Engine Box Failure

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 Greg Foushi & I attended Top Gun 2013 with my PT-17 Stearman entered in Team Scale with Greg as the Pilot & me as the builder. Greg was about midway through the 4th & final flight on Sunday afternoon, May 5th when he sensed that something was wrong & decided to land the Stearman. Just as it stopped rolling the cowl & engine fell in the grass! The prop, hub, cowl & the rest of the Stearman were all undamaged. The following pictures show the process of building a new much stronger engine box.

 The eight Cowl separation pictures  were taken by David Hart of Warbird RC Airplane Photography.

 Warbird RC Airplane Photography

Warbird RC Airplane Photography 50

Engine box Failure

 Click picture to enlarge to full screen

15 Seperation 2
14 Cowl & engine seperating from the firewall1

 Cowl & engine separating from the firewall

 Separation 2

16 Seperation 3

 Separation 3

18 Seperation 5

 Separation 5

20 Seperation 7

 Separation 7

17 Seperation 4

 Separation 4

19 Seperation 6

 Separation 6

21 Seperation 8

 Separation 8

Building a better engine box

1 Engine box failure

 Engine box failure

7 Aircraft grade .250 inch plywood used to build new engine box
6 Rebuilding a better engine box

 Rebuilding a better engine box

8 Bottom of engine box held in place with 30 minuite epoxy & three wood screws

Aircraft grade 1/4 inch plywood used to build new engine box

  Bottom of engine box held in place with 30 minuite epoxy & three wood screws

9 Engine box finished

 Engine box finished

12 Electronic's for D-85 Engine
11 Engine box completed

 Engine box completed

13 Bold muffler installed using Fel-Pro Cork-Rubber gasket material part # 3019

 Electronic's for D-85 Engine

Bold muffler installed using Fel-Pro Cork-Rubber gasket material part # 3019

New Cowl mounting blocks

22 New cowl mounting blocls

 New cowl mounting blocls

23 Wood screws & CA glue hold new cowl mounting blocks in plsce

Wood screws & CA glue hold new cowl mounting blocks in plsce

Finished

24 New engine box & cowl mounting block finished

 New engine box & cowl mounting block finished

26 Muffler view

 Muffler view

Top Gun 2013

25 Cowl mounting blocks are painted Zinc Chromate

 Cowl mounting blocks are painted Zinc Chromate

27 Ready for next flight

 Ready for next flight

Copyright © 2005-2022 Walt Carnes, All rights reserved.

E-mail me at:

walt.carnes@aol  dot  com

June 2,  2013

According to The Weather Channel Control Tower, the weather conditions at the Hanger are: