Engine Failure

[jetflite]

Interested to here some actual accounts of anyone who has actually experienced a real life:
Engine Failure
T/R Failure
Jammed Controls
Fuselage issues (Eg: something falling off!!!)
Instrument/avionics Failures
Even more so, any at Night or IFR ?

Any information on how you handled it, how it felt, how it made you feel and if it was different to what you were taught ? just curious......:ok:

[187nj]

during my first lesson the radio's failed during base turn!

Very exciting!!

What a super thread, well done Jetfilte!!!

[Three Blades]

January aaib bulletin had a report about a loss of tail rotor

[TiPwEiGhT]

Had a magneto go on my PPL(H) LST many years ago... was a bit exciting, nailed a running landing which the examiner was happy with.

[md 600 driver]

engine failure in md600 at 150 ft 50 knots over the airfield boundary at cranfield

landed ok suprised my self it was better than my normal landing

but it did go very very quiet exept for the annoying voice of the fadec telling me engine out engine out [as if i didnt know ]



i then received a bolxxxxg from the atc for landing/parking on the taxiway

[Dolmangar]

I had one Mag on a Bell 47-G2 fail in flight during my PPL training. We didn't notice until I pulled power during my final approach flair. Ugly landing, and my instructor gave me the evil eye because I was pretty far into training to have such an bad final. I complained that I didn't have any power, but it was hot and the first assumption was that I was late on the throttle (no govenor, just slight corolation on the G2).

After getting chastised when I finally put the a/c down on a taxiway he said something along the lines of "alright lets do THAT again", he took the controls, and attempted to lift off. Hot day, and he could barely get the thing off the ground (redline on MP). That's when we did a mag check and decided to call in the mechanic.

Interesting failure that I would never have been able to train for, but it could have been a big problem if I'd needed to go around near the ground. Certainly made me more aware hot temps, and steep approaches.

[Devil 49]

Engine failure,UH1H at night, after landing at a remote airfield in Vietnam, siezed at idle during cooldown. The bad guys assaulted the field later. Never flew with pintle-mount 60s again.

Engine failure/compressor stall, AS355F1, in flight, autorelight effective, after the right yaw and ran normally to landing. Stator vane failure, fell off but twisted 90 in the taper and stuck- no damage to any other compressor components.

Engine condition lever, after landing, AS355F1. Felt really stupid looking at that thing in my hand, attached to the ceiling by the start button wires.

Rotor brake lever failure, AS355F1, same as above.

Transmission suspension bar bearing failures (3 occurrences, 2 at once) in AS355F1. The old style stainless steel tubes that were pinched closed around the bearings, spread at the compression, mount bolt and hardware and hole in tubes kept everything together until I landed. There was a distinct "thunk", like someone hitting a cast iron skillet with a ball peen hammer, and cabin dropped about an inch.

Tail rotor spider bearing failure, climbout, AS355F1, flew back to an airport and run-on landing. It's hard to keep your feet on the floor even when you know the pedals don't do anything.

Hmmm... there seems to ba a pattern with the AS355F1, and I haven't even mentioned the junk electricals.

Drive train failure, H269B, in cruise, lower pulley bearing, forced landing in pasture successful.

Throttle cable broke, 206 B, flight position, uneventful for the pilot, just wouldn't go to idle. Remainder of day off.

[brett s]

Had a couple of magneto failures in Bell 47's - just lost a bit of power. Both times I was light enough that it was a non-issue.

Had a bad roll hydraulic cylinder, again on a Bell 47 (TomCat Mk5A to be specific) - causing hardovers with any roll input. As a sub 50 hour PPL at the time with a couple hours in type & no real checkout, systems or emergency procedures training from the owner (took it around the pattern a couple times & was turned loose, maybe 15 minutes total) that was interesting.

I've had the pitot tube get plugged by bugs, so no airspeed indication.

Also have had a rotor tach generator failure, so no rotor rpm indication - still had the engine needle working.

All minor stuff, I was definitely luckier than some other pilots working for one operator - one guy had a centrifugal clutch failure in a Bell 47, on the next flight after I got out. He was in a turn (ag spraying) when it let go, walked away from it but totalled the ship. Another year a Hiller 12E lost the torsional coupler between the engine & transmission right after liftoff - minor damage to the ship (bent gear) but the engine oversped badly & added to the expense. I'd been flying it that morning, he'd been going a few hours that afternoon...

[SASless]

Hughes 500D....Alaska....9500 feet AGL...evening twilight....un-classic engine failure....way too much time to think about it!

Chinook...dropping a slingload on a very small mountain top....engine failure on one....closely followed by a severe compressor stall on the other....one very interesting ride down the mountain side trying to regain airspeed and Main Rotor RPM

Chinook....N2 overspeed drive shaft failure on one....rocket ride to a great height and whopping big Main Rotor Overspeed while figuring out what the heck was wrong....resulted in addition of said problem to training and checklist.

Bell 206....jammed collective....made run on landing at a bush camp.

Huey....tail rotor failure control failure at a hover.

Chinook....hit by .51 Cal...removed left pedal from under my foot...hydraulic fed fire in cockpit...IMC recovery by means of GCA approach at a SF Base Camp.

Now I recall why I fancy strong drink!

[O27PMR]

SASless

Stop beating around the bush and tell us, have you had any failures or not???:E

[Flyin'ematlast]

Oh my god!

11 posts on this thread so far and no-one has mentioned a Robinson! :eek:

I'm sure it won't last long. :{

Ian.

[Flying Bull]

First solo on helicopters, Gazelle. Lifting off and trimmed with the force trim release the bird to the accelerative attitude. When I reached circuit speed I tried to trim again – but the force trim release had failed. So I called the instructor back to the landing zone and finished the circuit against the springs of the trim. He jumped in and wanted control – and even so I had told him, that there was force on the stick, the blades nearly hit the ground, when he took control. We flew back to our homebase, only to find out, that only a circuit breaker has popped (unfortunately where I couldn´t reach it), but the instructor could have ;-) After that only the one or the other bird strike without mayor damage, a little bit scary at night so ;-) Then an engine chip on a twin at MTOW, shut the engine down and landed on a nearby little airfield leaving 15 meters of skidmark on the grass. Scary was a coughing engine in a 206 while underway with passengers at max. cruise power. The helicopter veering, dancing needles all over the panel until I lowered the collective. I continued a bit, trying to check out what caused it with less power applied, when the engine coughed again. Lowering the collective again solved the problem only a few seconds. Again the engine coughed. With 60isch knots and minimum power setting, telling the passengers, we´re going to land, I went back to base, always prepared for an engine off. The technicians found, that pieces from the compressor housing (each clamshell the amount of a small finger) went through the engine. Had another bad feeling, when flying over sea at night and checked the fuel consumption. The amount calculated were more than usual but engine parameters were o.k.. Used the stopwatch and calculated again, even more consumption. Did a few turns to see, whether there might be fuel leaking, but couldn´t see any. Returning to homebase the consumption increased and we weren´t sure, if we could make it. Called for the firetruck. After landing no leak was found, just the electrics went mad. All other moments were due to pilot or crew misjudgements – that are stories for another thread (where you need to open the luck bag and put something into the experience bag) Greetings Flying Bull

[Shawn Coyle]

Three engine failures
OH-58A when I rolled the left hand throttle to idle just a bit too briskly, and the fuel control wasn't set right and the engine flamed out (unannounced engine failure on takeoff along a runway for a student who was doing very well).
Couldn't figure out why there was a beeping noise with the collective full down until I saw the oil pressure drop to zero..
No damage.

Canadian version of CH-46 - following practice engine failure on #1with correct checklist procedures, downwind in traffic pattern / circuit, instructor says "Around here, following a practice engine failure, we put the 'bad' engine throttle up to about 85-90% N1 in case the good engine quits". I nod agreement that this is a good idea, which was followed almost immediately by #2 eating itself up. Not sure who got #1 throttle to fly, but in following 30 seconds we managed to regain composure, shut down #2, restart our hearts and do single engine landing. No damage, except to #2 engine.

Hangs head in shame having joined club that I'd much rather not be a member of - S-55, front tank with 55 gallons, burns 45 gallons per hour, airborne 45 mintues, engine quits due to lack of fuel. Shameful part is twice in previous 10 minutes SSV (still, small voice) had said "switch fuel tanks", and I hadn't listened.
Minor damage to airframe, moderate damage to ego.

In all three cases, I was obviously not expecting an engine failure, and it did take me quite by surprise. Not sure that one second intervention time is a long as it needs to be.
Definitely not like the way we'd practiced in any case.

[Floppy Link]

Downwind at about 1000ft after a stolen car in Oxford on a very windy day, big gust and the autorelights both came on...looked in to see both engines returning to normal indications.:eek: (AS355F1!)

On NVG in bandit country at high power climbing away from a drop off when one engine froze...back to the mill and shut it down in the overhead. Was tempted to call ourselves a Whirlwind (i.e single engine Wessex) on the flight safety net.

On NVG in bandit country at high power climbing away from another drop off when the cockpit window came off in me hand guv, the wire trapping fingers against the armour plate (when the armour was in position, it was almost impossible to reach the window handle so the technique was to pull on the wire which had the same effect as using the handle - the pin would come out of the hole and the window could be closed). Brian took control and Mick L climbed out of the cabin to hold onto the door so that it wouldn't come off totally (prob taking some fingertips, blades, tail rotors etc with it). Short transit back to R850 and I got my hand back. My own fault for climbing in like a herd of elephants - must have dislodged the jetisson handle on the way in. Plonker. :\

[Devil 49]

B206L1, departing a rig with a load of "critters", when reduce power to cruise, engine surges, aircraft yaws, gauges dancing, the whole thing. I reduce power more, surge stops. Power back up to cruise, surge and yaw return. Landed atop nearest BIG quarters roof top pad. Roving maintenance works on it for 4 days, tightening fittings, replacing lines and various logical bits before they replace the starter-generator, which cures the engine surging...

Lost a generator in a B206B3, offshore, before Loran, much less GPS. Shed load, everything's working fine, hold a heading and a platform on the leg should appear out of the summer haze in couple minutes. No, it doesn't happen.
Ten minutes later, I recognize that I'm in a block 30+ degrees off my course line, and I "pilotage" home. What I didn't know is that losing the generator's current to the nose mounted battery changes the wet compass deviation, significantly.
I can remember a couple generator failures in an Astar, too, one of which was not alerted by the caution panel illuminating. At night, in an EMS bird, there's lots of power consumers, so it gets dark and quiet relatively quickly. In any case, by the time the voltage starts to drop, it's too late to save a useful amount of battery, sorta like waiting until the engine coughs to look for fuel.

Some starter/generator failures over the years, where the starter refused to drive. This is one event where a fit of temper might be useful, malletizing the starter sometimes re-seats the brushes, allowing a start and normal generator operation back to base. For the unfamiliar, "malletizing" means giving the offending device a whack, a satisfying process even when not efficacious.

[TiPwEiGhT]

Robinson's ain't too bad... my mag failure was in an R22 and...

...numerours MGB Chip lights, clutch lights, electrical failure, engine fire (lots and lots of smoke), carb icing and also it dumped all it's oil at 1000'...

apart from that, they ain't too bad!

[Bootneck]

Super Puma, China. The engineers decided to remove the white plastic shroud that surrounds the rotor mast and sits just above the gearbox, due to a small crack. OK, you guys know what should be there and what isn't needed.

45 minutes later I was about 60 miles south of Kai Tak when my main gearbox pressure started to twitch then oscillate. The rig was about 25 miles away when the main pressure fell to zero, the standby pressure was firm. Until that started oscillating and then fell to zero with about 8 miles to run :eek:. We landed on the rig (South Sea Driller) and discovered that the aircraft was really shiny, very smart. :)

The shroud which was so dispensable by common agreement of the engineers, prevents the main gearbox oil from being syphoned up the outer part of the mast. That cost them one or three Carlsbergs. :ok:

The other pilot was Chinese, he could not speak English, so we had an interpreter sitting in the jump seat, standard practice over there at that period. His main contribution to this event was to point at the guage and say "Ohhhhhhhhhh!" :D

[jellycopter]

In no particular order:-

Jet Provost - undercarriage collapse despite 3 greens and a greased landing.

Hunter - engine compressor creep causing horrible rubbing noise. IMC glide landing from about 30,000ft. (just a concerned pax on this one!)

Gazelle - 1. fcu failure in hover 2. fenestron stall causing about 15 rotations and 4 sets of brown trousers from my pax and me.

Wessex - 1. 2x Engine Freezes / 2x Engine Runaway ups / 1 x Divergent engine oscillations 2. Hydraulic failure.

Puma - 1. Engine oil pressure failure IMC 500ft over Irish Sea. Very long single engine transit into wind to Valley where we had an intercom failure on short finals 2. Starter motor fire. 3. Hydraulic failure 4. Main gearbox oil pressure failure due to a bag of silica gel being left in the gearbox after maintenance - the silica particles blocked the filter and pump. 5. Main gear box cowling detached on take of and struck 3 of the 4 main rotor blades (I learned about trusting students to do walk rounds!)

AB205 - 1. Engine failure at 200ft in climb in mountains (parked it on it's side and the hydraulics caught fire) Turns out the previous pilot had hot started it and not told anyone! 2. Compressor stall on finals to mountain LS at about 9500 ft - FCU out of adjustment.

B212 - Engine oil pressure failure at night about 100 miles into the desert.

A109 - 1. Engine failure IMC without autopilot - shaft between compressor and turbine failed so the indications weren't 'classic'. God has a way of telling you when you are being stupid! 2. Several eng chips 3. Several gearbox chips

AS350 - 1. Spurious engine fire warning. 2. TGB Chips

EC120 - Zip!

Rotorway Exec - 1. Engine failure on climb out at 150ft (Exhaust valve seized). 2. Secondary FADEC failure causing power loss and indications of total engine failure - however it was still running and capable of producing a bit of power. 3. Engine failure in hover taxi - another seized exhaust valve. 4. Tail rotor failure in the hover. 5. Engine power loss during recovery from auto - parked it on its side. 6. Engine oil leak from rocker cover - smelled hot oil shortly after take-off so quick circuit to land. about a pint of oil left after touchdown. 7. Fan belt failure causing hot oil / water and almost total water loss. 8. Several minor snags.

H269 - Zip!

R22 - Zip! (Except for some student-induced brown trouser moments!)

R44 - Zip!

Estrom 480 - 1. Drive bearing hot - bearing knackered 2. Eng chips.

God I love my job!

JJ

[ShyTorque]

I once broke a fingernail whilst opening the tech log.......

Plus a "few other things".

The most scary, in retrospect, was a blade spar failure on a metal bladed Puma HC1 during my OCU course, nearly 30 years ago.

We had a BIM (Blade Integrity Monitor) caption light up at 100ft agl during a low level Navex. I put out a PAN call and landed in a field, which just happened to have a phone box immediately adjacent to it. As the PAN call hadn't been replied to, I was told to stay in the pilots seat and keep the radio on, whilst my QHI and the student crewman went outside to check it out. The aircraft was renowned for false BIM warnings prior to "Plastic blades". The QHI and crewman returned after a short while, having looked at the blades and phoned the engineers at base for advice. The QHI said it was OK, just another false alarm, but we were going back to base. The QHI flew back.

As I got out of the aircraft, I was horrified to see a red BIM (u/s) on a main blade! It wasn't a false indication in the cockpit, it was real. I walked quickly in to the line office and asked WTF was going on!

Some days on, I was quietly taken to one side by the line chief and showed a section of the blade he had been given, to show the damage. There was less than third of the main spar left intact, the entire rear of the D section was gone, only the front edge remained.........

Another minute of flying time and I might not have been here. :ooh:

I got a sincere and contrite private apology from the QHI.

[Gaseous]

1) Mag failure. Initial thought, Why wont this bloody thing hover?

2) brain failure moved mixture to full lean instead of full rich. Initial thought. Oh S**t. Felt slightly silly. Restarted it in flight. Wife not convinced by explanation it was a routine practice.

3) Tacho failure. made me look out of the window at least twice to check it was all still going round. More confusing than frightening.

4) Lost a Wellington boot - dont ask.

5) 6 inch blade delamination- didnt notice until I landed:eek:

5) everytime one flies an Enstrom some self tappers fall off. I use the trail to find my way home.:p

[nigelh]

Engine failure on climb out in Bell 47 in the desert in Egypt luckily was near bushes for reference. ( as against the time i was flying at 500ft been going for hour or so and noticed some trees and small valleys below...thought about it until i realised i was at about 20ft agl :eek:)
Hiller lost 4ft section of blade ...shook so bad you could not see any instruments just a blur ....
Flew loads of times with no airspeed / engine/ rotor rpm but that was spraying in those days !!
Thats plenty for me ...if i were you jelly , i would think someone is trying to tell me something !!!!! ( V glad your still here tho,:ok:)

[Marc Tower]

OH-58C, evening ...Ft. Campbell ...cruise to CAAF, lots and lots concrete. About 12,000 ft of runway if I remember correctly.

Uneventful run-on landing, lot's of sparks and two shiny fire trucks.

Followed procedure, throttle to keep the nose pointed generally in the right direction, ended up with a non-event and a nice story.;)

[Shawn Coyle]

Marc Tower:
First time I've heard of real stuck pedals in an OH-58/Bell 206. what was the cause?

[topendtorque]

Hmmm, a bit like asking some rough cowpoke dude in an outback pub, how many kids has he got? Ah well yer honour only 38 on this issue that I’ll own up to. That is, that necessitated the use of those magic phrases, land immediately, or, land ASAP.

On ‘47’s; anything from T/R drive shaft failure in hover at sixty feet to complete damper frame break up, five stars on the spooky side that one, to several mundane eng failures – eng thru bolts, valve failures, rocker shaft fell out once, turbo exhaust pipe x three, fuel pump seals blown out, ditto fuel tap seals x 2, one mag failure coupled to a wiring harness short on two plugs on the other side mag. My first real one, also five stars – couldn’t even see the instruments with the vibes that time.

Magneto drive shaft failure x 2- one of those with the late Lester Chambers on board as a slave, his first slave ride, (he was far too good a man to go the way he did) landed right under a very big tree, no chainsaws and five minutes of hovering to get out after repair. Then there were several xmon types like fan drive failures, one free wheel failure from sixty feet with my father in law on board (another five stars), fan drive belts.

Oh, and the R22 did someone say, one drive belts failure, and one upper bearing failure, each required a full auto in most unpleasant circumstances.

Four of the type referred to by SC, one particularly hang the head job, one I overlooked the fuel tank rigging thereby misjudging the quantity, that one was real funny when my pax asked me "if yer need some spanners to bleed her I've got em in the toyota". That came at flare height.
One quite deliberate with a very obstinate pax, still inexcusable as it gave me a hot stop on the turbo and the last was still a mistake as I missed the fuel contamination into a nearly already full R22, the only one of all events that was bent or even scratched.

Of the six (land ASAP ones) the last was the only totally harmless one. – Just settled into the first cuppa at cruise at daylight or there-about and the most ungodly bashing and banging out the back. Now having lived thru the infernal din of a ’47 free wheel failure I immediately thought the worst, down went the old heave ho. Another magic little spot appeared right there, hmm still had drive power at the bottom, no strange noises, every thing in green??? Got out and it’s the bloody Zeus fasteners on the inspection panel have let go. Knee’s shaking climbed back up, cancelled the emerg call, and carried on. Yeah tonight I will get them repaired.

I can say that all in all, I got a hell of an emerg training vocabulary to rely on.

To classify the two phrases, Landing ASAP usually means that the thing will still fly, but not that is always safe to do so; land immediately is always when the collective goes down as a mandatory life saving function.

I must say that I have always worshipped my ab-initio instructor as the gentleman whose genius blessed me with just enough nouse to get my collective thoughts together and rationalised BEFORE I decided on the CORRECT course of action, EVERY time.

I wonder if the basic first license syllabus, anywhere, covers such capacity nowadays. Most it seems are too bloody scared to switch the engine off.

So you newbies it’s all in the first few hours of instruction (if you have a good instructor) that you will be either blessed by talent or forever wondering if it is luck that you live with. Then again many people go for ever without so much as a burp. And, it’s not always the engine.

[Marc Tower]

Shawn Coyle:
I've been trying to remember (and failing :ugh:) the root cause. I was flying with an IP who was gracious and brave enough to let fledgling scout pilot make the decisions and then fly it to the ground. Great confidence builder!

I remember pushing pretty hard in-flight, then deciding we had a high confidence of of a successful outcome in the current state, but were unsure of the consequences of forcing pedal movement.

Pretty sure when it was on the ground, we tried to free the pedals unsuccessfully, put on ground-handling wheels, pulled it off the runway and went for a beer. Sorry I'm not much help. If the answer comes to me, I'll post it. I never heard of it happening again.

Marc

[Bootneck]

A friend had an electrical fire in a gazelle. I was occupying the left hand seat in a warm friendly daze when I sniffed the air and indicated we may have to land. He was slightly non-plussed as he could not smell anything.

Later I asked why he hadn't noticed the all pervasive scent of burning wires.

"I don't have any sense of smell."
"Didn't they pick that up at your medical?"
"They never asked." :):):)

[snorris]

been flying for two years and have about 600 hours in an r-44(500 hours of that is in a 2006 Raven II). No engine failures but will list the problems below. Didn't really think of any of them as emergencies but just a pain in the A**.

So many hydraulic leaks i lost count(few of them i landed and i couldn't see any fluid in the resevoir)
Alternator failure on the above r-44 with 30 hours on it
Fuel pump failure at night with 400 hours on it
Bird strike (bird hit the main rotor, dented the one blade then flew back(well flopped back) to hit the empenage and smacked down on that, the flying rat came about 1 foot from hitting the tail rotor(better day then it could have been, by the way i felt to big bumps one when it hit the blade and the second when it hit the tail fin and i mean big bumps).
Had the engine cough bad enough to where it lost power for a moment, dumped collective was looking to land then it stopped coughing.
I thought i would share the moment i landed in a park giving rides (i was cooling down) and a lady who was drunk and obviously on some drugs came running at the helicopter with her hands up. Needles to say my mom was working ground crew and she tackled her. I had my seatbelt off out of the aircraft running after her but my MOM beat me to it. I have to say after the fact i laughed pretty hard keep picturing my mom taking this lady down( some people have no brains but it is a good example to keep full situational awareness). That was probably the most scariest moment out of all the above.

In conclusion i'm always am prepared for the worst but i rather have small problems like above then having to deal with big problems. The above were obviously problems with the aircraft but i didn't list other problems found in inspections. I guess not all robbies are low maintenance.

[chca18]

I lost my Enstrom F28A in an engine failure. Had just started from a refueling when the engine stopped dead on 800'. Made an autorotation landing in a rapeseed field with about 20-30 knots forward speed which should have been OK if it hadn't been for the rapeseed that the skids stuck in (try to walk through rapeseed!) so the Enstrom tipped forward and the blades contacted the ground with a total as result.
Reason for engine failure? The ignition cable isolation burnt off with a short as result.
Why? Had had the engine rebuildt and when it was reinstalled the mechanic made a mistake, connected the ground cable to the middle of the alternator (where You can connect for instrument output).
It was OK for 5 hours flying before the accident but after the refueling I had trouble starting the engine and I drained the battery. I jumpstarted the engine and when it stated loading the battery it obviosly overloaded and burnt the ignition cables.
Was rathe lucky though, just a couple of 100 meters along my route the compact forest began.
I managed a Mayday on the way down but not more. Can still remember the chilling silence. /CC

[A.Agincourt]

chca18 :Made an autorotation landing in a rapeseed field with about 20-30 knots forward speed which should have been OK if it hadn't been for the rapeseed that the skids stuck in (try to walk through rapeseed!) so the Enstrom tipped forward and the blades contacted the ground with a total as result.

You make a very good point, there are many that I have met who like you made a good auto to an equally good landing only to be wrecked by the terrain surface and the remaining forward velocity.

At height, it is impossible under such circumstances, to select an area that has an optimal surface - except for the odd sports pitch, golf course or airfield. I discovered this from a very early age and made it a policy to never attempt a 'run on' unless the surface could be virtually guaranteed to support such activity. Those occasions are likely to be rare and so my philosophy is to always intend towards as close to zero speed TD as possible. It requires considerable practise to acheive confidence but I firmly beleive it to be the best policy.


Best Wishes

[biggles99]

given the massive numbers of R22s and R44s out there,

either very few of you who post here fly Robinsons,

very few of you who fly Robinsons post here,

or they are just damn reliable.

take your pick.........

Big Ls

[Bladecrack]

R22 - 2 alternator failures in flight, 1 radio failure, 1 low oil pressure light mid channel irish sea, 1 clutch failure, several chip lights, couple of starter motors..

B206 - 1 generator failure, 1 FCU failure

A109 - several total radio failures, and several engine chip lights

All quite minor stuff really..

[brett s]

I forgot about one in an R22 - as a student pilot on a night cross country flight with a CFI, had a fuel leak at the carb (mechanic screw-up, didn't tighten a fuel line).

Started the flight with full fuel, we both noted the fuel gauge was dropping a bit faster than expected as time went by, but then again those gauges aren't the largest or most accurate in the world to begin with either. We cut the flight a bit short as that continued & headed home just in case, on short final the low fuel light came on.

[Paul Cantrell]

R22: alternator failure, various tach failures
F28A: stuck collective
B206B3: starter/generator shaft failure, T/R chips
C172: night engine failure

Re: the F28A tipping over forward - the Enstroms really like to rock forward on their oleos, so I agree that with all that inertia it's worth trying to get the ground speed really low. That's not really an option in the R22, but the stiff R22 gear will slide pretty well if the terrain is at all flat, so I would opt for some forward speed in the R22 unless I had a heck of a headwind. The R44 has enough inertia to get really slow touchdown speeds.

I was lucky in the C172 - I flew just a few inches under wires that I couldn't see in the dark - almost had a heart attack the next day when we went back to look at the aircraft. Owner bolted a new engine in and flew it out of the field himself.

[WhirlwindIII]

BH47 - cooling fan bearing failure - what a racket! BH204 - engine failure. BH205 - loss of most left pedal authority; huge compressor stall w/momentary engine power loss, which recovered. BH206 - 2x hydraulics failure. BH212 - 3x engine runaway ups, 1x runaway down. DME fire. Inverter fire. XMSN oil cooler by pass valve stuck closed - high temp. BH222 - loose engine throttle control assembly - loss of throttle control. AH1G - SAS hardovers, many. S76A/A+/B/C/C+ - Dual T/R AFCS actuator hardover, small electrical problem. WS55III - engine fuel control computer failure - 2x. WS60 - window fell off. H500 - no problems! A109A/II/C - various small problems. Enstrom F28C - clutch failure. BK117A3 - generator failures. S61N - no problems. OH58A - no problems. UH1H - high EGT enroute, partial power. AS350 - main battery overtemp. BH214ST - no problems. On all I elected to exercise the most conservative and expeditious resolution except when over bad-guy territory. Gives a bit of credence to there not being any old AND bold pilots. Worked for me.

[npage]

Had a T/R pitch link failure on an early AS350D with the older, shorter output shaft. Blade w/o the pitch link went a little wild and smacked the tailboom. Resulted in an AD that extended the output shafts. Now know why most manufacturers use brown material to cover seats.
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee170/gunfighter29/AstarTailboomstrike1.jpg