Karl,
This may sound like an advertisement. I=92m afraid it is somewhat, but jus
t intended as a rant. I=92ve installed many props and maintained many more
. I=92ve hung Airmasters, Warp Drives, Sensenich and Ivo=92s on Rotax, Jab
iru, UL, Eggenfeller now called Viking engines.
A number of Pipistrel owners have had failures of the SR3000 over the last
24 months. Mostly I have been given the following from Pipistrel Dealers i
n Colorado and Florida (Pipistrel factory is not releasing failures or writ
ing them up): one blade departed the aircraft in flight (Canada Experiment
al) no previous damage reported pilot was able to land still under power, b
ut the aircraft was trashed due to extreme vibration. Internal failure of
the blade angle drive mechanism (two in the US) allowing one blade to turn/
twist and the other (s) not, pilots reported extreme vibration and landed s
afely. One other that just wouldn=92t track which seemed to be a pending f
ailure of the blade bearing. All these Pipistrel aircraft had less than 15
0 hours. In the US, Pipistrel owners and some dealers are my best customer
s as I have had three Woodcomp owners change to the Airmaster in 2018 alone
due to failures, and another this year so far as he sent the prop back bec
ause he was unable to find maintenance for the prop. Other Pipistrel owner
s have gone to the MT as they wanted a certified prop, which is a great pro
p also. The Pipistrel takes a 64 inch blade, same as the Europa.
Prop maintenance, I believe, is the main concern with others who have calle
d me over the winter and are just looking, as once they become advised of t
he maintenance intervals and who has to do the maintenance, the maintenance
inspection interval and repair costs become a concern for US owners. With
a TBO of 1200 Hrs on most, and 60 months max between overhauls and on top
of that, inspections must be made by qualified personnel every 150 hours, a
nd at 300 hours the prop must be shipped back to the factory or authorized
service center, so you can see why folks start looking at operating costs i
n the US. The Airmaster was the choice for these Pipistrel folks who had t
o fork out the cash for as the Airmaster. The Airmaster has a 2500 hour re
commended overhaul on the whole prop, and maintenance that is easily perfor
med by the owner operator or any aviation mechanic, so it was easy for thes
e folks to upgrade.
Properly maintained by qualified people, the Woodcomp is a good prop. But
it has to be maintained properly. Other European/Asian/Australian prop bla
des for experimental aircraft tend to be lighter than US made blades such a
s Whirlwind, Warp Drive or Sensenich, (Ivo excluded). I believe that may b
e some of the problem. Flexible blades tend to cause harmonic and fatigue
problems in a CS hub (Kiev props are notorious). In the Airmaster, we have
had reported vibration problems and blade skin separation of one or more o
f these flexible blades, and we replaced them with American Blades, so I ha
ve a list of blades I will not put into a constant speed hub EVER. These b
lades can=92t take the hub twist as they flex too much under full power. P
roblem is, the US blades are heavier.
Just Google Woodcomp Propeller Failures (or any prop manufacturer for that
matter) and you get many, but they are vague reasons or incomplete stories
on the failure. Some of the prop failures are just dumb. Case in point:
On post flight, the prop was found to have =BD inch missing from the tips a
nd one of the blades was split. No vibration noticed, engine and prop ran
fine. Warp Drive blade in an Airmaster AP332 hub. 150 hours TT. Of course
what wasn=92t reported is the pilot tried to land a motor glider at 90 kno
ts and shoved the stick forward on nose wheel touchdown, just as he did in
the 727, to stick it on. Prop strike was never entered into the comments.
Plane and engine/prop ran fine. FBO personnel met the pilot when he was p
ushing the plane back in the hangar. Incident not reported to the Airport
Authority or the FAA. So some failures have to be further investigated. Lu
ckily, in this incident, the FBO and everyone at the airport heard the prop
hit. The ego is a heck of a thing. $3500 repair. With an electric prop,
the most common failure is: brushes and breaking of brush studs because th
ey are brass and can=92t hack 10 foot pounds of torque. Typical call or vi
deo is by Joe Bag of Doughnuts maintainer/pilot reporting a failure from no
t looking at the brushes. (Comment was typically =93It stopped working!=94
, =93Red lights flashing=94) Seems to happen about every 300 hours. I ask,
=93Did you check your brushes?=94 and the answer is usually, =93What brush
es!=94 I=92ll take those kind of failures. The prop stopped working and I
=92m OK but it was scary as that prop was stuck in cruise.
Practice prop failure just like runaway trim failure and fly the airplane a
s any automatic electric or hydraulic system failure must be anticipated an
d procedures and techniques practiced to compensate. Put the procedure in
your checklist so you are not surprised. Keeps the heart rate down, and pr
events brown stains on the cushions.
Best Regards,
Bud Yerly
Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Window
s 10
________________________________
From: owner-europa-list-server@matronics.com <owner-europa-list-server@matr
onics.com> on behalf of Karl Heindl <kheindl@msn.com>
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2019 6:07:28 AM
Subject: Europa-List: WOODCOMP FAILURE
i only just learned that there was a Woodcomp SR3000-2W failure 3 years ago
. Has anyone got more information on this ? How is corrosion even possible
in the aluminium hub ?
Karl?
|