3-Egg Omelet at Clow
Article by Evan Wright
Pictures by Brian Gilomen
Last weekend, my gracious wife decided to cut me loose from diaper duty for a
few hours to get the flying bug out of my system.
During my preflight I noticed some grass and straw in the engine compartment around the muffler. I removed it, continued with my preflight, and didn't think too much about it. While running-up the engine prior to take off, I thought I smelled a slight hint of something burning. Having been through this drill before, I had a pretty good idea about what was going on. I taxied over to Ricky's hangar, shut down the engine and got out my screw drivers. Ricky and I removed the top cowling, and were amazed to find a huge bird's nest sitting on top of the right hand cylinders. Fortunately, Ricky had a shop-vac, and some fin pick type tools, and we spent about 15 minutes extracting, grass, straw, and bits of paper from the cooling fins.
By now, our antics had attracted the attention of Brian Gilomen, who was nearby
working on the RANS that he had recently acquired from Mick Pahnke.
Determined to make sure the engine compartment was truly clean we dropped the
lower cowling as well. We were all absolutely stunned at what we found. Brian
ran to get his camera to document what we found:
With the help of Rickey and his shop-vac, we had the lower engine compartment vacuumed out and the cowling back on in no time. Since it was too windy to for utralights, Ricky hopped in
the 152 and we flew to Cushing for a short visit.
The astute reader is no doubt asking himself, "How
did birds get into Evan' engines when surely he had cowl plugs installed?" The
answer is I...uh...gee...ummm...er...left them in the engine the last time I flew and they were destroyed beyond recognition on takeoff (How I got through the run-up, I have no idea). It was pitch dark when I hopped in for a ride, and I was sure I had already done a preflight. Which brings me to the (scant) educational section of this
article:
There is a proper method for inserting cowl plugs.
They should be inserted so that when the prop turns, they will be pulled out of the cowling, and launched in the next county. They should not be inserted so that the spinning prop will leave them in the engine untouched, as I had done. I had wrapped the strap around the propeller shaft, so the wind would not blow them away; It seemed to make sense at the time. Oh well, I am neither the first nor the last, merely the latest.
A Sobering Side Bar:
I was flying in Indiana the same day the utralight pilot flying the Aerolite 103 was killed. It was spooky how fast the weather changed that afternoon. I had talked to FSS and received a briefing prior to departing from Fort Wayne, and was told I had smooth sailing all the way to Clow. About an hour later, just west of Valpo, I could see clouds building, and one patch of rain in the distance. It was hard to tell just how serious the rain was and I considered diverting around it. To get a better idea of the weather up ahead, I monitored the Gary ATIS, and it reported thunderstorm cells southwest of the field, right where I had to go. I returned to Valparaiso, and the wind was gusting to 20 knots, although it had been calm all day. Not long afterwards, three other planes landed, all trying to get into the Chicago area. The three other pilots and I watched the radar as cells popped up for the next four hours. I ended up sleeping on a friend's couch in Valparaiso that night and had a smooth flight home the following morning. After that experience, all I have to say is thank God for AWOS, ASOS and ATIS. If you have a radio, and can get the weather up ahead, do it!
Where To Now?
Fixing a Bad LED in an Old GA Radio
Brian's got a New Set of Wings
Wake Turbulence can be Bad for your Health
Chef Wright Whips Up a 3-Egg Omelet at Clow