Radials, they dont leak oil, they just mark their territory...

[flight17]

Coming home today, our Pig developed a "little" leak...

landing

and the leak


"I didnt do it"


We lost 9 gallons on a 1.5hr flight. Normally we have 30 gallons in the tanks.

We dont know where the oil is leaking from yet, but hopefully it wont be a problem that prevents us from attending the rest of our scheduled airshows.

[Tupac]

That oil is black......it was time for it to be changed anyway 

[flight17]

That oil is black......it was time for it to be changed anyway 

its always black...

[oakranger]

What kind of oil do you guys used?  Is that 30gal per eng or all togeather?

[Tank-Ace]

I would guess per engine, seems it would be simpler (and safer) to have seperate oil systems for each engine. You loose oil preasure in one engine, you still have another functioning one.

[expat]

pity the poor sod who has to clean that up

[flight17]

What kind of oil do you guys used?  Is that 30gal per eng or all togeather?

up until last year, we had to use mineral oil in the one engine because it was still within the time period from overhaul that required the use of mineral oil (i believe the first 50 or 100 hours, but im not 100% sure). Now they both use regular aviation oil i believe. We have 55gal barrols that we hand pump it out from when we need to add some.

And yes, both engines have a 30 gallon tank. Its the yellow box in the pic below:


As for cleaning it, the museum president (main pilot), his son, a few of the flight engineers and myself are all coming in Wednesday to clean the engine itself with three power washers. Once we get it cleaned, we are gonna run it to find where the leak is coming from. There was oil all over the inside, so we couldnt tell when we opened it up.

[Bodhi]

Make sure you guys run it a little bit to get her warmed up before you wash it.  It makes all the difference.  We use "Simple Bee" it works great on radials.  Put the concentrate in a pump sprayer, spray it down while it is hot and then wait until it runs real good.  Then wash away.

One last bit of advice, cover the mags (or distributor if it is a civilian radial) real good.  You get those we, and you will be really unhappy.

[flight17]

Make sure you guys run it a little bit to get her warmed up before you wash it.  It makes all the difference.  We use "Simple Bee" it works great on radials.  Put the concentrate in a pump sprayer, spray it down while it is hot and then wait until it runs real good.  Then wash away.

One last bit of advice, cover the mags (or distributor if it is a civilian radial) real good.  You get those we, and you will be really unhappy.

Unfortunitly, we think oil might have possibly already entered the mags because they were covered in oil as well and the engine would backfire when they tried to lean it. They were just rewired this past winter during its annual too

Our honorary Crew cheif said that when we first got the pig, it it was normal for it to come back looking like that.

[flight17]

Well good news on the Thunder Pig. Our oil leak came from a cracked cylinder head on the #17 cylinder. The entire head was actually cracked so much that pieces of the fan discs were inside the intake chamber. We had a completely trashed intake valve, but the piston itself is good. We decided to buy an all new cylinder and piston assembly and should have it in by next week, giving us plenty of time to install it for our next airshow in mid-August.

No oil got into the mags and the rest of the engine is good. We didn?t even run it because as soon as it was cleaned, it was obvious what the problem was.

[MachFly]

When it started to leak oil did you guys shut it down and fly on one or both?



I had on oil leak on a Decathlon ones. It's a lot scarier when you have only one engine and you got to fly over the mountains to make it back.

[flight17]

When it started to leak oil did you guys shut it down and fly on one or both?



I had on oil leak on a Decathlon ones. It's a lot scarier when you have only one engine and you got to fly over the mountains to make it back.

We were also over mountainous terrain

we flew flew it on both engines the entire flight. The leak was noticed during the beginning of the flight and was reported to the flight crew. When the leak became "bad" (steady stream off the nacelle), it was again called up to the flight crew and they asked what they needed to do. The decision was made to continue to our home airport but to monitor the temps and pressures closely. I'm not sure how far exactly away it was when this decision was made. If it had to be shut down, then they were going to divert.

we lost about 9 gallons of oil from that lone cylinder during a 1-1.5hr flight which really isn't that bad. Had the other pushrod failed, it probably would have been twice that amount and they might have had to shut it down. As soon as it was off the runway though, they shut it down and taxied in with one engine

On a completely random note, here is our plane in a movie from a few years ago (i think late 90's or early 2000's). The movie was called "the naked man".

go to 1m 40sec. tried to give the url to that time but it wasn't working.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs4obsGrxWc
here was a photo from that movie from a different take. My guess would be the first take because we wee not supposed to be that close to the car and there was some misscommunication between us and the movie people.