So bopped off early this morning to get a bit of flying in before the winds rile themselves into their full fury. I have been experimenting with filters on the Contour 2+ camera to get rid of the floating prop ghots. So I flew over the volcano country to Tuba City, to do a couple of bounces. Then scope out GPS positions of a spot with slickrock for a future ride. I decided to hit the runway on the straight in on the way back en-route home one last time (working on hitting the exact same spot from different approaches, (Tuba City is the runway after the zombie apocalypse). As I am rolling down the runway preparing to lift off I tried the brakes and lo…no left brake. So since I was slow, I decided to check it out. I pull into the dystopian ramp to check it out. The left wheel is wet with hydro fluid.

I laboriously peel the Schineder Speed mod back to inspect. After dumping a bunch of fuel on the rather cool brake to clean it off I finally realize it is the fitting on top .. I luckily carried enough tools to get it apart and then I discover the worst, the flare on the tube had popped off. It was perhaps a bit overzealously flared.

Luckily, Clark was taking a student out in his cub this morning, so I quickly called him. Thank god for AT&T's extensive coverage of the hinterlands here. Got him on preflight. He went over to my hanger, got my bleed kit. Naturally, both his and my flaring tool are elsewhere. Being a resourceful tike, Clark brought a plum bob and a brass hammer along. So we where, with excessive violence and artfully working the tip of the plumb bob, we where able to effect a rather hansom flare. Well it didn't leak.

So naturally, the 185 had to be rescued by the mighty Super Cub. Songs will be written and so on. Made it back to Flagstaff with a mushy, but working brake.

dogpilot wrote:So bopped off early this morning to get a bit of flying in before the winds rile themselves into their full fury. I have been experimenting with filters on the Contour 2+ camera to get rid of the floating prop ghots. So I flew over the volcano country to Tuba City, to do a couple of bounces. Then scope out GPS positions of a spot with slickrock for a future ride. I decided to hit the runway on the straight in on the way back en-route home one last time (working on hitting the exact same spot from different approaches, (Tuba City is the runway after the zombie apocalypse). As I am rolling down the runway preparing to lift off I tried the brakes and lo…no left brake. So since I was slow, I decided to check it out. I pull into the dystopian ramp to check it out. The left wheel is wet with hydro fluid.

I laboriously peel the Schineder Speed mod back to inspect. After dumping a bunch of fuel on the rather cool brake to clean it off I finally realize it is the fitting on top .. I luckily carried enough tools to get it apart and then I discover the worst, the flare on the tube had popped off. It was perhaps a bit overzealously flared.

Luckily, Clark was taking a student out in his cub this morning, so I quickly called him. Thank god for AT&T's extensive coverage of the hinterlands here. Got him on preflight. He went over to my hanger, got my bleed kit. Naturally, both his and my flaring tool are elsewhere. Being a resourceful tike, Clark brought a plum bob and a brass hammer along. So we where, with excessive violence and artfully working the tip of the plumb bob, we where able to effect a rather hansom flare. Well it didn't leak.

So naturally, the 185 had to be rescued by the mighty Super Cub. Songs will be written and so on. Made it back to Flagstaff with a mushy, but working brake.

Well, at least you didn't get rescued by one of those Mall things. (Just kiddin Rob and Rob)

Glad it all worked out.

Nice idea with the plumb bob
Landing on a 400ft gravel bar with heavy load, high trees one side and river on other, I blew river side brake line.
Saved the landing from ploughing into big driftwood by going full power, full rudder, and forcing a ground loop 180 degrees towards river with wingtip skidding through gravel. Got the wing tip fixed with borrowed sheet metal screws from fairings.
Re manufactured a flare on brake line with a 16D nail. Scrounged oil from airplane system. Whew.

Or may be the flare work hardened because there doesn't appear to be a flex line between the rigid line and the floating brake caliper. Or I may be wrong.

Tim

Work hardening was probably not the case here. The whole brake line assembly floats in the faring, all the way up to the fuselage. It is facilitated by the Teflon wrapping on the line. It just looks like when they made up the line, they didn't have enough line sticking out of the flare tool and so just smashed it a bit more to get enough flare shoulder. That work hardens it, along with not having the necessary amount of material at the change in angle to keep the stress from fracturing.

I blew the hydraulic line off a flap motor on an E2 at take-off, exact same spot. The cause was more, the line should have been stainless steel, not aluminum. I was tanked up to go coast to coast. So way over trap weight. When you lost one system, all you had left was flight controls, so no brakes, flaps, steering and gravity hook actuation and have to blow down the gear. So you really want to be light, since your going to be fast. So I start dumping, dumping, dumping fuel. Takes a really long time to dump 6,000 pounds of fuel and I really do want to get on the ground, now! See you don't really know what failed, and there is hydraulic fluid just streaming across all the windows in the back (the crew keeping you abreast of its strength on a second by second basis, in high pitched squeaky voices). So any minute you can be a streamlined safe, in ballistic mode (we called the E2 the 'safe', since everything in it was secret and it was one of the few Navy planes you actually locked up with a key). I plan my approach to finish the dump at the IAF and proceed for a field arrestment. Well, it didn't work out. I was about 1,000 lbs heavy. I did a quick 360, slow, nose cocked up (helps the gravity flow). and dumped it over the golf course at North Island. Boy, was I a hero.