Thorp Air Command - T18.net

In over 40 years of accident free flying and have never declared an emergency, yesterday I came close to both. After the 40 test hours (engine ran like a watch!), I brought the A/C home for a bath and some routine maintenance including some rerigging of the left out board flap to cure a right roll problem. Having accomplished my "to do list" I trailered the A/C to KSEE for a local test hop to check the rigging. All was normal until about 10 min. after T/O (right roll problem cured). The engine began to run a little rough and suspected it might be the high OAT (90 deg day in SAN) so I leaned it out a bit. That seems to help, but as I reduced power (about 2000 RPM) to drop into Ramona for T & G's the engine began to run ruff again. I checked the mags and they were fine. Fuel pump was on and good pressure on the gauge. Rather than do the T&G's I elected to do a full stop and trouble shoot the problem. During the taxi in I ran the power up and the engine responded normally. Checked the mags and they checked good. Once at the fuel pump I saw no signs of fuel leakage or any other external problems. So I fueled up and set to return to KSEE. T/O and climb were "normal", but as I reduced power to 2000RPM it began to run ruff again and when I tried to reduce power to below 1500RPM it really ran ruff!. Being the skilled Navy pilot that I am I elected to head straight to KSEE for a procautionary landing and leave the power at 1500RPM. I asked for a "priority landing" from the tower due to a ruff running engine and I was cleared for a straight in approach. My speed was 120mph, so in order to bleed off some speed I pulled to nose up to get to flap speed. Even then my approach speed was a litle less than 100. I crossed the numbers at about 100 and when the landing was assured, pulled the power back to idle. As the wheels touched down the engine quit ! Prop sticking straight up. I still had plenty of speed and was able to make the next high speed turn off. Much like Bob Hoover at his airshows. I stopped between runways and tried a restart. Would not even try to light off, so I shut it down and asked for a tow. I keep a tow bar in the baggage compt. for times like this. As I got out and walked around to the cowling I could see a steady stream of fuel comming out of the bottom of the carb heat box ? I opened the cowling suspecting a fuel line, but is was dry. The bottom of the cowl was wet? Got the tow (me sitting on the back of a pickup holding the tow bar) back to where the trailer was and loaded it back on to head home.

Once home I contacted Aero Sport Power (folks I bought the engine from...very nice folks) and talked to Bart. We both came to the conclusion that it might be a "heavy float" causing it to flood. Got the carb off this AM and when I talked to Sue at Aero Sport she asked me to check the IC# on the data plate. Not sure what IC means, but she said if it's 15 and above it should have the correct float per the service bulletin. 15 and below it probably has an "old float." My IC# is 6 !

There is no telling how much longer the engine would have kept running while airborne, but I am convenced if I had pulled the power back to below 1500RPM the fan on the front would have stopped. [:(]

Signed
Lucky RB