Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

[supercub]

Saw the smoke, anyone know what happened to Lavelle's plane on Sunday?

[Desertdawg]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

Saw the smoke, anyone know what happened to Lavelle's plane on Sunday?

In another thread someone posted that the engine seized.

[Race5]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

Engine seized up tight. No rods hanging out so most likely burned pistons / cylinders and or bearing failure.

[georgiacub]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

Saw the smoke, anyone know what happened to Lavelle's plane on Sunday?

I'm told front main seal developed a leak and had a complete loss of oil which resulted in engine seizure.

[Samuel]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

That is a bummer. Lap from Friday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grAzagyBpTs

[88SC]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

Didn’t think to look or ask until now, but are any of the sport class planes with opposed engines dry-sumped? For the Thunder Mustangs, I assumed that the Falconer V-12s were dry-sumps (no conventional distributor/oil pump drive).

[Race5]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

Didn’t think to look or ask until now, but are any of the sport class planes with opposed engines dry-sumped? For the Thunder Mustangs, I assumed that the Falconer V-12s were dry-sumps (no conventional distributor/oil pump drive).

Falconers are true dry sump systems. The Sport Class 540 /550 motors are sort of dry sumped. The sump bolts to the bottom of the cases and oil runs into the pan vs being pumped to a remote pan. The crank does not run in the oil like it would in a wet sump system though. Oil can make its way back into the case under negative G conditions.They could have a true dry sump system if they ran an inverted oil system like the acro guys do but that is just more complexity and weight.

[RAD2LTR]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

Here is a shot I got from Saturday's race. Clearly that engine was not happy.


Will

[jraquet]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

Here is a shot from the tow back to the pit.

[Race5]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

Here is a shot I got from Saturday's race. Clearly that engine was not happy.

Will

They were doing compression checks Sat night and were happy with the numbers. Since it pushed the front main seal out and lost all the oil on Sunday, I think they had a blow by issue from a burned piston. Or maybe a stuck ring. Wouldn't take much of an issue to pressurize the crank case enough to push a seal out. Especially running that much boost.

[Fence Sence]

Re: Jeff Lavelle Mayday?

It ran for much longer than I thought after it puked a huge plume of smoke in the VOS.