Guinness World Record Attempt

[Humbly Reserved]

Who'd be nuts enough to lend another aeroplane to this bloke. Solid effort though, but I bet the owner's pissed...

[NoseGear]

Fantastic!

That is an amazing effort! Well done and I am a happy and humble donator to your cause, before you went all silly and did like a THOUSAND rolls! Incredible effort mate, truly.

[Jack Ranga]

Who'd be nuts enough to lend another aeroplane to this bloke. Solid effort though, but I bet the owner's pissed...

As his feat suggests, he's a far superior pilot to the majority of pilots getting around. He is one of 3 owners of the aircraft. Both the other owners were present. Their only concern was that of his safety

[VH-XXX]

It's a Pitts, it's meant to be thrown around like a bumble bee, that's what it's built for !

[Avgas172]

Well done Kingsley .... Any landing you walk away from is a good one

[BULLDOG 248]

What a great effort and great cause. But what was the cause of the engine failure if anyone knows???

[Wally Mk2]

'JR' sent you a PM about an unrelated matter

Wmk2

[djpil]

But what was the cause of the engine failure if anyone knows???

The ATSB report is available here: Investigation: AO-2014-036 - Engine failure involving an amateur built Pitts S1S, VH-URP, 6 km south Lethbridge Airport, Victoria on 1 March 2014and the only mention of a possible cause is

The pilot reported that the ‘flop tube’ may have become stuck. It supplies the engine with fuel from the top of the tank when the aircraft is inverted.

(The flop tube also supplies the engine from the bottom of the tank when the aircraft is upright.) The ATSB didn't take any interest in the cause that I can see. How can a flop tube get stuck?

There have been reports of old flop tubes losing flexibility so not reaching the bottom (or top when inverted) of the tank when the fuel level gets low - that is for the standard, large single tank in the Pitts - refer Pitts Service Bulletin #34. http://aviataircraft.com/pix/pbulletins/sb34.pdf

I happened to see this aeroplane at Oshkosh some years ago. Aircraft N225SC (1998 Pitts S-1S C/N 001) Photo by Connector (Photo ID: AC725780) Far from a standard S-1S. If my recollection is correct it also has a fuel header tank below the main tank - not standard in factory-built Pitts but fairly common in Experimental ones used in serious competition. If that is the case, the information in the standard S-1S flight manual would not apply to the fuel system.

I fly another certified type which has a header tank and its manual includes this info:

... a sequence of maneuvers involving a large percent of negative "g" maneuvers may exhaust the inverted fuel supply.

Just the one fuel supply so no fuel will get to the engine even if you then go upright until ..

Approximately one minute of positive "g" conditions is required to completely refill the inverted fuel supply.

i.e. the header tank.

WARNING Complete loss of fuel flow and power, caused by depletion of inverted fuel supply, may result in an interruption of power for up to 10 seconds after return to normal flight. AVOID THIS CONDITION UNLESS SUFFICIENT ALTITUDE INSURES SAFE RESTART.

The last statement in that ATSB report was:

For this occurrence, a limited-scope, fact-gathering investigation was conducted in order to produce a short summary report, and allow for greater industry awareness of potential
safety issues and possible safety actions.

A bit light on wrt fact-gathering and awareness of safety issues in my opinion.


I wonder if anyone bothers to add useful notes in the flight manual when they modify aerobatic aircraft.

I wonder if anyone bothers to tell other people when they have problems with aerobatic aircraft or do they just let other people find out problems for themselves. The International Aerobatic Club has a website where people can share issues (anonymously if desired - some people, understandably these days, don't want to report stuff to ATSB or CASA) http://www.usnationalaerobatics.org/...t.aspx?g=forum