Good article Z....

We acquired our 180 Cherokee from the old owner due after the oil drain plug departed the aircraft in flight..... He was on his way to Medford from Sun River... landed at Beagle with a rod knock so loud it sounded like a Cummings Diesel. He did not have the funds to overhaul and was selling the airplane anyways so he gave us a deal... Took a new crank, cam, rods and pistons to get going again.

I never have liked the hard lines going to that oil pressure port... Prefer to have sort of flex line there...

Brian.

Although not close to catastrophic, I had a similar thing happen to my MP line. Copper line eventually failed.

I've had a cam go flat in flight, which pressured up the crankcase and blew the vacuum pump seal out causing all the oil to blow out the bottom. I shut the engine down before it lost pressure and was able to dead stick it to an airport. After the engine was replaced the stainless prop governor line cracked causing oil to cover the windshield, luckily it was clean oil and had to set it down in a field. Now it has a Teflon prop gov line.

I've never had an oil pressure line fail, but I have had a couple similar (1/8" copper) primer lines break. I'm surprised that this would happen on such a new airplane though. I'm guessing the line got bent or tweeked right at the fitting where it eventually failed. I've never thought a rigid line connecting the fireall with a rubber-mounted engine was a good idea, esp when it's so easy to use a flex line.
I'm glad it worked out OK, Zane, and like you said, it's a good thing it happened where it did and not over hostile territory.

Good write up. But holy s@#t! I'm glad you're ok.

Hi Zane,

Very glad everything turned out okay and you landed safely. I'll echo that CubCrafters really encourages all owners to make this change. Our records show people who have bought the parts, but we hear of instances where they haven't been installed. The SA also applies to Carbon Cub owners in addition to Sport Cub owners, basically any of our factory built aircraft S/N 280 or earlier. Kit owners should also check and make the upgrade if necessary.

Bob Stark has also rescued me a time or two, Once in a C-150 landed on the Woodburn Dragstrip (just a quick fuel line fix) and then a later more serious incident when I ripped the landing gear off of his J-3. Both were many years ago, but you couldn't have been in better hands than Bob's when things like that happen. Welcome to the club!

Some old photos of Bob Stark rescues:





Brad Damm
CubCrafters Direct Sales Manager
Yakima, WA

Zzz wrote:I'm sure this very thing has happened to some of you. It was a first for me, and I'm just thankful it didn't happen on a long XC. I had a sinking feeling afterward that the loss in oil pressure was likely obvious on the gauge, but I was oblivious to it for some reason, and I do a frequent engine instrument scan, including CHT/EGTs while I fiddle with mixture. Why had I missed that? I would not have known I guess if Brent and Scott hadn't commented on my airshow smoke. Oil pressure is the first thing I should have checked, but I was in landing mode in the pattern and focused on the approach. Oil temp was undoubtedly shooting up too as this was happening, but I have no mental data because I wasn't paying attention. I do not know how long this had been occurring prior.......
.........

As for me, I took another item from my luck bag and put it into my experience bag. Wingman mentions smoke? Check oil pressure and temp immediately. I do monitor my engine's indications as best I can in flight, but this one caught me looking outside. Any longer in flight and I likely would have damaged the engine and/or been forced to land somewhere I wasn't planning on.

I wouldn't beat yourself up over this. I'm no expert, but the way I see it happening is, you had a normal oil pressure indication the whole way down, as well as temp indication since you were low power in landing mode.
What if you got word from your wingman about the contrail and you looked down and saw your oil press/temp normal and second guessed the decision to just put it down right away???
You were flying the airplane first, and expediting a safe landing second...you put yourself on the ground asap...what would you have done differently knowing the oil was gone???

Good work!

Good write up Zane. Glad it turned out well. When I first glanced at the title, I thought someone was going to razz Matt again!

Glad it all ended well, Zane!

It's a bit suboptimal when the device that's supposed to measure your oil pressure ends up dumping all your oil overboard!

This is confusing when looking at the latest posts.

For a moment there, it looked like you had Lost (and found) your oil, and Lost (nearly) all of BCP in flight!

Glad to hear everyone is OK.

P.s. I used the Vans oil pressure / manifold pressure / fuel pressure lines, which are stainless armour-brade flexible hose, with 1/4 NPT fittings on the end. Look really nice and don't suffer from that particular failure mode - the dreaded "hidden failure". They come pre-made, and just the right length for the Bearhawk. The Vans transducer block is also a nice tidy way to organise those.

Battson wrote:P.s. I used the Vans oil pressure / manifold pressure / fuel pressure lines, which are stainless armour-brade flexible hose, with 1/4 NPT fittings on the end. Look really nice and don't suffer from that particular failure mode - the dreaded "hidden failure". They come pre-made, and just the right length for the Bearhawk. The Vans transducer block is also a nice tidy way to organise those.

Thanks for the tip Jon. Vans has lots of goodies that are going to end up on my machine. And it's only a 20 minute drive to their headquarters.

Glad it worked out for you Zane! I like my little GRT engine monitor with the big red light, just for the reasons you mentioned. No need no more to scan numerous gauges, while interpolating (?) what the numbers mean. Steady light=good, flashing=bad. Simple as hell.

I got to say, I was surprised to hear that they had a soft copper OP line, I thought that went out with button up flys and buggy whips. You sure won't find any on my Rotax, I think this is a example of the hide bound cert engine world being behind the times. Hell I've got books from the 1920's where the guys had problems with their copper fuel line work hardening, so they gradually figured out a rubber line was better. Anyway, glad it worked out, and there is nothing like a little wake up call from time to time to keep us all on our toes.

Cub271 wrote:

I think this might be why he won't let me take the Sport Cub off-airport.

Good job getting it on the ground ASAP. As you noted, once you discovered it, you were in the pattern, and the best thing to do at that point was to land.

Using hard lines on oil pressure lines is a well known no-no. But if you don't own the plane......not something most would note in a pre flight. But, take a look, folks......there should not be solid line there. Get it replaced with a braided steel line or equal.

Good write-up, Zane, and a great reminder for us all.

MTV

In my 170, it has a copper line running to the fuel pressure gauge on the instrument panel. Another good one to replace with a flex line.
Gary

There is an active thread on the 170 forum now about changing the copper out.

My tale of losing most of the oil also is a tale of me being a horrible shade tree airplane mechanic. This was 40 years ago. I decided to change the oil of the Skylane--after all, I'd been changing oil in cars all of my life from the time I was 15--how hard could it be? So I did, and all seemed well. I decided not to just run the engine to check for oil leaks--I decided to fly around the pattern once. I did that, taxied back in, and when I got out, there was oil streaming from the cowl flaps and pooling at the tie-down. I quickly checked the oil level on the dipstick, and it didn't show anything at all!

I pulled the cowl, and to my dismay, the oil filter was loose--really loose. Ol' Dummy here had safety wired it backwards, so that instead of tightening if the filter started to move, the safety wire loosened. So the filter had started to unscrew, and there was nothing there to stop it from happening.

Two lessons there--first, although I had snugged the oil filter, I had not used a torque wrench, and there's a big difference between installing an aircraft oil filter and an automotive oil filter. Second, double check which way a safety wire will tighten, if the item that was safety wired starts to loosen--not much point in using safety wire at all, if it's done backwards.

The biggest lesson, though, is that it's a whole lot better for an aircraft mechanic to do the oil changing on an airplane and admit that that's not me--and that's what has happened ever since!

A lot of that explains why I would never, ever fly in an airplane that I had built!

Cary

Great story and thanks for posting! Many years ago, I was towing banners in a Super Cub in Denver and had a similar occurrence. I was downtown over Mile High Stadium with my last tow of the night when Buckley tower transmitted on our air-to-air for me. They told me that the last banner I dropped was covered in oil. All instruments were normal, but as I looked out the door, I could see the right gear leg covered in oil. I started heading back to base with one hand on the tow release and one eye on the gauges while chatting with Buckley tower. I think I found every conceivable location along my route back out East where I could put that thing down. I over flew the Guard base back to our Airpark and was able to dump the banner in the field next to the runway. As I was wings level on the downwind, the oil pressure went to zero. I pulled the mixture off to shut it down and dead-sticked it on to our crosswind dirt runway. Long story short, the engine was spared luckily. There was less than a half quart the mechanic figured. The oil pressure lead for the gauge on the back of the case had cracked right at the block. Someone was watching out for me that day as that little 160hp O-320 got me back safely. Someone was watching out for you too.
Chris

Ever heard of an oil filter blowing up, happened to me, twice....think long and hard about who u trust to work on ur engine [emoji28]

Glad u pulled through A-OK Zane...don't worry, the whole oil filter explosions happened on a different motor than the one u flew behind in the Skalywagon [emoji12]