Sorry I didn't make to Bill Eslick's for the Rotorfest, I missed by about one hour. About 30 miles north of San Angelo TX the RPM suddenly

dropped and I could not restore it with any of my emergency procedures. GPS told me nearest airport was Robert Lee about 15 miles away. I headed
there and landed without incident.

Turning the prop by hand shows almost zero compression in one rotor, indicating bad/broken apex seals, quite similar to my engine-out experience 2 1/2 years ago which caused a forced landing near the Grand Canyon. This time the vibration was not quite as bad, and the RPM dropped to around 4300 which was still not enough to maintain
altitude.

Hi Chuck, sorry to hear about your seals probably failing. My
compliments for your skills at salvaging the situation a second time. Do
you think if you had a 20B you would have lost 1 rotor and still been
able to maintain altitude ?

-dave

The Rotary Engine NewsLetter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site. http://www.rotaryeng.net
Copyright 1998-2006 All world wide rights reserved.