In the nanosecond between when my mind realized what my fingers were about to do and when the muscles contracted, there wasn?t time to put out a ?Don?t Do it!? order on the neural net?.and the next sound we heard in Mikey?s cockpit was this horrible ?clang?.whirrrr??? Yup ? pilot-induced kickback! It was my leg to fly after a fuel stop on our way to an airpark fly-out, and it was one of those hot starts where it cranked a few blades, fired, then didn?t, so I let off?and just as I was going to try again, it fired again ? and the six-year-old Flyweight didn?t have a chance. After some inappropriate language on my part, I climbed out and went around front to give a tap on the cowling ? and the starter "tapped" back ? it was definitely loose underneath there. It was pretty ugly - but at least it was a clean break!
Fortunately, we had the necessary tools to pull the cowling there on the ramp, and sure enough, we had a free-hanging starter. Also fortunately, Mikey usually starts really well, especially when warm, so we pulled the remains of the starter, taped up the ends of the cable, re-cowled, and hand-propped for the trip to lunch and then home.
Now despite the fact that I have several thousand hours with the Sky-Tec Flyweights without any failures (up until now), the company has done a lot of work in the past decade at improving their products, and our latest Mattituck engine came with their newer NL style starter ? which has a shear pin in the drive. I personally think it is nice to have something that will shear before the housing, and here was a chance to upgrade on the cheap, so I just got off the phone with the folks in Granbury, and they are sending out a new NL in trade for the broken LS that I can ship back (along with a credit card number for the $54 price difference, and my share of the repair bill of course). Mikey should be ready to go in two days, and that only leaves the Valkyrie with her original LS starter ? which is working just great!
Paul
Fortunately, we had the necessary tools to pull the cowling there on the ramp, and sure enough, we had a free-hanging starter. Also fortunately, Mikey usually starts really well, especially when warm, so we pulled the remains of the starter, taped up the ends of the cable, re-cowled, and hand-propped for the trip to lunch and then home.
Now despite the fact that I have several thousand hours with the Sky-Tec Flyweights without any failures (up until now), the company has done a lot of work in the past decade at improving their products, and our latest Mattituck engine came with their newer NL style starter ? which has a shear pin in the drive. I personally think it is nice to have something that will shear before the housing, and here was a chance to upgrade on the cheap, so I just got off the phone with the folks in Granbury, and they are sending out a new NL in trade for the broken LS that I can ship back (along with a credit card number for the $54 price difference, and my share of the repair bill of course). Mikey should be ready to go in two days, and that only leaves the Valkyrie with her original LS starter ? which is working just great!
Paul