Baron boost pump life with continuous use? safe to fly?
Had an interesting one a few weeks back near northern SA
Noticed the RH fuel pressure fuel pressure gauge 'flickering' slightly, kept an eye on it and continued to our destination which was aprrox 1 hour away.
15 mins later the flicker progressively got worse and pressure seemed to be dropping slightly, prompting an increase in RH mixture to return to normal PSI. This continued happening over the next 5-10 mins or so until the needles were fairly split with near full mixture.
Few mins prior to this I opted to climb from a relatively low 500' to 9500' with the boost pump on low. Top of climb, turned pump off, and not too surprisingly the RH engine lost almost all power, switched back on to low, power regained. At this point I guessed EDP failure and continued to our landing point....
Turns out it was something unrelated causing fuel starvation.
As the plane was hired I contacted the owner and advised of the situation and our fairly remote location.
During ground runs discovered the engine was developing full power with pump off but needles split approx 4-6 psi...
End of story we flew back home with the boost pump on low and used hi for take off in order to get 16+ PSI req'd for t/o
My question, how long do beech boost pumps last for with continuous use? and how safe is it to fly on one if the EDP had indeed failed?
As I believe they are not an immersion pump (which last for ever) and instead run in 'series' behind the EDP (remember at this time I assumed the EDP failed and was mindful of the possibility the delivery line could become blocked with a damaged pump components)
oh, and minimise the flamming about what could/should/would have happened
Cheers,