Postby Marc » Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:38 pm
Hey Smiley,
I also fly a 503 out of Panorama. About 4 yrs ago, the same thing happened to me.
My jets and needles were set correctly (according to aviation engines and everyone else I spoke to.). The engine was running perfectly for 200 hrs before this.
I was taking off at solitude when the engine started running very rough and lost power. Luckily landed on a road, no problem (except a very broken 503!).
I took the aircraft to aviation engines to try find out what happened, and although nothing concrete was found, - it was suggested that possibly a piece of dirt got stuck in the main jet, causing the one cylinder to run lean (the other cylinder showed no signs of hot running), and therefore too hot.
I don't believe that there was anything wrong with the engine - I was just unlucky. ALTHOUGH, after this incident, I immediately installed a dual EGT gauge! Possibly, the problem could have been spotted much earlier, before it got expensive! ie. One hot cylinder.
Trikes are flown by feel, not instruments. I believe personally that the engine monitoring instruments are far more important than the flying instruments on a Trike.
How was the plane after the engine out?
Regards
Marc Gregson