AME LLC

See … alcohol sounds pretty complicated. Although, deadsticking an Acclaim in the mountains, ice, in IMC to land on a dirt road is probably more complicated. Gonna work on a simpler, safer way to mitigate icing in system. Thanks for everyone’s comments.

Hahaha! Funny you say that. I fly and maintain an A26 here in Seattle called Sexy Sue. For sure I was whistling! LOL

The acclaim climb checklist calls for low boost pump above 18,000 for vapor suppression. So that was on the whole time. I just learned what the quote button does. It’s kinda like the reply button.. oh nevermind.

A couple of things. Slick nick it’s a recently overhauled engine by Victor Aviation. Firewall forward brand new including the ignition harness. Have about 120 hours on it and the engine runs oh so good. 4 blade MT prop. Also super smooth. But a new engine prop combo. I fly all kinds of stuff. And I understand jets and oil/fuel heaters etc. I think this airplane needs that. Working on a heated fuel flow divider. Cessna 421s have it. Gonna get it STCd for this plane. It can be an option/mod. Knowledgeable opinions (above my pay grade) suggest that the water stayed liquid, suspended in the fuel, (call it supercooled water droplets) until the fuel flow divider. What’s that song? That’s my story and I’m sticking to it….

I’m not a fan of alcohol. Seems like a bandaid. I’ve been flying this plane for 10 years. Did the northern crossing over and back, FL 250, and in icing. Never had a problem. I want to see the fuel heated somehow prior to delivery to the fuel flow divider. Or at the fuel flow divider. The spider sits above the engine. And isn’t heated like the engine is. It’s in the cold airflow and only a small amount of water will mess your day up. That would be a permanent fix and you wouldn’t need to dink around with ratios and math problems (sounds like a quick way for human error to say hello). The other thing that happened was the alt air light on the annunciator came on. Meaning the airfilter was clogged (with ice). And then my gauges went black. I had multiple problems at the same time. Could have done without that. on another note …Happy Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for today.

Here is something curious I don’t have an answer for. As soon as the engine quit at FL210 all my engine gages on the left side of the MFD went black. Not red exed out. Completely black. From top to bottom. The mfd was still working as I had pulled up the terrain page (that’s what got me down without hitting a mountain btw. I picked up a valley on the screen, flew best glide plus a little extra for icing, and prayed I’d pop out in time. God gave me 1500 feet. Just enough!). I also pressed the engine soft key to display the entire mfd as an engine page and it went completely black. I pressed the button again and the terrain page came back on. Riddle me that…. It’s got me stumped.

I’m talking about the fuel flow divider (spider). And I can only tell you what happened. I did my best to restart the bloody thing. Switching tanks boost pumps, different mixture / throttle settings combos. I did get an alt air light on the annunciator panel, so I manually pulled that open as well. I could have had multiple issues all at once. In any case, I wasnt ever able to restart in the air. To me, the problem had to be down stream of the fuel selector. I thought I blew a waste gate controller or something like that. Popped the cowls after changing my pants. And couldn’t find a thing wrong. (I’m also and A&P, IA along with everything else). That’s when I figured it was ice. But had to be down stream of the selector and the tanks. You can ask Victor aviation how they figured the icing issue in the flow divider. That’s not my story, but I think was right. The plane ran great after it thawed out. And I flew her outta there. lol

I sump the tanks religiously. Didn’t get any water or contamination before takeoff. Yes, you can use a mixture of alcohol per the POH. I didn’t do this. But it is a thing. However, if you screw up the ratio, which seems easy to do, you can actually go the other way. The fuel cap o rings are a known issue as well. Replace them every annual. This engine was just overhauled by Victor Aviation Black Edition. We have about 130 hours on the engine now. I called around to mooney service station friends of mine while on the dirt road. We came to the conclusion of ice, but we thought it was ice particles in the tank. Then I called John Pava at Victor Aviation. He told me that this happened to a Malibu about 15 years ago. Same engine just a different dash number. It’s a C I think. The acclaim is a G. Same situation engine quit at FL250 deadstick landing. Victor Aviation disassembled the flow divider and found the ice there. We suspected it was the same thing in this situation. But there is a solution other than mixing additives and avoiding cold weather. Working on that now.

On a different note. You guys should just switch to jets. No freezing issues and FL 450. And it’s smooth up there.

And nothing is too pushy. Ask away. I want people to learn from this, be prepared, and I hope to save lives. There are no dumb questions. But to post about some guy landing on a dirt runway, next to power poles, and have comments that it’s too tight…. better watch that. And I don’t mean from this platform necessarily. But my word, some of the other platforms and news articles and FB. Geez. Remember, some pilot skill levels are higher than others. Lol. In anycase, I’m gonna push to make sure that continental and the FAA do something about this.

Yeah Ethan, great question. Emergency situation not much time. I wanted to go to enterprise. It was on the rum line and had a good tail wind. Pretty sure I could have dead sticked that runway no worries. Seattle Center advised not going to those airports as they were IMC and higher terrain. La grande was 90 degrees off my right wing and right into a headwind. It was a tough call, but I figured I could drop in the valley and find something suitable. So I turned for La grande. I’m my own worst critic. The one thing I didn’t do is declare an emergency. I told Seattle center that I had “loss of engine power and could not maintain FL210”. The controller and I ended up arguing a bit over a few details on the way down and it just made things mores stressful. And at 8000 feet he said the frightful words “radar contact lost”. I said out loud, “Brad, do some of that pilot shit!” Lol. I followed a canyon on the terrain page of the MFD and prayed to God that I’d break out. And He graciously gave me 1500 ft. And a dirt road with power lines and an eagles nest. Good enough for me.

Here are some additional al pics for your viewing pleasure. Lol

I’ll keep you posted as things progress.

Remedy this issue … meaning continental already had reports of this happening on other aircraft but hasn’t done anything about it. So working on a fix for the TSIO-550 series engine

Yeah. That was me. Dead sticked it from FL210 through the clouds, icing, in the mountains, and broke out at 1500 agl. All I had was this road so I put her in nicely. There happened to be a bit of water from the left tank (just switched tanks). The water went into the fuel flow divider and froze. -36 C OAT. When the water froze, it expanded and shut the flow of fuel to all cylinders. No possibility for restart. I let the plane sit for three hours as I dealt with the local sheriff department (who were excellent btw). Fired her up. Run up was perfect so I flew it outta there. lol. Another day in the office. I’m now working g with the FAA, continental, and another shop to remedy this issue.