Accidents & Incidents

[The Agent]

I heard from a CAA official that there were 9 accidents and or incidents over the long weekend involving from Micro to blik erries.
It scares me and we do not hear about them all.

[Fairy Flycatcher]

The high number of accidents is worrying, but I think they are not as serious that we need to worry too much about them:

Kitfox ZU- AUF as reported earlier at Rhino Park
Aquilla - engine out at Dikololo - ZU - CDZ engineout on takeoff laned and damaged undercarrage . Pilot ????? CAA have no report - I will send
pictures .
Jabiru ZU- CTD after takeoff failed to gain height - undercarrage collapsed during landing damage to plane - CAA stil investigating ( 4 passengers 81Kg average weight with 55 liters fuel ?
Aero Trike Spirit south of Germiston - engine out after take-off ZU- BAX
Aquilla Krugersdorp ZU - CYV pilot lost directional control during
landing .

Most of these are quite minor. No serious injury by the look of things (other than to Andre and other's wallets), but at least we are getting serious feedback for a change, and can learn from them a bit.

The other reason why I would not be too concerned is that there is something called a raisin-bread theory in stats. If you cut a raisin bread open, you don't have an equal distribution of raisins. They tend to be clustered together and scattered in no significant pattern.

The engine out's would worry me a bit, as from personal experience we have had a lot of hassles since the introduction of lead-replacement fuel

[Arnulf]

It would be interesting to know the type of engine, and possible causes.

[Griffin]

The engine out's would worry me a bit, as from personal experience we have had a lot of hassles since the introduction of lead-replacement fuel

Can you give us some details?

[Fairy Flycatcher]

We have had a number of engine failures and splutters. Sometimes we managed to get going again, one student had to land on the beach, uneventfully, a couple of times pilots landed back on the runway after engine problems after take off, which we put down to carb icing.

I put the following on SAMicro:

We have had some terrible carb-icing and rough running (a first in over 7
years at the coast). So we have been trying to find out what's up and came
up with the following:

Unleaded and lead-replacement fuel has quite a lot of alcohol in it, which
makes it hydrophylic (attracts water), The alcohol also evaporates out of
our plastic fuel tanks quite readily, which leaves us with a lower octane
rating. On top of that the quickly evaporating alcohol causes a lot more
carb icing than what we are used to.

[DarkHelmet]

I have a mate that recently bought his son a Quad. He loves me - A quad also takes a 50 to 1 pre-mix (just pull the plug on the auto lube) and I lately fly my aerie very infrequently.

I drain the fuel i have left over and fill up with fresh fuel after two weeks and send the fuel to the Quad.

Sell second hand fuel to land based vehicles the stuff is expensive but at a discount you get peace of mind and you stay out of the news!

[Morph]

CLU-less and myself have been using BP unleaded for over a year now. I have an aluminium tank and CLU-less a plastic one. The aluminium tank, being metal, is more prone to water condensation than plastic. However we both have yet to have any fuel related issues, including carb icing except me of course with a blocked fuel filter, but that was my fault, new tank, not properly flushed.

I understand that Cape Town does not have the same level of humidity that Natal has, which is a major contributor to carb icing. Remember the 3 H's, Hot, High and Humid.

What really concerns me with what FF is saying, is if you do live in an environment i.e. Natal, more prone to Carb icing, how do you combat this real risk. Are you guys looking at installing carb heaters or do you just take a chance?

[The Agent]

Clever DH the quad does not fall that far.