Emergency Off Field Landing

[Agfoxflyer]

Sunday I was flying for about 35 minutes when I heard a loud "thunk". At first I thought I had hit a large bird, but the deaffening silence told me I had no power. I had just checked guages a minute or so before, oil temp and pressure good. I was 1200 ft AGL cruising about 4000 rpm 4 miles west of my home airprort CZL thinking about turning in for a 45 to downwind on runway 35. Out the left side was a large ag field so I went throught my emergency procedures shutting everything down (don't remember doing half of it!) made a normal downwind, base and final. I did some agressive slipping to get down to the field but wasn't necessary in the end. Normal smooth landing and rolled out about 250 feet. At that point I crossed a shallow depression and it turned me left and rolled another 20 feet. Absolutly no damage to the pilot or aircraft. Upon getting out of the AC, found no oil underneath. The prop now free wheels. After about fifteen minutes oil started dripping out. Upon removing top cowling oil was coming from a broken fitting at the block. The fitting was still attached but oil coming out around the fitting. Don't know if it broke when the engine stopped immediately. I did have both cowls off two weeks again and check all fittings and wires, etc and this was my next flight. The engine is locked up. Someone speculated something broke in the gear box. It is a 912ULS with no cluth. Engine has 76 hours on it. By the time I got it back to the hanger it was too dark to see much so next weekend I'll go do further investigation.

[Av8r3400]

Good decisions and good off-field landing. Glad you are okay.

Keep us in the loop on what happened with your motor...

[Robin G]

Well done. Having had the same experience I can appreciate the surprise and then the process of flying her in. I am glad your outcome was so good. Again, well done.

robin g

[Dorsal]

So what happened????

[Agfoxflyer]

Dorsal,

Still not sure. The engine had plenty of oil. I have talked to a couple of Rotax repair guys and they say about the only thing that will stop a 912 like that is lack of oil. They did say remote possiblity something in the gear box broke but doubtful. Also speculation that the oil was not circulating. But no indications of problems from the guages prior.I have pulled the magnetic plug and it is normal. Also cut open the oil filter and used a magnet and no metal at all. My brother and I are finshing a RV-9A and scheduled to move it out of my shop in a couple of weeks to a paint shop. When it's gone I will bring the Kitfox back home and first pull the gear box. Which brings up a question. Rotax instructions say to find top dead center of cyl #1 and use the locking pin to index the gears. Since my prop free wheels and the engine is locked I can't do that. Will the gear box come off without doing that, or do the gears need to be aligned somehow? Anybody know? As soon as I find out something I will give a full report.

[Slyfox]

I would think just pull it off. I had a 912ul on my fox for a long time and took the gear box off a few times, mainly to replace the wore out washers inside from use. Also I took it off to replace the front seal. I did nothing with indexing the gears??? It should just come right off.

[DesertFox4]

When I had to remove my gearbox from my 912S I don't recall indexing anything. Just removed the 8 bolts and it came off pretty easily. Maybe had to tap with a rubber hammer to break the seal.

[catz631]

Excellent job !!! Welcome to the dead stick society ! ( I had one in a North American T-28C) Out of curiosity was the oil coming from the oil pump fitting on the lower left side of the engine ?(as you look at it from the front) If so it is likely that the fitting cracked as was the case of our sample engine we worked on in Lockwoods Rotax maintenance course. This has happened before and is usually caused by using a brass "t" fitting with one end used to pick up oil for the pressure gauge and the other oil from the cooler outlet. The fitting extends too far out and the result is a crack or total breakage (as was the case with our class engine) due to the "pendulum" effect and vibration on the fitting. I examined my recently purchased Kitfox for this fitting and sure enough I had the same type that broke. I contacted Murle Williams and purchased the proper AN fittings from him and have since eliminated that brass fitting. If this is the cause and you lost your oil then you have a total engine/gearbox rebuild as the engine oil is the lifeblood of your gearbox also.
I too would be very curious as to the cause of the engine failure. Call Dean at the tech dept at Lockwood. He was our instructor and he knows this engine well. (as well as past failures)
Keep us posted !
Dick Maddux
Fox 4
912UL
Milton,Fl