WindOnHisNose
BENEFACTOR
Lino Lakes MN (MY18)
Recently Julie and I were flying the CT210 down to southwest MN on Christmas Day to see the grandkids and when we took off we both heard a clicking sound coming from the right side of the instrument panel. The aircraft had just come out of annual and I had a new Hobbs meter put in, and it is in the right side of the cockpit and I remember thinking that perhaps this was making the noise. I changed the power to see if it affected the noise, and it didn't. We were just a few miles from the airport when I made the decision to discontinue the flight and return to base. I had no issues returning to the airport, and all the CHT's and EGT's remained normal. We flew the cub down and had a good Christmas!
I phoned Mike Wiskus, the owner of West Metro Aviation, Sunday and he said I could fly it back over first thing Monday morning. I had the day off, so that was the plan.
I took off for the 10 minute flight to Buffalo MN and it was uneventful for the taxi and first minute of flight. I climbed to 2500 ft msl and noticed that the clicking sound remained. Upon leveling off I throttled back to a MP of 25", reduced the RPM and noticed that the MP was decreasing significantly, lowering to 23". I advanced the throttle and this did not increase the MP.
At that point I was maintaining altitude, but knew that something was seriously wrong and found myself at the midpoint between KANE and KCFE, my home and destination airports, respectively. I made the decision to terminate the flight at the airport where the mechanics were awaiting and I throttled back, landing without incident.
We pushed the aircraft into the maintenance hangar and Tom Beachum, the A&P/AI who had just replaced two topped off cylinders a week previously, took the cowling off and couldn't find an obvious problem.
The compressions were all good and the exhaust manifold looked good, with no evidence of leaking. Tom was clearly perplexed. I walked away to get a cup of terrific coffee and a few minutes later Tom, who is one poker faced character, shouted over and asked me to come over. He had that "**** eating grin" on his face and he stated that he found the problem. He handed me a mirror and asked me to look at the area on the back side of the exhaust. There was a large, dark 2" diameter hole at the point just before it goes into the turbocharger.
I looked for any damage from the hot gases acting like a blowtorch and all looked good.
Tom models his findings...
A closer look...
...and the view of the reverse side
This event reinforced instructions that I have been given by mentors in aviation that one should never ignore the feeling that "something just doesn't seem right", particularly in an aircraft. I can tell you that the urge to continue the flight and be on time to see the grandkids was strong, but I put her back into the barn until I could get it checked out. I thought I would share this experience with you folks, to reinforce the thought process I just mentioned.
Randy
I phoned Mike Wiskus, the owner of West Metro Aviation, Sunday and he said I could fly it back over first thing Monday morning. I had the day off, so that was the plan.
I took off for the 10 minute flight to Buffalo MN and it was uneventful for the taxi and first minute of flight. I climbed to 2500 ft msl and noticed that the clicking sound remained. Upon leveling off I throttled back to a MP of 25", reduced the RPM and noticed that the MP was decreasing significantly, lowering to 23". I advanced the throttle and this did not increase the MP.
At that point I was maintaining altitude, but knew that something was seriously wrong and found myself at the midpoint between KANE and KCFE, my home and destination airports, respectively. I made the decision to terminate the flight at the airport where the mechanics were awaiting and I throttled back, landing without incident.
We pushed the aircraft into the maintenance hangar and Tom Beachum, the A&P/AI who had just replaced two topped off cylinders a week previously, took the cowling off and couldn't find an obvious problem.
The compressions were all good and the exhaust manifold looked good, with no evidence of leaking. Tom was clearly perplexed. I walked away to get a cup of terrific coffee and a few minutes later Tom, who is one poker faced character, shouted over and asked me to come over. He had that "**** eating grin" on his face and he stated that he found the problem. He handed me a mirror and asked me to look at the area on the back side of the exhaust. There was a large, dark 2" diameter hole at the point just before it goes into the turbocharger.
I looked for any damage from the hot gases acting like a blowtorch and all looked good.
Tom models his findings...
A closer look...
...and the view of the reverse side
This event reinforced instructions that I have been given by mentors in aviation that one should never ignore the feeling that "something just doesn't seem right", particularly in an aircraft. I can tell you that the urge to continue the flight and be on time to see the grandkids was strong, but I put her back into the barn until I could get it checked out. I thought I would share this experience with you folks, to reinforce the thought process I just mentioned.
Randy