sirmombo

I was flying a H9 Ultra Stick powered by a FPE 2.4 with Bennett built 16 oz. tank. I was using the clunk that came with the tank, which is bigger than any other clunk I have ever seen.

I was practising takeoffs and landings. After the 5th or 6th takeoff the engine quit. The plane reached about 30 feet, I throttled back to go around for another landing, and the engine immediately quit.

I examined everything after the hard landing. There was still fuel in the tank and the ignition battery was putting out 5.1 volts. What I think happened is there wasn't enough gas to complete submerge the clunk and the engine sucked some air causing it to lean out. It ran fine right after take off because the nose of the plane was higher than the tail and the fuel was at the back of the tank covering the clunk, When I leveled off, more fuel went to the front of the tank and a portion on the clunk was no longer submerged.

Does this theory make sense? I did send the engine in for service to have someone more knowledgeable verify everything is ok. I am guessing that everything will check out except the broken muffler and spark plug.

Big_Bird

My Feedback: (1)

I've used the B&B 16 and 32oz Nalgene tanks for years without any problem. These use the large filter/clunk that looks like it is filled with felt. The one thing that I've noticed is that the filter/clunk will actually wick up every bit of gasoline far better than a convential non filtered clunk. It will go a long way toward preventing bubbled in the fuel line as the tank gets low compared to a non filter clunk. With the filter/clunk when the tank runs dry there is no warning such as sputtering or missing, the engine just suddenly quits. This is what I've observed.

Ken