Well it finally happened. I setup my KMP P-38 with reliability in mind. Extra large fuel tanks (more fuel than needed to avoid running one tank dry before the other), rich fuel setting, conservative RPM, regular glo plug replacement and countless hours setting up the engines. Well after 60 flights or so (over the past year) I lost an engine today (sort of). I was at a Scale Rally at an airport on top of a hill. The elevation here is about 2,000' higher than where I normally fly. The engines sounded good and I had a great first flight in the morning. My second flight about two hours later (the temps had risen ) is when the most feared event in twin engine flying occurred. The plane took off great and just after turning down wind the plane abruptly rolled right into knife edge position. There was lots of flying going on so I could not hear my engines. I immeditaley ruduced throttle to 50% and applied left aileron into the good engine. Not much happened. I then fed in about 50% rudder along with the aileron and the aircraft began to right itself. It was a wild ride to base and final approach. The plane was rocking (probably my failure to keep the rudder input steady during the turns) and porpoising. I kept the nose down as much as possible while trying to control the plane and turn it at the same time. On final I lowered the gear, cut the throttle and saw the right engine quit. During the flight the right engine was sagging so bad it was barley running. I then managed to smoothly plant the plane on the runway albeit around 45 degrees to the center line. This was a great experience since I was able to prove that the plane will fly on one engine and that I could control it. A bit of practice in single engine operations would have resulted in a much smoother trip around the pattern.

Dom

so have you figured out the cause for the engine out? Nothing like a lil napalm in the evening to get your heart pumping ......

Good save Dom.....I know what that felt like...flying a Dual Ace and one engine sags, then speeds up, and then quits....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

MaJ. Woody
OK Fess up..Have your hands stopped shaking yet?? Kind of reminds you of your first solo??
Good Job, Few P-38's survive engine out. Good Job again.
Twinman

Amen! Good job!

mt

Wow. Good to hear you made it down in one piece! Exellent flying.

Scott

Thanks for all the kind words!! I am certain that the engine failure was due to the higher elevation at this airport. Tuning the engines for this new flying location would have prevented the incident. My O.S. .91FX engines have never missed a beat in all my flights with this bird.
Thanks again for the support!!!!!!!
Dom

Always good to pose for a picture immediately after such events.

Facial expressions will make you laugh five years from now!

mt

I finally lost an engine on my Royal P-38. I think it was the right one. I was flying down wind of a left pattern when it started to sound sour, I thought for some reason that it did not like that power setting so I increased the power some. just as I leveled out coming toward the runway I heard the sound of only one. I did not want to experiment with single engine characteristics yet so I shut the power off and made a belly landing. it was not pretty but it is back together now. has any one out there flown a Royal p-38 on one engine? some day when I get my next P-38 done I am going to try it way up high on this one! the pic is when it was new 14 years ago.

Yes, I flew my Royal P-38 on one engine..RIP!!Now use twin gyros on all my P-38's.
Good save.
Twinman

Mine didnt make it.

After the runup procedure, I headed to the flight line. My buddy had his young son up on a buddy box training, So I shut her down. When I re-started the engines, I had to re-tune and run thru the whole routine again. I should've capped the tanks. I had a great flight going when I clearly remember saying to my friend..."one more pass, then I'm coming in" Well on final she slowed almost to a stop and quickly spiraled in.

The autopsy reveiled almost no fuel in the tanks........pilot error.......duh.

One can never have too many P-38's..numbers four and five..don't ask about others!!!..OK so I will fess up with ONE post mortum!!
Twinman