Engine Failure

[vanNostrum]

I was watching a video of a student pilot dealing with an engine failure
Statistically it is a rare occurrence .
A long time ago, climbing out of YND I had an engine failure in a 150
Curious to know how many on this board have had the experience

[Slick Goodlin]

I recently had an O-200 quit on me, likely carb ice in the climb and had it restarted within maybe fifteen seconds. Naturally it was over water. Oh, and I had a Garrett turboprop give up the ghost in cruise years ago but the plane had a second one so no biggie.

I’d love to pull the cowls off an O-200 on some summer day and have someone do a full power run up so I can watch the condensation and ice ball that supposedly forms just downstream of the carb on them. I also want to pick a cool foggy morning to yank the carb heat muff off my Model T and see just how frosty I can make it.

[CpnCrunch]

I recently had an O-200 quit on me, likely carb ice in the climb and had it restarted within maybe fifteen seconds. Naturally it was over water. Oh, and I had a Garrett turboprop give up the ghost in cruise years ago but the plane had a second one so no biggie.

I’d love to pull the cowls off an O-200 on some summer day and have someone do a full power run up so I can watch the condensation and ice ball that supposedly forms just downstream of the carb on them. I also want to pick a cool foggy morning to yank the carb heat muff off my Model T and see just how frosty I can make it.

The O-200 on the C150 is a real ice machine. Almost every day in winter (temperature 0-10C) I'd get carb ice on the climb-out at around 1000ft. I'd always pull the carb heat immediately the engine sounded different...you learn to be paranoid! Sometimes it was just paranoia, but most of the time the engine would start to run very rough for a few seconds eating all the melted ice. Usually it clears up in a few seconds but sometimes it just kept re-appearing and I just left the carb heat on partially or fully. And yes, it almost always happened while over water. More often when climbing through a later of scattered cloud (you would get carb ice on reaching that humid layer), but sometimes it would happen on perfectly clear days.

Now I fly with an O-360 and have never experienced carb ice while in the air.

[vanNostrum]

1914-model-t-ford-56.jpg

''I also want to pick a cool foggy morning to yank the carb heat muff off my Model T and see just how frosty I can make it.''
Do you have one of this beauties?

[Slick Goodlin]

The O-200 on the C150 is a real ice machine... it almost always happened while over water... sometimes it would happen on perfectly clear days.

I knew that all small Continentals made ice prodigiously (except the A40 - those are delightful) and checked for ice maybe every fifteen minutes even though it was a crystal clear day. Funny how as soon as I got over water and even felt the humidity change it went quiet. After that I think I checked for ice every five minutes.

Some texts say that carb ice is basically impossible in clear air at full throttle due to low humidity and I guess the least amount of pressure drop in the intake but I’m thinking the O-200 must flow enough air wide open to just keep getting colder and colder from the pressure change in the carb’s Seems to me like an O-200 makes ice better than an A65 but that’s mostly anecdotal on my part.

Do you have one of this beauties?

Nothing as rare as that brass rad town car in your pic but yes, I have a ‘26 that was originally built as a touring car (four seat convertible) then cut down into a pickup probably during WWII.

D66D8329-AD4A-4E8D-8443-E7A60F501826.jpeg

It’s a ton of fun but the engine is apart at the moment. I should start a thread on the thing when I get it back together and running.

[vanNostrum]

" I should start a thread on the thing when I get it back together and running.''

That would be excellent!
Great fun driving it, hands and feet busier than than dealing with a failed
Garret in the Rocket

[CpnCrunch]

Some texts say that carb ice is basically impossible in clear air at full throttle due to low humidity and I guess the least amount of pressure drop in the intake but I’m thinking the O-200 must flow enough air wide open to just keep getting colder and colder from the pressure change in the carb’s Seems to me like an O-200 makes ice better than an A65 but that’s mostly anecdotal on my part.

Yeah, but I think that mostly apply to Lycomings. There will be a lower temp drop at full throttle, but the ice will be created much more quickly if it's in the range. The O-200 is built so that there is little heat going to the carb. It's pretty much always at full throttle on takeoff when I saw the icing. Once you get used to it you should be able to hear a slight change in vibration or engine note. At least that's been my experience.

[Big Pistons Forever]

A long time ago I got some excellent advice. from the poster child of “been there done that”. He was a wonderful quiet unassuming gentleman who you would never know got his pilots license in 1930 and lived the progression of Canadian civil from bush flying in the North to flying the Pacific as a CP senior DC 8 captain.

He said make sure you note what all the engine gauges read at each phase of flight. One of my pet peeves is that those stupid little Cessna gauges don’t have any numbers just red and green arcs.

One day I was doing an aerobatic lesson in the rather humble Cessna 150 Aerobat.
We took off heading straight at the practice area and about 4 miles from the airport I noticed the oil pressure gauge was not sitting on the little white line in the middle of the green arc like usual. Instead it was a whole needle width below the line. I continued watching it and the needle gave a little wiggle and dropped another needle width. I told the student to do a 180 and told the tower we had an engine problem and I was going to do a straight in to the downwind runway. Since there was no other traffic tower had no problem with that.

As we flew the few miles back to the airport the oil pressure slowly rolled back to zero and since we had the runway made I pulled the mixture, turned off the mags and fuel and pushed the throttle full in. I even had enough momentum to exit the runway and roll to the ramp.

It turned out a tooth had broken off the oil pump drive gear and the gear started skipping eventually grinding off all the other teeth. This incident was not even reported except for the SDR, but if I had kept going the engine would have seized in the practice area, a place with not a lot of good forced landing options.

Engines will hardly ever just suddenly quit as a result of a internal mechanical failure. They will almost always give you some warning, if you are paying attention.

Also engines will run with a surprisingly large amount of internal damage as long as they have oil, which is why I don’t takeoff with the minimum oil level allowed. That extra measure may make all the difference……

[Scudrunner]

I’ve done 2 precautionary shut downs on twin pistons both related to oil. Had a hole in the oil cooler blow and puke oil out. I landed cleaned it up dumped 6 quartz in it took off then I then logged 2.5 hours single engine in a BN2 flying from Mayo to Whitehorse. Amazing how much oil came out in 5 minutes.

Second one was the gauge, it went to zero. I shut it down because why not log some more single engine time in a twin.

Now that I’m old and grumpy I look at single engine flying a little differently with my family on board.

Flying over the rocks, over water and up north, I figure they deserve a fighting chance if one quits.

[Colonel]

Remember that you have both an oil pressure and an oil temperature gauge
in your piston aircraft. At least, I hope you do.

Note that oil pressure and oil temperature are inversely related. You will
probably have lots of oil pressure after your first start of the day when the
oil is cold. As the oil warms up, the oil pressure drops. As the oil cools,
the oil pressure increases.

Here is a log from a recent flight. It was well over 100F on the ground:



Three samples a second, baby! These logging engine monitors have
changed the way we maintain aircraft.

If your oil pressure gauge goes to zero, but your oil temperature doesn't
move, it's probably the gauge that's faulty.