My buddy Brandon showed up this morning and took a couple of short flights. After he packed up, I installed the tach/hour meter and the head temperature meter on my paramotor. Both worked like a charm. Gotta love YouTube How-To videos - tach and temp. Good thing I decided to add the head temperature meter because I discovered that my spark plug was barely finger tight which is bad enough and any looser would have been a very bad thing. Something to add to the pre-flight checklist. 87,97,59,0,B
10 comments:
Good deal.
Interested on how the surface of your landing strip has help up.
Res; Gene Adcock
Sorry, I should read my comment better before posting. "help" in the above post should be "held"
I live across the street from a ultra lite landing strip. I witnessed a take off one day which nearly ended in disaster. Soon as the plane cleared the trees, the engine quit. The pilot was able to turn and land. The cause of the engine failure was a clip on sparkplug wire which popped off. He was new and did not know to use the screw down type.
I think I'd be more concerned with how the spark plug became loose in the first place, John. It's more likely that it was installed incorrectly in the cylinder head than came loose during operation. If you find yourself retightening the spark plug between flights, I'd discontinue flights until I was able to solve the issue, especially on a single cylinder egine that powered a flying machine.
Wouldn't like reading about another trip to the hospital...;)
I am going to keep an eye on it. To be honest, I am not so sure my "instructor" ever really checked it in the first place. Every part on my unit that bolts together is supposed to be double checked with a torque wrench - something he told me not to worry about. He was painfully unthorough about a lot of things. If it stays tight that was probably the case. If it comes loose again, I will replace it and see what happens. The crush washer on a spark plug looses its' optimum ability to seal and provide adequate tension on the threads even after being removed only one time - especially with the vibrations of a two stroke motor. An engine out really isn't an issue since PPG pilots are trained to constantly be aware of an LZ (landing zone). When taking off, the rule is to make sure you have plenty of room to climb out with no obstacles in the way until you reach a safe altitude. As the saying goes, "altitude is your friend".
Do you use a Go-Pro on your flights? They would make great videos..
Yes. Here was my Go-Pro video of my first flight when I was training. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0WGmqEr3xU
My "airfield" surface is fine but has gone back to nature and will need to be cleared again.
Sounds like you may need some help to cut a few spots.
Post a Comment