Nov 2009, What are the odds?
What are the odds that less than 24 hours after bragging I never had an engine out situation in the last 180 odd flights, that it would happen within hours. Well, for me, the odds are 1 in 1. 
After my post last night, I was flying my T-Rex 600 this afternoon and all was well for the first few flights. On the last few flights I noticed that my idle wasn’t consistent, and seemed to vary from startup to startup. I checked everything over and it appeared normal, but decided to change the glow plug just in case. It wasn’t alarming, but something I had noticed.
On the last flight it started with some hesitation, but once running seemed to be fine. I brought it into a hover, bounced it up and down a little to be sure everything was as it should be, and then drifted off into forward flight. On the surface it seemed to be running fine. But at about 50′ up, right over the trees, it stated to loose power. Just as I rotated the tail to bring it back, it quit on me. Down collective. Flare. Touchdown. It landed fairly smoothly but ended up in the tall weeds. The only damage was one linkage rod popped off and it cracked the ball link.
In the shop, the cause of the engine out was easily found after a brief inspection. Two of the head bolts for the motor were completely unscrewed and loose, the rest were slightly loose, all allowing the engines compression to bleed out. I took the time in the shop to pull the engine, tighten up the head screws, and inspect the bearings, clutch/liner, cooling fan, etc., and re-assemble it all. It’s ready to go.
Now that I think back, I was wondering why it wasn’t delivering as much power as the same engine in my other T-Rex 600. I felt the head speed would deteriorate more quickly under high pitch/cyclic demands than the other one, and was contemplating reducing the pitch/cyclic throws to resolve it. I’ll see how it flies tomorrow, as it may no longer be necessary.
