Big day today, not only did we talk to Dave Bertram about taking my baby flying again soon, but we ran the engine for the first time sine our incident. That’s a really big deal, but we could have had a catastrophe too. We weren’t planning on running the engine *quite* yet, but due to an unhappy set of circumstances she came to life on the first blade. I’d primed the engine earlier checking my fuel pressure sensor, and the key wiring had been cut and shorted accidentally when it was installed, so when Jerry hit the starter she sprang to life at full throttle. Wow. Heart stopping. Luckily he was on the brakes and shut the master down quickly. The repair was simple and quick, and we did a nice little run, with the oil pressure transmitter the only real squawk. It’s a good lesson, if the prop is going to swing, assume it could start the engine, a nice corollary to don’t take the runway unless you can handle getting airborne.
Posted By: Brett FerrellWednesday April 28th, 2010 at 9:02 PM