Finally got a good day to go out to the flying field... Took out my new Taco...

On Flight #5 for the day, I noticed the engine was starting to sound different...

I landed, took a quick glance at things, everything looked OK, and then took off again...

Then it started sounding really wierd...

When I landed, this is what I found: 3 of the 4 mounting bolts had broken off... I ONLY HAD 1 BOLT HOLDING THE ENGINE ON THE AIRPLANE.... AND IT WAS LOOSE!

That was too close for comfort!! YIKES!!

Yikes!!! is the word. Glad you landed when ya did. I have never had the bolts to break (except when i was playing lawn darts) At least its just a few bolts and your good as new!

Yeah, that's the first time I've ever had bolts break also... and I've been doing this for going on 22 years now. I've had engine bolts come loose before, but NEVER had them shear off like this. I don't know if I had them too tight or what the problem was. I hope I don't have it again.

The real bummer of this whole thing is that I'm almost confident enough to say that I can hover... I think another 2 or 3 tankfuls and I would have it down... but this ended my day at the field.

Oh well, I've already got it fixed and ready for tomorrow!

were thoes bolt new or recycled a few times?

That's what I'm trying to remember...

In all likelyhood, they have held a couple of other engines on other airplanes besides this one Waste not, want not, right?[&:]

Penney wise sometimes is pound foolish! Glad you got it back in one piece!

dubble post[:@]

I have had engine cap screws break on me before, with no rhyme or reason, they just did.

I have gotten in the habbit of checking the engine bolts peridicaly on my profiles, especially after the first, and then a few more flights.

The Blind nuts tend to get pulled/seated tighter into the wood causing the cap screw to appear to be loose.

Juat give them a little kiss after a few flights.

Had the same thing happen with my UCD and a Saito .91, except I lost ALL the bolts. The only thing holding the engine on the plane was the throttle pushrod and the muffler sticking through a hole in the cowl. The thing was rocking around so bad, it unscrewed my needle valve and it fell out. I can't believe the engine was still running enough to being it in for a landing, but I couldn't tell anything was wrong until I did a slow pass and saw the muffler bouncing around all over the place.

Somedays you're good, some days you're lucky!

What kind of camera did u use? Great close-ups! Glad to see you got it back in 1 piece. I've used thin CA before as a threadlock. Works great to too good! (might have to cut them off!).

Let's see here... my camera is a Sony Mavica MVC-FD87... 1.3 Megapixel. It does everything I ask of it... but I do wish it would take the MPEG movies too.

My bolts didn't come lose... (the remains were still jammed tight in the blind nuts)... they just sheared off, flush with the "top" of the blind nut.

I certainly got lucky today... had the engine departed the airframe... it would have been ugly.[]

Only A little tail heavy

Heres a cool video of jason shulman chucking a motor during a blender, and a perfect landing.[link=http://www.atlantaeflyers.com/video/mweextra.WMV]http://www.atlantaeflyers.com/video/mweextra.WMV[/link]

I used to have lots of problems with bolts breaking on profiles.... Now I use stainless hardward... Takes the vibration much better..... I usually buy them in bulk from MicroFasteners.

Use spring washers and nylon lock nuts !

Like I said earlier... they didn't come loose... the "studs" were still jammed tightly in the blind nuts with the jam nuts. The bolts just simply broke. The remaining bolt that was holding the engine on was loose because it was starting to wallow out the hole in the engine rail. It was really still "tight".

Wow, I've never seen that video of Shulman loosing the engine he he. Yep, the trick to landing a severly tail heavy, no engine, plane is to keep the speed up, so the elevators can develop some lift. I've had a crank break in the air on a .47CuI glow engine, and lost the prop, 1/2 crank and forward bearing. On an already tail heavy plane, that sure made it plenty tail heavy, but it's not like loosing 5 lbs as Schulman did he he.
DKjens

DKjens, acually he didnt lose 5 lb. It was electric Even so he did an awesome job saving it