Anyone hear anything re the recent accident involving powersport powered
engine , I think in a VELOCITY ?

The only thing that has come up on any of the canards lists is that it failed during a test
flight...uh, and it was at night?
...Chrissi

A test flight at night? Now there is one for the Darwin awards :)

Paul Lamar

That seems to be the sentiments of everybody who hears that
...Chrissi

I don't know where people get these ideas and start stupid rumors.  1610
is 4:10 in the afternoon.

NTSB report:

On November 23, 2002, at 1610 central standard time, an amateur-built
Woods Velocity, N241KW, sustained substantial damage during a forced
landing to a wheat field after a loss of engine power. The pilot was not
injured. The 14 CFR Part 91 test flight departed Ellsworth Municipal
Airport (9K7), Ellsworth, Kansas, at 1540 on a local test flight. Visual
meteorological conditions prevailed. No flight plan was filed.

I've been in contact with the owner. It was the test pilot flying when
the engine quit, landing gear up in a field (something I can't do, so I
follow roads). Here is a quote from an email he sent me:

We cann't tell for absolute sure what caused the engine to quite. What we
did find is that the exhaust broke and caused  the hot exhaust to be pushed
back into the cowl and heat it up to where we assume that we had a vapor
lock. I did have a totally inclosed heat shield around the exhaust with room
close to the engine exhaust flanges so that cooling air would be sucked in
at that point then out the augment tube. The broken exhaust caused the hot
air and some exhaust to flow the wrong way. Luckly we didn't get hot enough
to cause a fire. Powersport came here and checked everything else and found
it to be in good working order.

It will take a good bit of work to get it back in the air but nobody ever
said this would be easy. This was about the tenth flight in about 4 hours of
flight.

Perry, could you ask him for some pictures of his installation so we
can avoid a similar result. If no scanner is available we can
scan them and send them back.

Paul Lamar
 
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