Mike Brown's Mayday

[wyhdah]

John Penny brought up a good point in the Bear thread and I am curious myself, after seeing the extent of the fire, how Mike's mayday progressed and what his plans are. I don't know if he post here but I know some of the crew does so I thought it deserves a new thread.

[Mluvara]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Mike Brown doesn't post directly on the internet. I'd keep tabs on www.septemberpops.com for any news as he has items posted there.

232 is back in Ione and the crew is going over it to assess the airplane and engine.

There were no warning signs before the engine let go. One cylinder failed in some fashion and an ensuing fire damaged some of the aircraft. One of the things Kerch did when coming aboard was fire-sleeve all of the lines forward of the firewall. I'd say that this more than paid off.

Michael

[wyhdah]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Micheal,

John mentioned several accessories we damaged. Can you elaborate on the major items Mike had to do without during his landing?

[Mluvara]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Micheal,

John mentioned several accessories we damaged. Can you elaborate on the major items Mike had to do without during his landing?

John mentioned that there was a fire in the "accessory section" of the motor. This is commonly referred to as the area behind all the cylinders. The fire melted a lot of things in front of the firewall.

I think the simplest comparison between the Bear's issue and Mike's was as John said - Mike did not have the choice of when to turn his engine off. Other than that, he had a flyable airplane, which fortunately did not have any other major issues getting down. Had fire spread, things would have been different.

Michael

[Peashooter]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Do 232 and/or the Bear have fire bottles? If so, did Mike blow it off?

[wyhdah]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Good question peas. It's hard in racing to spend the time and resources on items that will seldom be put to use but I commend Kerch and the crew for their forsight in this area.

[Keith Doyne]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

I believe at least two fire bottles are required under the unlimited class rules. I forget where I read that.



Keith Doyne

[MRussell]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Great thread. Thanks to Mike L for sharing what you know.

What is fire-sleeving (nomex or some other coating?), and what "lines" traditionally get sleeved? Fuel? Electrical? Both?

[Mluvara]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Great thread. Thanks to Mike L for sharing what you know.

What is fire-sleeving (nomex or some other coating?), and what "lines" traditionally get sleeved? Fuel? Electrical? Both?

I'm not in the know on what/if fire supression bottles are in 232. I tend to stick to the telemetry... I also don't know if Mike knew there was a fire or not during the mayday. We didn't know until the aircraft had landed.

Fire sleeving is a tubing that can be placed over fuel, hydraulic lines,etc that carry flammable liquids.

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo...s/stratofs.php

Michael

[wyhdah]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Micheal,

Can you monitor A/F ratios, individual EGTs, from the ground? I know you look at the vitals like oil, and cht just curious about the performance items as well. If you could tell us all the non proprietary data you monitor I would appreciate it.

[Mluvara]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Micheal,

Can you monitor A/F ratios, individual EGTs, from the ground? I know you look at the vitals like oil, and cht just curious about the performance items as well. If you could tell us all the non proprietary data you monitor I would appreciate it.

Certainly, one can monitor pretty much anything that they want. Technically, it is possible. Feasible..maybe not. I've built a host of systems for a variety of competitors. Very few systems are alike.

Mike's system is the most sophisticated in the unlimiteds that I've built. It measures 30 or so items, from non-critical items (speed, position, g force, etc) to engine rpm, temperatures,pressures,boiler status, etc. We're not doing individual EGT's however, nor have we gotten into A/F ratios.. Part of the issue with the real time telemetry is being able disseminate what data is important and act on what it is telling you. A lot of time has been spent on the display portion so that the user can be focused on the parameters of importance. This has come down to a handful of critical items.

The rest of the data is typically used to back up what the other data is telling you or to solve other problems. For performance, we can look speeds vs g force, HP vs speed, course optimization, etc. at how often the boiler is cycling, know that it is working, and look at the temperature of the oil going in and out,etc. The interesting part for me is that having a lot of this data is new and unchartered territory. No one has really looked at it in depth on such an airplane before.

Michael

[wyhdah]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Nice, thanks. I know on race cars I look alot at the A/F ratio and the EGT's to tell me the overall health of the pistons. For instance our typical forged piston will melt down around 1700 degrees F and with the ceramic coatings we can run slightly higher (these are for short periods of time, tenths of seconds). Of course the EGT temps are directly affected by the A/F ratio. This data is on a short sprint not a long run so there might not be much to gain by adjusting these parameters on a race plane.

btw: this is logged info not real time so it isn't exactly the same.

[MRussell]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Certainly, one can monitor pretty much anything that they want. Technically, it is possible. Feasible..maybe not. I've built a host of systems for a variety of competitors. Very few systems are alike.

Mike's system is the most sophisticated in the unlimiteds that I've built. It measures 30 or so items, from non-critical items (speed, position, g force, etc) to engine rpm, temperatures,pressures,boiler status, etc. We're not doing individual EGT's however, nor have we gotten into A/F ratios.. Part of the issue with the real time telemetry is being able disseminate what data is important and act on what it is telling you. A lot of time has been spent on the display portion so that the user can be focused on the parameters of importance. This has come down to a handful of critical items.

The rest of the data is typically used to back up what the other data is telling you or to solve other problems. For performance, we can look speeds vs g force, HP vs speed, course optimization, etc. at how often the boiler is cycling, know that it is working, and look at the temperature of the oil going in and out,etc. The interesting part for me is that having a lot of this data is new and unchartered territory. No one has really looked at it in depth on such an airplane before.

Michael

Great post, Michael, thanks. You just answered about 10 questions I've been dying to ask during the past few years.

[Mluvara]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

No problem.

Without derailing the thread too far, I'm attaching some telemetry screen shots for those that are interested. One is typical for some of the unlimiteds. The other is from 232 in 2006. Note the colors and such on some gauges. Color is used to alert warnings for exceeding levels,etc. The data shown on each screen may not be real values.

The on screen graphs show trending, which is a big part of getting the "big picture" when viewing the data.

Michael

[SCEPTER]

Re: Mike Brown's Mayday

Neat stuff...thanks for sharing.