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A few days ago my friend Steve who I met out in Oshkosh let me know he was going to be in town visiting his brother. At Oshkosh, over some prime rib at the Black Otter, I promised him if he was in the area, I would definitely give him a ride. Well, the weather and timing worked out perfectly for that to happen today. While doing the warmup, the remains of a recent in-air collision was on the ramp. A Pitts and a low-wing Piper ran into each other on final. Luckily, there were no life threatening injuries. After seeing the remains of the Pitts, the pilot is very lucky.  Steve about to get his first ride in a RV!  I let Steve do most of the flying. He was a natural.  I noticed Steve had an interesting T-shirt on while we had lunch at KMQS. I can't say I disagree with this saying at all!  The way home was an interesting flight. I did a normal runup and everything seemed fine with the engine. Upon takeoff, I noticed there seemed to be less power than I am used to, and I heard some popping noises. After talking briefly with Steve, he confirmed he heard popping noises also. I noticed my EGT's for my cylinder 3 were very high, and CHT's on the low side at high power settings. I was able to land the airplane without issue. I taxied it back to the ramp and took the cowl off. I wanted to see if there was anything out of the ordinary on cylinder #3. I pulled the prop through and the compression seemed fine on all cylinder. So much for the theory of a stuck valve. Exhaust checked out fine too. I talked to an A&P and he said it was most likely a clogged fuel injector. After discussing the issue with him and some other pilots, everyone seemed to be in the consensus the airplane was safe to fly home at a reduced power setting. You can see here the EGT's are high and CHT's are low at a high power setting (72%)   As I reduced the power setting in a slow cruise back home, the EGT's remained high, and the CHT's rose.  Upon landing, as I pulled back the power, the EGT for the #3 cylinder dropped in line with the others, while the CHT stayed slightly high. I am fairly sure it is a clogged injector on the #3 cylinder, but I didn't have a chance to check into the issue today.  When I got back to my house, Steve pulled out a great surprise! Two 6 packs of random Wisconsin beer! Thanks Steve! I had a blast today! 
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Last Modified: October 5, 2024 |