> Subject: KR> speeding down I-65 To: "Corvair engines for homebuilt aircraft" <corvaircr...@mylist.net> Cc: "KRnet" <kr...@mylist.net> List-Post: krnet@list.krnet.org Date: Saturday, October 30, 2010, 9:55 PM I've often said that I don't have a lot of safety wire on my plane, but I can tell you one place you need it on a rear starter installation (if not others) and that's the big harmonic balancer bolt. Despite being properly torqued and Loc-tited, mine backed out while flying yesterday, resulting in a lot of vibration, noise, and the engine stopping dead in under a minute. I'd been headed over to Courtland to "pre-run" the race that I was going to participate in today. Flipping my magic switch made no difference, which narrows the field considerably, and attempting to restart didn't even result in the prop turning. That amazed me to the point of saying "time to pick out a place to land". Unfortunately, I was 10 miles from both Decatur and Ardmore, and at only 3000' AGL, they were both out of the question. I realize I'm always preaching about how nice altitude is to have, but this was only was a 15 minute trip and I wasn't in a big hurry to climb just so I could come down again. You can get the picture at http://www.n56ml.com/flights/I-65.jpg . The circles were picking out the best place to go, and then trying to choose the best direction on I-65. Fortunately I was directly over Interstate 65, and although it was practically rush hour, traffic wasn't all that bad. I found a big open space behind a clump of cars and slipped it into that gap. The landing wasn't too bad, and I just got out and rolled the plane off the road and awaited the circus...firetruck, city, county, and state police, and eventually the FAA on the phone. I asked if there was any way I could take off if I could identify the problem and fix it (I really didn't want to have to take my wings off) but he said no way. So rather than waste time looking for the cause, I got the wunderwife to run me home to get the truck, I gathered up a truck full of tools, foam padding, etc, and headed back. On the way I got a call from Troy Petteway and Pete Larson, who were staying nearby in Decatur and saw me on the news. They were in town for the race also, and volunteered to help me get the wings off and ready to haul back to the hangar. That effort went from 9PM until after 1AM, and was no picnic considering the almost freezing, ice on the wings, working in the dark, and lying in the grass. I owe them a huge thanks, and probably my next-born child. At 1AM I told them I could deal with the rest, and at about 3AM I called my wife to meet me with her car after I learned the trailer hitch on the truck was so close to the tailgate that I couldn't tow the KR with it. [I just swap out the tailwheel with a Harbor Freight trailer receiver, and tow it backwards on it's own wheels]. When it was all over, I got home at 5:45 this morning, got an hour of sleep before having to get up and meet the FAA investigator at my hangar, and I just now got home from the airport after getting things in order. It only took a minute to find the problem while I was waiting on the FAA investigator...the balancer/flywheel had backed off about 3/8" which explains why the starter wouldn't engage the flywheel, as well as the noise and vibration. This goes down as in "incident", although no mention was made of the engine type. I was surprised they even bothered to show up at all. He was quite congenial and agreed it was good news that it was resolved so quickly, spent a few minutes filling out a form, and checking my documentation to make sure I was legal, and then spent another 10 minutes talking about my plane. Nice guy, and he could have made it a lot harder on me. I could probably just retorque the bolt and keep on flying it, but I've been planning on taking the plane down this winter to clean up the firewall installations and to replace the NACA ducts on the bottom with plain ramps, replacing some scorched fiberglass down there...and now check the crankshaft, balancer, keyway, distributor gear, and most importantly, safety wire that bolt! I'm sending this out in self-defense, so I don't have to tell the story another hundred times later... Mark Langford N56ML "at" hiwaay.net website at http://www.N56ML.com -------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at http://www.maddyhome.com/krsrch/index.jsp to UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@mylist.net please see other KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html
