Once upon a time..

scandtours

scandtours
Joined
Apr 15, 2004
Messages
2,325
Location
Cyprus
Aircraft
Bensen,Brock, Parsons Tandem
Once upon a time…..
No, this is a real story which happened to me in Sweden for many years ago.
A friend of mine asked me to test fly his new build gyro, powered b a Limbach motor. The pilot got training on my Parsons tandem and a restricted permit to fly was issued by the Swedish LFV (FAA.) This permission allows the pilot to make test flight only.
I sat in the gyro and the fist thing I did (I always do this when I fly somebody else gyro) is some mental practicing reaching the killing switch in case of an emergency.
The gyro behaved normally on the ground and no adjustments needed. Stick very smooth and engine like a Swiss watch.
After some short crow hops, I decided to fly the circle since everything seemed very OK. I took off and at 30 ft high I heart a “P A N K” something like an explosion. The stick left from my hand due to the strong stick vibrations and fraction of a second later a second P A N K, even more loudly, was heart. What I succeeded to do was to kill the engine as the whole gyro was shaking like hell. The vibrations were so strong that I don’t even remember if I had landed the gyro or if it landed by itself.
What happened??
Both of one ¼ left carburetor studs failed, carb flew into the blades and landed into the prop.
One of the blades was seriously damaged and one blade of the two wooden blade prop was missing from the root/hub.
No need to describe what kind of vibrations encounted.
Bensen made an important modification on all original ¼ McCulloch carb studs with 3/8.
Here I can say, One who learns 100 times is not like the one who learns 101 times. In aviation this is very true.
 
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Good story, Giorgos! Glad that you're still around to tell it :)

-- Chris.
 
Yikes Giorgos, I had missed this.
So glad you made it, you are one of the good guys!!!
 
That is scary! Glad you made it out OK!

A local guy had a low rider aircommand and had ordered a new prop for it for the proper size. I think 64" However the prop he received was longer. When they installed the prop they didn't know it was longer. He went out to test the gyro and all was well as it lifted off but as soon as he pulled back the rotor struck the prop and basically flipped the gyro out of the air onto its side. He was hurt pretty bad and has some remaining back problems from the incident.
 
my airfilter "hombuilt sort" departed my bee, luckily while just warming up the engine on the ground! after a short flight and not seeing an airfilter after a pattern flight I thought damn surely that would of made a vibration if it went through the prop! it was laying where I started up on the ground! I only trust k&N filters now :sad:
 
my airfilter "hombuilt sort" departed my bee, luckily while just warming up the engine on the ground! after a short flight and not seeing an airfilter after a pattern flight I thought damn surely that would of made a vibration if it went through the prop! it was laying where I started up on the ground! I only trust k&N filters now :sad:
Do you have the filter safety wired now??
 
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