Phoenix57

. He was flying with a 20 year veteran instructor and doing fine until his approach and decent. Suddenly the muffler came loose the engine stalled and went into an unrecoverable spin and was destroyed. A friendly reminder to all. Always check everything on your plane before flight bolts,servos, fuel lines, battery charge, control surfaces,prop etc. By doing thhis you will drastically reduce your chances of inflight failure and also do your part to help keep everyone around you safe. After a while it becomes routine. For beginners make yourself a checklist. If your are not sure what to check ask your instructor or someone with experience. The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.
happy FLYING

Chris-_-Memphis

My Feedback: (3)

a 20 year pilot should have known that much

FHHuber

You can check the muffler bolts just before a flight... and still lose the muffler. Murphy designed muffler bolts.

Usually... the muffler starts comming loose and the engine tone changes... you get a warning and can set up for a landing. Occasionally the bolts BREAK... the muffler drops off, the engine dies and there you are suddenly short 2 to 3 oz of nose weight. Very few people can handle that. (I know 3 who can... I'm not one of them.)

randy41

Sounds like the cg balance was more of the problem
than any thing. If that plane was balanced nose heavy
than some one shouldnt have lost it. I have had 2 mufflers
fall off over the 33 yrs of flyin and i didnt loose the planes.
Flat spin with engine dead and muffler loose/fell off on a trainer
sounds to me there was something else going on.

Ross Kean

Hey! This is not a Nexstar issue as the title of your post implies. This is an issue that relates to preflight of ANY airplane. If something this obvious was missed by an experienced flier then he should review his routine.

Ross

JimTrainor

There is no reason for the plane to crash simply because the engine quit. If the spin was truly unrecoverable then plane was not balanced correctly.

ifixairplanes

My Feedback: (9)

i could see an unrecoverable spin if the whole engine was lost, but with the nexstars flying aids and characteristics, i think it could have been landed. The spin had to of been pilot induced after the muffler fell off, maybe he got too slow in a turn, and with the rear CG it tipped stalled violently, i dunno. A nexstar is pretty much as stable as they come! I have flown many and taught with many and is an awsome trainer. I bet his could be replaced for free from hobbico though. they have a guarantee.

sean

siclick33

I hope the pilot didn't try and stretch the glide to make the runway.

JimTrainor

For the benifit of new comers. "Stretch the glide" = an instinctive reaction to pull back on the stick when the plane is dead stick and you are coming up short. In the heat of the moment it will feel like the right thing to do, but it isn't. The plane slows, and flies closer to stall, and very likely below its best Lift/Drag. You end up staying the air longer, but comes up even more short that would have been had the nose been pushed down and the speed kept up.

Somebody with a Nextstar should balance it a the recommended positoin, then take of the muffler and see where the CG ends up. Would be interesting to know. Perhaps the muffler loss does move the CG back far enough to be a real problem. In which case balancing a bit ahead of the recommended CG would avoid the unfortunate circumstance.

Montague

I'm curious to see what the CG shift from the muffler would be as well. I have a really hard time believeing that it would cause a trainer to go that unstable.

I've had and seen mufflers fall off several times over the years. Most of the time, the engine doesn't even stop running. (If it stopped, you're engine is set awfully lean to begin with, or your fuel system is marginal). And I've never crashed because of a muffler falling off. Espeically on something like trainer.

ekrcflyer

I am with Ross on that one! Why call it NEXSTAR problem!!! it is aquality of construction, quality of assembly, and many other things that are equally importatant TO ANY PLANE. Then comes pilot's experience. It happens to me once. The guy was doing a a maiden flight on my Lancair, when on a slow roll engine quits. He was able to safely recover a plane and land it in one piece.

DBCherry

My Feedback: (4)

I had read the original post this morning, and that was my first thought as well. Why would losing the muffler cause an uncontrollable spin, or cause the engine to quit for that matter?

The poster said that the student had control of the aircraft during descent and approach, so I'm guessing that panic was involved here somewhere, and the instructor never had time to recover.
Dennis-