Essendon DC3 blows two cylinders

[Menen]

Heard that one of the Essendon based DC3's struck engine trouble over Point Cook and returned to Essendon with engine banging away and emitting smoke. Was still making banging noises in the circuit and smoking taxying in. Heard that two cylinders had blown hence smoke and racket.

With severe engine damage like that one would think it would be wiser to close down the engine and feather the prop to prevent further damage and possible fire risk.

[Herc Jerk]

I'm afraid you have it all wrong.

What you meant to say is:

"50 year old DC3 cracks two cylinders, flight crew does great job of bringing aircraft back to earth with no damage or loss of life"

Doesn't that feel better?

Were you on the acft? How many thousands of DC3 hours do you have? Have you done the performance figures for this acft? Then subtracted 50 years worth of degradation? Come on mate, they blew 2 pots! Cracked two cylinders! So what? "Severe engine damage"- you should have been a news reporter... Of course there's going to be racket and a bit of smoke, but 1.5 engines beats only 1 engine any day- just ask the poor sods who went swimming in Botany Bay as i'm sure they would have appreciated another half an engine.

Apologies if i sound harsh as i do hope you meant it as some sort of mis-guided question- although the "one would think it wise..." bit leaves much to be desired... Read what you have written as if you were in the LHS and leave the second guessing of the PiC to the non-aviation types who are hell-bent on hanging us on any technicality. Pls do us all a favour next time and think about what you say/write before you start muck-racking.

End of lecture

HJ

[828a]

Herc Jerk;

You are the one who has it all wrong, not Menen. Any competent DC3 pilot should be able to feather a damaged engine and land on one. It has been done countless times in the past but unfortunately todays pilots do not like the feeling of applying sufficient rudder to level the wheel , in fact I would go as far as to say you dont even know what that means. The Botany bay affair you refer to involved the misuse of the rudder and ailerons by the copilot ( who was flying ) which in turn caused so much drag at a critical stage that the aircraft ran out of speed. The captain saved the day by recognising the danger and put it in the water while it was still under some control. 828a.

[Herc Jerk]

Unfortunately i feel you've missed my point entirely. Then again, maybe you have just underlined it.

In any case enjoy your retirement, as i and "today's pilots" certainly will.

HJ

BTW if my somewhat offhand reference to the incident at Botany Bay has been taken out of context i apologise to the pilots invloved. My intent was simply to underline than an engine delivering power, abeit running roughly, should not be shutdown as a matter of rote as it may just come in handy, IMHO... which is, as always, MHO... which also has nothing really to do with the point of my post.

[SmoothCriminal]

Tend to agree with Herc on this one....

With round engines, some other's for that matter, If it's still running and you are in a critical phase including approach, leave the thing alone and make use of it.

Saving the engine is not a question at all !! The thing will be just about stuffed and will be a re-build anyways.

It's all easy to talk now sitting on the ground.

Great effort by the crew.....

My two cents worth

Smoothie....

:ok: :ok: :ok:

[Spotlight]

Once upon a time I believe Aus pilots flying the 3 averaged an engine failure/precautionary shutdown for each 500 hours in their logbook. Also believe that due to the science of the CSU the performance increase when the decision was finally made to shut down a sick donk surprised many!

[fruitbatflyer]

Herc Jerk may be right to censure Menen for his questioning of a crew's actions in an emergency. BUT, HJ seems to know diddley about big round engines.
We were taught by real engineers, of the dirty fingernail variety, to treat these things with great care; to be really aware of supercharger fires, bad vibrations accompanied by backfiring, engine seizures, runaway props, detonation etc, and we were treated to horror stories where crews had ignored the pre indications of such things, or got the drill wrong, or just got unlucky (like a prop blade through the cockpit).
Losing two jugs and keeping it running, would almost certainly destroy the engine. The vibration must have been quite impressive. Shutting it down at the first sign of unusual noise or vibration would possibly allow it to fly again after overhaul. Often, prompt crew action after one jug departed the case only required the errant cylinder and its associated bits to be replaced. I've experienced this more than once, and on each occasion the engineer fixed it in the field in a hard day's dirty work, and we flew out the next day.
Menen is right about a DC3 flying just fine on one engine - unless it is overloaded or mishandled. But you do have to give the remaining engine a good flogging to keep it up there.
In this case, however, none of us were there, so no criticsm implied, right?

[Arm out the window]

I just read the first post again, trouble over Point Cook and returned to Essendon - nice big runways below you but track back over the built up area doesn't sound like the world's greatest idea.
Naturally I wasn't there so the circumstances may have been different to how it reads.

[Hudson]

Think of the money saved by going back to EN. It is home base - no taxi fares needed for passengers - servicing on the spot at EN.
The name of the charter game is to minimise costs and make a profit -so what's a few extra miles with a dodgy engine - no sweat at all... In any case by not feathering it does not come to the attention of the radio scanners of the media.

[newnewnew]

and if it was the operator i think it was, we all know what they are like, the money saving at EN would be all the reason to risk it, if 'the man' was onboard.

Am i thinking of the right mob? with a nice black german in the garage.

[John Eacott]

From what I hear (from a following DC3 driver), Air Nostalgia had two cylinders replaced on Friday, both of which came loose in flight on Saturday :eek: Otherwise, much as reported in the first post.

[828a]

Competence:

In days of yore a command endorsement required the candidate to demonstrate his ablity to close down an engine and feather its propeller. Feathering meant pushing the feathering button and confirming the blades had stopped turning. A far cry from today's pansy training technique of throttling one back. Also an actual feathering brings about an awareness of serious business. Even the pedestal is alien to say nothing of the feel of the aircraft.
If yesterday's real pilots and instructors had the skill and confidence to push the feathering button why is it so different today? (As this DC3 incident implies).

828a

[SmoothCriminal]

Because, "Today's Real Pilot's" have learnt over the years that there were more prangs by doing those than for real !!

Smoothie....:ok: :ok:

[SmoothCriminal]

Ah by the way......Mr 828....

Your Comment "the candidate to demonstrate his ablity to close down an engine and feather its propeller"

Doesn't that sound sexist in our wonderfull NewGeneration world.

Women make great pilots as much as men...... even in a DC 3 !!


Smoothie ....being fair :ok: :ok: