Keith's email indicates there were about 20 hours of run time on

the

installation, 4 of which were flight hours and the other 16 hours

were

ground run. If it were your plane would you consider 16 hours of

ground

test time sufficient to prove the installation prior to beginning

flight

testing? How much ground test time is sufficient? 20 hours? 100

hours?

Or

do you just test until something breaks and then you know how long

to

expect that particular part to last? If it were my airplane I would

have

considered 16 hours of ground test time sufficient to prove the
installation. Its always easier to be the quarterback on Monday

morning.

  Someone else pointed out that during the initial flight test phase

it

makes sense to stay within a glide of the airport. I totally agree.

Also,

it seems possible to me that this was not a sudden catastrophic

failure

(though thats not certain). Could be that there were indications of
impending failure that might have been found through inspection

prior to

the last flight. All of the heat shielding around the exhaust may

have

hindered or precluded those inspections. The fiberglass wrap around

the

exhaust system makes routine inspection virtually impossible.

Mike Wills

I agree Mike.
They may have run it 16 hours on the ground but obviously they did
not inspect it adequately. Something like that does not just happen
all at once. It starts with a small crack.

Paul Lamar

Why in God's name he used exhaust wrap I will never fathom. It HIDES any
weaknesses and cracks, promotes corrosion, etc. Not worth it. ss shields
are much better and you can visually inspect the pipes EACH time. If he
test ran it with that stuff on it I can see why this happened! He might
have discovered the cracks before failure, found a potential weakness,
fixed it and keep on going without the heartache and $ he is into now.
That stuff is junk on aircraft. Don't use it.
Marc Wiese

Marc, you may have missed the first post, so here it is again.  The exhaust
wrap covered the heat shield, NOT the exhaust tubing.  Kerry Woods is a very
meticulous builder who regularly checked the integrity of both his first
generation exhaust and this second generation system which failed.  We feel
that this exhaust was not cracked for long before total failure.  As someone
else posted earlier, it is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback!  Many
more answers to the questions which are generating much conjecture will be
available on our website soon.  Thank you all again for your patience.
Keith Holm
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