Finally got some time to mess with this one and got the Rotax 912 running today. I know the guy this airplane used to belong to and it was a afternoon flight in late August last year when the engine quit when he was at about 1,500 ft agl. I didn't really do anything to get it running. I just ran a hose from the pump inlet to a gas can on the ground, put some run out blades in the prop hub and it started pretty much right away. The only things are:




1. The temp and dew point (23/15 deg C) are right in the middle of the "moderate icing at cruise power"/"Serious icing at descent power", so I guess it is possible it was carb ice, but this Kitfox has the short filters back at the firewall which everyone say are not ice prone. I guess the reasoning is that with the carbs back there they are drawing in warm air from inside the cowl. I wonder about that theory though.


2. The other thing I notice is that this airplane doesn't have a fuel return line as called for by this Rotax Safety Notice. I wonder if this could have been a case of vapor lock.


Anyway, I'm happy it runs and for the price I paid I'm really happy. To let the cat out of the bag, I paid $5100 for the whole airplane and it looks like the only real problem is the little kink in the fuselage. It has a newish Garmin SL40 comm radio, a Terra transponder with encoder, and a flightcom intercom. I figure those are worth about $1500 all together.

Here is a short video of the run today with flopping windshield and all.