4th KFC225 autopilot servo failure over same place in France

[peterh337]

The map is here (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/kfc225/kfc225-pitch-failure-map.jpg). The track is in green, with the red box showing the failure.

What have the French got down there, near Le Mans?

I have tried to find out via Socata but they say the military says there is nothing there.

[The500man]

When you find out the answer you will have only 1 second left to live. Good luck. We'll miss you! :D

[Katamarino]

After four failures at that exact point, maybe you should stop flying over it? :ok:

"Centre, this is NXXXX requesting 1 mile left offset to avoid mysterious energy field"

[peterh337]

You would need more than a mile because a previous failure happened on this (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/kfc225/track-fail-map.jpg) track, in red and much closer to Le Mans.

[Katamarino]

I'm just the ideas man, I leave the details to you :E

[peterh337]

Perhaps hand flying the plane for ~50nm either side of Le Mans, with the autopilot Master switch OFF, is a good idea :)

[Fuji Abound]

I could tell you but then I would have to shoot you.

[mad_jock]

Whats that restricted area?

Maybe you are getting zapped by cern (I don't have a clue if the ring is under that bit)

There are some pretty hefty magnetic fields coming off some of thier gear and maybe enough to throw a comparitor error into your system if it has such a thing.

Looking at a map of france thats utter pish theory :D

Have they got any other reseach near there apart from the car stuff?

[englishal]

Satellite uplink from the Le Man racing circut by any chance? And you just happen to be unlucky enough to fly right through the microwave beam 4 times :D Either that or some military radar has locked onto you....

[Shorrick Mk2]

Maybe you are getting zapped by cern (I don't have a clue if the ring is under that bit)

There are some pretty hefty magnetic fields coming off some of thier gear and maybe enough to throw a comparitor error into your system if it has such a thing.


My home airport is smack on top of the CERN accelerator ring but it doesn't seem to affect planes big or small - they certainly don't need to turn it off for CAT3 approaches :)

[peterh337]

In retrospect it seems daft of me to fly on the autopilot over that spot, having lost pitch servos there already, but the previous losses were (IIRC) 2003 2007 2008, and I had flown that route (which is a common Eurocontrol airway route) many other times without issues.

My feeling is that there is a CW tracking radar there, which illuminates the aircraft for the few seconds continuously, required to activate the defective current limit circuit. But evidently they are not always doing it.

As to how one can fix it, that's a whole other story........... One thing I will try is bonding the belly panels to the airframe. They are aluminium but they are painted and it's quite possible they are not actually connecting.

I will be getting a TCAS system installed later in the year and I know people who had that used to get even more KFC225 failures. One man I know of had them every 20-30hrs, but to be fair he had a KRA-10 RADALT also :) He kept up his Honeywell extended warranty coverage and his avionics man loved him (I think).