How D-KFIH (17E – L2400DFI) spent the cold winter, got a new prop MT ATA 61-01-18 L165-06 and spread its reborn wings.

My last flight was a return flight out of Scotland autumn 2010. Camping with the Taifun on my most favourite strip, Feshiebridge Airfield, up in the highlands. It was at one of these days that the discussion with mr. Kohlmetz reappeared. He is an older Taifun colleague, who had to belly-land his aircraft early 2009 after a serious engine fire. It ended his aircraft but he and his wife were happy to have survived this ordeal.

According to his wife did shortly before the crash a small red light illuminate on the temperature indicator! Interesting, I looked more closely on my dial and saw indeed such a device, which was completely novel to me. It does lights up when there is no water anymore in the round coolant container. I tested it and it works indeed. According to this man did one of his radiator hoses give way and caused a loss of fluid etc.

I was in my tent and the winds were howling in one of the autumn gales. Hmm, I better check this out myself, which I did the next morning. I found the red hoses to have a few blisters, soft and fluid, close to the connection with the radiator. I taped them solid for a safe trip home.
On arrival I found internal damage, where the inner lining had been worn away by a sharp edge on the radiator connection. Fluid could get in between layers etc..

It was the ouverture of a big winter make-over of our airplane. It turned out that it was a good time to send the prop in for repairs to MT, order a new set of hoses and by the way let’s refinish the wings and stabilizer. Why not?

Well, it turned out to be something in the end needing an extra job to pay for it all.
Limbach started by suggesting a new set with a thermostat? Sounds good.
Then MT came back by mentioning the prop was completely out of specs and needed to be replaced. Hmm, ok, why not the bigger model (160 to 165), meaning 2,5 cm added on each blade.
The man from Poland also arrived in the meantime, taking away the wings and stabilizer. There she was: bare, naked and amputated.

D-KFIH bare, naked and amputated

in desperate need of repair

It has taken MT more than 4 months to deliver a new prop and it took 2 months for the guys in Poland to do an excellent job on refinishing the wings. They look immaculate. The man himself looked tired. He had to find out the hard way that other owners had painted the wings three times. It was quite a job to get it off. He said it was his last Taifun, too much work!

arrival of newly finished wings, stabilizer and the guy from Poland who did the job

A few weeks ago we started to assemble it all and finally the whole machine came to life again, only to find out that I was excommunicated from the CAMO “überwachte Umgebung”! I was thrown outside the city walls of aviation and left to my own. The new prop, contrary to what I thought, was still experimental. So much for that.

proptest

As an aviation leopard did I manage to get all the paperwork in “Ordnung” and headed over to Korff for the final stamp of approval. My way back was great. Climbed to FL85 and covered the 450 km to EHLE from Main-Bullau (EDFU) in 2 hours and 1 minute! I agree to have had some tailwinds up there with groundspeeds up to 145 knots but all I can say of the performance of this new prop and refinished wings is that this machine has dramatically improved performances. Take off roll is shorter and this new prop will keep the airplane to VNE till FL85 ( I haven’t been higher yet). It has doubled the climb performance. Climbing through FL70 showed IAS 170 km/h and VS +2,5 (it used to be 150 km/h and VS +1m/sec).

Another interesting feature of the thermostat in the radiator circuit is the fact that the engine reached operating temperatures more quickly and during descent does the temperature not dip below 75C.

During our 200 hour inspection did the Limbach engineer ask me what oil I was using, I replied full Synthetic. He was cleaning the inside of the valve covers from a sticky layer of sludge and strongly advised me to go back to the VW 50 101 or VW 500 00 specifications, described in the Limbach manual, for this engine. He said he had seen too many Limbach engines ruined because of this full synthetic oil forming cold sludge in the engine and blocking passages, including the carter-ventilation.

That’s all for now,

Michel Mulder