A friend of mine asked me to test fly his Sig Senior Kadet today as he has yet to solo. I reluctantly accepted the offer as I do not like to fly others' airplanes. He starts it up, does preflight and calls me over. I ask him if it's ready and he gives a thumbs up. I do a quick preflight and off it goes. Wow, the plane jumps up after only a few feet and flies nicely. I reduce throttle after climb out and notice the left stick is all the way down with the trim all the way down as well. The throttle/linkage/carb arm or something is stuck. His engine(MDS .78) is stuck at about 1/2 throttle. I freaked and started calling the others in to me. We were all gathered there trying to figure out what would be the best way to get this plane down. This plane floats, floats and floats. There was no way I could land it at half throttle. This one guys tells me to fly it until the fuel runs out, then dead stick it in.

I began to move throttle stick back and forth trying to work the linkage and wouldn't you know it, the engine shuts down. Ok,,,now I have a dead stick I have to deal with as the plane's flying on the down wind leg. I quickly turn the plane around into the head wind and bleed off altitude. I safely land the plane with everyone watching.

Lesson learned,,,don't panic, get help and pray.

"Lesson learned,,,don't panic, get help and pray"

you sould also add "Do your OWN pre-flight if your at the sticks & dont fly an unfamiliar plane if your not confident"

and isnt it always true the ONLY time an engine runs perfectly is when you want the stupid @#$&*@ thing to shut down

I did do a preflight of my own. The issue happened with the plane in the air.

The throttle servo isn't reversed is it? Just thought I'd ask.

I've had planes stick their throttles at wide open a couple of times, for different reasons. (and no pre-flight would have prevented it either, trust me ). Anyway, the best thing to do is just what you did, fly around and wait to run out of gas. Just stay high and near your entry to the landing approach, so you are in a good spot to deadstick.

I have actually done full throttle landings on wheel-less planes. It can be done, though it's a bit hard on the airplane. If you have some nice soft tall grass at the end of the runway it can help. In my case, it was a combat plane that didnt' have landing gear, so a full throttle belly landing isn't that hard to do, and didn't break anything either (well, broke the prop). In the case of a trainer, I wouldn't try a high throttle landing. If I had to be down NOW! (approaching thunderstorm or something), I'd go for a "barrier landing" in the tall grass, but the odds of getting away with out damage is pretty low.

Nah, the throttle servo is fine.

Good point about being near the entry landing approach area and keeping some altitude. I was probably around 100 or so feet up when the engine quit on the down wind leg. I quickly turned the plane around and put it in a nose down pitch. All the others there were gathered around me as I safely landed. There were handshakes all around.

Congratulations!!!
Now you're an official "Test Pilot". Don't be surprised if you get asked to test fly someone else's plane now And be prepared for something to go wrong on every flight.

LOL,,,yup. When you least expect it, things go wrong.

And what exactly went wrong?

I had a very similar experience with a Kadet Sr a couple of years ago. Normal preflight and takeoff. I was doing some slow circuits and lost throttle response (dead spot on servo pot, I guess). I was flying at less than 1/3 throttle with a 60 size engine and 12 ounce fuel tank. At that fixed engine speed, it wasn't coming down soon. Too fast for a ditch into the weeds so it was a question of whether the fuel would run out or it would get dark first. I think it took 35-40 minutes to run out and the sun was pretty low. Deadstick and a great Kadet floater landing and one ditched servo!

Ross

Cruz,

Nice recovery man!!!

What ended up being the problem.
Did you guys figure out what caused the throttle to stick?

You need to give it a good look over before going up again.
Something is wrong.
Did you run up the engine to full throttle on the ground before taking off?

Let us know.

Bill

A misaligned linkage.

What happened was he started the engine on his own while I was tending to my plane. He called me over and gave me the thumbs up. I did give the engine full throttle for a second with no evident problem, along with the normal preflight check. I thought it was idling a bit high, but not high enough for a problem. I looked at this throttle trim and it was a bit over half way. After take off and climb out I reduced the throttle and ending up pulling the left stick all the way back,,,, no response. I figured no problem, reduce the trim. BOOM,,,MAYDAY, MAYDAY, after reducing the throttle trim all the way back/down, the engine stayed about 1/2 throttle as if it increased throttle on itS own after take off. You know the rest of the story. After getting it back down, I took it upon myself to adjust the linkage for him be it's second flight which was perfect. That Sig Kadet is a nice, nice flying plane. Looks great in the air and a real floater.

Ross, I was preparing myself to do the same. I knew I was in for a long flight as he topped off the 14oz tank. Luckily, the engine stalled and I was able to land it safely dead stick.

Redwing,,,good to hear ya chime in again,,,