Hello guys,

I had an issue with my Cermark F-16 powered with a P-60 when i passed the runway due to one main leg stuck inside and unability to apply brakes properly.
Jet landed in a sandy environment and i broke front and left gear mounts. I also had little sand inside fuselage.
Upon dismantling turbine, I removed FOD and could see litle find sand (dust) on the front part of starter while the part behind FOD and on Rotor blades, there was no apparent trace of sand. rotor blades seem to spin freely if moved by hand.

Would like to know if there is anything i can do before attempting a restart, as sending turbine to US for inspection could end up to cost quite some money back and forth bearing in mind distance. However would definitely would not like to take unecessary chances.

Thanks for your input.

Best regards,

the chances are you've already ingested more sand in previous flights then you picked up on that incident and if the turbine was running most of what made it in went through it.

I have several thousand flights on California's dry lakebeds in the dust and dirt. If your engine looks better than this P-70, which survived this kind of abuse for hundreds of flights, you're good to go.

I took these pics a long time ago when this sort of question came up once before. The engine in the photo had about 100 hours on it then and about 220 hours on it now. The usual fine dust, dirt and light sand that goes thru the FOD guard into the engine isn't going to hurt it. The bearings are protected so they're not going to see any of that stuff.

KC36330, Thud Driver,

Thanks for your conforting reply and experience. Guess will run the P-60 soon and hopefully will not suffer any issues.

TD my turbine surely looks better then your P-70, i have a loooooong way to go reach your figures!!!

Thanks again.
Regards,