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Fredrik S
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Location: Jönköping, Sweden
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Posted Tuesday, September 29, 2015 @ 03:48 AM  



Sadly SE-XSK was given her first wheel up landing two weekends ago by one of the co-owners.
So her season is over for this year and at the moment we are awaiting answers from the insurancecompany about what they will reimburse.
We fly with a Limbach L1700 engine so in order to use that one again we will have to make a chockload check of the engine either at a workshop that has permission from Limbach or at the Limbachfactory.
The good thing is that me and my father has a replacement engine that we are currently dismantling in order to reset the TBO and make new again so we might put that one in instead and sell the old one depending on the insurancecompanys response.
We have however decided that the next propeller fitted to her will be a Hercules prop because of what i read about them here on our forum and because of Bobs good review about them and the way his friend makes them and calculates the pitch on it.
We hope it will make our little XSK even better since the propeller fitted was 133cm in diameter with a 100 pitch and we thought that was well balanced for our machine (had both good climbratio and good speed) but it feels like the Hercules can improve the performance even more . Usually we got about 500fpm in climb with 2500rpm and around 112-120mph cruise speed at the same rpm. (Depending on the weather)

[Edit by Fredrik S on Tuesday, September 29, 2015 @ 03:53 AM]

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

Bob Grimstead
Captain

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Location: Perth, Western Australia or West Sussex, England
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Posted Tuesday, September 29, 2015 @ 08:46 AM  

Hi Fredrik,

I am really sorry to see your poor little Fournier damaged like that.

I have landed wheel-up myself, so I know how embarrassing it is.

Thank you for showing us the photos to remind ourselves to be more careful.

I think you will be very happy with a Hercules propeller next time.
Depending on which pitch you choose, with a 1700cc engine I think you should see nearly 700fpm climb.
The speed will not be much improved because airspeed depends much more on airframe drag.
But from my experience (and some others) with a Hercules propeller you may well see a ten per cent improvement in fuel consumption too, because of the prop's reduced drag.

Good luck with the repair work, and we look forward to seeing you flying again soon.

Yours, Bob

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

Donald
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Posted Friday, October 2, 2015 @ 02:18 AM  

Frederik,

Been there, done that. You have my sympathy but at least you have the consolation that it wasn't you.

Donald

Fredrik S
Staff Sergeant

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Posted Friday, October 2, 2015 @ 02:42 AM  

Hi Bob and Donald.
I thank you both for your sympathy.
I do have the consolation that it wasn't me that made the wheel up landing.
And now we know how to proceed with the repairs, the plane is a bit of a bastard since it is experimental but the airworthiness is handled by the Swedish gliding association but we can reguest a repair permit from the Swedish EAA chapter and tear down the engine ourselfs and measure the crankshaft for irregularities with help from an ordinary engine workshop for cars that has the required equipment for it and when repaired and the Hercules prop mounted its all about a new flight test period before it's all back to normal again.
Will take some time and effort before completion though but i'm looking forward to flying it again sometime around the upcoming spring .

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

hugh.connolly
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Posted Saturday, October 3, 2015 @ 12:27 PM  

Wow that is unlucky. At least it was a grass strip I guess. Beautiful photos of an unfortunate event all the same..
Jorgen
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Posted Saturday, October 3, 2015 @ 01:45 PM  

Hi Fredrik,
my consolations too but it could have been worse, you'll see XSK will soon be back were she belongs- in the air! Since you as you say are in a bit of a limbo between EAA Sweden (not formally a chapter in the US EAA since EAA Sweden has a delegated responsibility for airworthiness inspections from the Swedish FAA) and the swedish gliding federation you have a bit of negotiation to do. I have checked out some things regarding teardown inspections that might be used to argue a point for you too:

-The french company Rectimo that made the first VW conversions fitted to RF 4s have issued a report stating that in all the tear downs they have made after wheels-up landings involving RF 4s (which is a quite common occurrence) they have never seen a shock-load damage provided a wooden prop was fitted.

-There is a brittish technical report regarding Gipsy Major engines and prop strikes with wooden props stating much the same, recommending measuring on the prop flange (with the engine still in place) and if within specs no teardown is necessary.

I have these two documents somewhere in digital form, give me a holler (PM) if you need them to speed things up for you. There is a great deal of room for different interpretations of the rules, so prepare your arguments and I assume you are aware that the Swedish Limbach representative is not to be trusted, in fact my experience is never to deal with him.

Good Luck and May the 4's be with you/ Jörgen

[Edit by Jorgen on Sunday, October 4, 2015 @ 05:15 PM]

Donald
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Posted Sunday, October 4, 2015 @ 04:05 PM  

Jorgen,

What you say about wooden propellors and them not shock loading the engine agrees with my very limited experience of such things. The engineer who came out after my stupidity did not require any inspection of the engine beyond what he himself did on the field on the day.
I had been going to add that opinion to my earlier reply but thought I might be talking out of turn so left it out, but that you have more authoritative information supporting that view is reassuring.

Donald

Bob Grimstead
Captain

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Posted Monday, October 26, 2015 @ 08:16 AM  

Hi Guys,

I eventually found this:

http://club-fournier.de/dev/?p=3554

Yours, Bob

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

Fredrik S
Staff Sergeant

Gender: Male
Location: Jönköping, Sweden
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Posted Monday, October 26, 2015 @ 09:58 AM  

Thanks for the support guys.
As information we have requested a permit of repair from EAA sweden since we have an experimental aircraft in order to do the shockload test ourselves since both the swedish gliding association and EAA agrees that it is a possible and probably the best solution. So we are awaiting the permit to start tearing down the engine and do the measurements ourselves.
When it comes to the shockload check the main rule is to follow the engine manufacturers recommendations and statements and in the case of limbach they are very clear in the engine manual for their engines.
Yes it is a bit of work but when it comes to engines and these things i am better safe than sorry .
Also according to the people i have spoken with in both the swedish gliding association and EAA there is no general rule that you don't have to check an engine after propstrike, it is the manufacturer of the engine that decides if you have to or not.
So since we have one of those engines we do follow that recommendation .

We have also decided to order a propeller from Hercules to our RF4 as a replacement of the old one, i will return with a report on how it feels after the testflights are done and if i agree that it increases the performance as much as hoped but i do believe it will make XSK even quicker than the old prop.

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

Fredrik S
Staff Sergeant

Gender: Male
Location: Jönköping, Sweden
Registered: Sep 2014
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Posted Wednesday, March 16, 2016 @ 04:37 AM  

Another update on the progress of XSK:

After a closer look we realised that the engine was starting to get close to it's TBO so as a result we made the decision to do the major overhaul of the engine aswell as the shockload test.
This has given us some ups and downs, the crank and propeller flywheel was straight and ok, almost all bearings and bearing caps was within approved tolerances.
However the pistons was not ok anymore so we had to replace them wich turned out to be easier said than done since they don't have a standard diameter that any carpart supplier could recognice and according to Limbach:s new management our engine don't exist . This is resolved now after a little help of the old man Limbachs wife who sorted the new owner out and helped us get the right pistons for our engine.

We will also renew the rubber bushings for the engine mount and that is also a story of it's own. My father made an order for them in November and payed for them aswell.
He was promised that they would soon be delivered multiple times until January when the CEO of the company all of a sudden answered the salesmanagers phone.
Turns out the salesmanager was ripping off money from the company by getting customers to pay to his private account. So our bushings was not even ordered.

The new Hercules propeller arrived swiftly in the end of november last year and i think it is probably the best looking propeller i've seen so far in terms of finish and quality.

Now we have the bushings, pistons, refurbished cylinder heads and everything else we need to assemble the engine and use it again.

The plan now is to start assemble the engine on saturday and after that we will see how long it takes before we have it completely assembled and are able to mount it back on the fuselage.
When everything is mounted and the engine is run in we will see how much of flight/perfomance testing the EAA wants us to do before we get to fly as usual

[Edit by Fredrik S on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 @ 04:39 AM]

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

Bob Grimstead
Captain

Gender: Male
Location: Perth, Western Australia or West Sussex, England
Registered: Dec 2006
Status: Offline
Posts: 2027

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Posted Wednesday, March 16, 2016 @ 05:09 AM  

Hi Fredrik,

I am so pleased to hear that you are all making progress with XSK's engine.

Yes, that new Hercules propeller looks good, but I think you will also be very pleased with its performance.

I have not flown either Fournier for three months because my mother has been unwell (broken hip at age 88)
Going back to England for January and February was not in my plans, but it did allow me to do some more work on WGN ready for the summer display season.

My mother is now recovering well, so I am back in Australia for a while, and planning to fly aerobatics in HDO again tomorrow.

I will post stuff when I can.

Come on Easter, spring and better weather. We all want to fly!

Have a great summer of 2016 everybody.

Yours, Bob

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

Fredrik S
Staff Sergeant

Gender: Male
Location: Jönköping, Sweden
Registered: Sep 2014
Status: Offline
Posts: 49

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Posted Tuesday, March 29, 2016 @ 06:50 AM  

Another update.

Saturday before easter i was at my parents and helped my dad to install the crankshaft again.
Yesterday me and my fianceé went down again and dad had mounted the camshaft and put the engineblocks back together so we installed the new shiny pistons and two cylinders.
(Didn't work that much on the engine since my brother and sister in law with my nephew and niece was there as well ) But this time i took some pictures.
Not that many manhours left before the engine is ready to run again



[Edit by Fredrik S on Thursday, April 21, 2016 @ 07:21 AM]

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

Fredrik S
Staff Sergeant

Gender: Male
Location: Jönköping, Sweden
Registered: Sep 2014
Status: Offline
Posts: 49

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Posted Thursday, April 21, 2016 @ 07:19 AM  

Now the date for starting the engine is nearing.

Got this Photo from my father yesterday

The engine (as you can see) is mounted to the airframe and there is just a few pieces left to check and fix before we can start the engine
The plan is to get the last issues resolved until next weekend and start her up and break-in the engine on saturday april 30.
The others will fix some things next thursday like cranking the engine without sparkplugs to check the fuelflow and see if we have oilpressure before saturday since we changed to new fuellines between the firewall and engine and repaired the fuelpump, we have made a couple of other changes as well. We have bought and installed new safety belts (royal blue) to match the blue colour on the plane, we have checked our locking mechanism for the gear according to the bulletin from the german CFI and i had the G-meter installed again .
I can hardly wait until next saturday when i will start the engine and make the first flights with the new propeller.
And i keep my fingers crossed that we won't have any problems with the engine during the break in .

[Edit by Fredrik S on Thursday, April 21, 2016 @ 07:22 AM]

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

Fredrik S
Staff Sergeant

Gender: Male
Location: Jönköping, Sweden
Registered: Sep 2014
Status: Offline
Posts: 49

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Posted Monday, May 2, 2016 @ 03:20 AM  

So saturday came and there was no flying with the new engine.

I was out on the field early on saturday morning because i wanted to have time to do the ground run and the flying break in of the engine as well as let it cool and retorque and do some checks before the day was over.
Did my daily inspection, pulled her out of the hangar and fired the engine up. After the rebuild and change of our engine mount bushings and battery the engine runs much more smooth than it did before and theres not as much vibration as it was before either. So i was happy, after 3 min on 1500rpm i smelled fuel so i turned off the engine, hopped out and inspected but i could not see any leaks (i was especially careful to look around the fuelpump on top of the engine to be sure that if it was a little leak there was no danger of it coming in contact with hot parts) so since i couldn't see any leaks i hopped in and restarted the engine and continued with the break-in. 2000rpm no smell of fuel, 2500rpm no smell of fuel, 1800rpm no smell of fuel, 1500rpm a light smell of fuel again.
Now the ground run was complete so i checked again for leaks of any kind but couldn't find any and retorqued the propeller and then i taxiid to the refueling area to refuel since there was very little fuel left i couldn't fly with that.

By chance when i stopped at the refueling area and hopped out i immediately looked at the bottom cowling and saw wat i thought was a drop of something land on the ground. I immediately checked and this time there was plenty of fuel at the rear trailing edge of the bottom cowling. Refueled and removed the cowlings and asked one other co-owner to check for leaks while i ran the engine.
And we have a flooding carb, the carb shoots out fuel en masse from the ventilator/overflow hole of the carburettor (Just to be really ironic, the carb is the only piece of the engine that we haven't touched since it worked fine and without kinks before the wheel up landing, only thing we've done is the normal annual inspection of it) So i removed the carb and dissassembled it to check if the float was jamming or if i could see anything else that could be the problem. Couldn't find anything so i rechecked the float setting and put it back in. Started it up again and it's still flooding.
So back with XSK in the hangar and remove the carb again and now it is on it's way to a carburettor rebuilding firm that will check it and repair it so there is no faults with it. It is being sent to the same firm we used 5 years ago that serviced it so that the enginge stopped putting black soot down the sides of the plane.

Hopefully i will get it back by the end of the week or early next week so we can continue to check if the problem stays or has gone. If it stays we probably by some weird reason has to high fuelpressure from the pump but we decided to start with making sure the carb is fine.

Otherwise i can report from the ground run that the engine really purs and grunts with a really pleasant sound after the rebuild, at 2500rpm you can really feel that the plane wants to get of the ground so we seem to have plenty of power and a really good pull from the propeller All temperatures was good and i had good oilpressure accept in the end (2500rpm-idle) When the oil was so hot it couldn't hold good pressure on idle so i had to rev it a bit higher to keep the pressure. The oiltemp at the time was about 100 degrees celsius. Max CHT was about 150 degrees celsius during the ground run (max is 225 degrees) and at that time the oilpressure was around 2,5bar. So it performs really well .

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

Bob Grimstead
Captain

Gender: Male
Location: Perth, Western Australia or West Sussex, England
Registered: Dec 2006
Status: Offline
Posts: 2027

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Posted Monday, May 2, 2016 @ 03:58 AM  

Great stuff Fredrik,

Isn't it marvellous when your engine sounds good and pulls hard after a rebuild. And I reckon your new Hercules propeller has contributed to the smoothness. Rupert does a very careful job of the balancing.

I suspect the reason for your flooding might indeed be because your fuel pump is now too effective. I don't know whether you replaced the camshaft, but if you did, maybe the fuel pump lobe on the old one was worn and not pushing the pump arm as far as the new one does? That is merely a possibility I have thought of.

Good luck with the carb rebuild, and we all look forward to hear about your first flight in a week or two.

Then a summer of Fournier flying. What could be better.

Yours, Bob

--------------------
Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV

Fredrik S
Staff Sergeant

Gender: Male
Location: Jönköping, Sweden
Registered: Sep 2014
Status: Offline
Posts: 49

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Posted Monday, May 2, 2016 @ 07:45 AM  

Hi Bob.
It is indeed marvellous it actually even has a different sound now compared to before the rebuild. You can really tell that the engine grunts more powerfully and aggresively.

We haven't replaced the camshaft or the fuelpump so if it turns out to be the pump we really have no idea why the pressure suddenly is too high.
The only thing we did witch the pump was a repair of one screwhole because the threads in one of the holes for one out of 6 or something screws that holds the pump together was bad so we couldn't tighten the screw.
The boys had a small leakage from the pump last thursday when they checked the flow and oilpressure as well and they sorted that out.
But otherwise it is the same camshaft and pump since we got the engine 25 years ago.

Anyway thanks for all the support to from you and i will continue report on the progress and if it is the pump i will get to the bottom of why it has too high pressuere all of a sudden and post the reasons and what has been done with it

[Edit by Fredrik S on Monday, May 2, 2016 @ 07:45 AM]

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

Fredrik S
Staff Sergeant

Gender: Male
Location: Jönköping, Sweden
Registered: Sep 2014
Status: Offline
Posts: 49

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Posted Monday, May 30, 2016 @ 10:42 AM  

Time for an update again.
XSK is now flying and we have logged about 4 hours on the clock so far.
The reason for the flooding of the carb was that my father replaced the diaphram in the fuelpump but he couldn't get a hold of a original one and the replacement one increased the fuelpressure.
We changed the pump back to an older one and now she goes just like she's supposed to and even better.
After a couple of flights the rebuilt engine combined with the prop has so far given excellent results.
Startperformance has dramaticly improved, we think that the ground run before liftoff has decreased with at least 50m. By eye measure we roll about 100-150m max on the ground (grass field) before she takes off and we have a significally higher pitch of the nose during our initial climb at 110km/h. (impressions from me and one other co-owner who has flown it)

My plan is to use Ruperts performance test protocol during a calm morning or evening soon and try to record more accurate results and performances, i will probably make the test twice to have more data and to see if it differs between the two tests.

All in all this far we are really satisfied with the results.

--------------------
Best regards
/Fredrik Svanberg
RF4D serial#4104 SE-XSK

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