May 14 2003, Olney, Texas

CarterCopter Experiences In Flight Fire

Olney, TX - Earlier this week, May 12 2004, the CarterCopter experienced an in flight fire. The aircraft landed safely, and the pilots were not injured. The fire began when the aircraft was on base (the final leg of a traffic pattern before turning to final). The pilots did not realize they had a fire until the ground crew saw it as the aircraft flew past the end of the runway. The fire sensors never detected a fire, because they are located near the top of the engine compartment away from the flames. The pilots activated the aircraft fire extinguishers after touchdown and after the engine was shut off. This put out the engine compartment fires, but did nothing to stop the spinner and prop related fire. The propeller and spinner fire were put out with a hand held fire extinguisher by the ground crew.

Upon further analysis of the tail camera video and the exhaust manifold with the insulation removed, it is clear that part of the exhaust cracked and opened up and allowed hot exhaust gas to ignite the cowling adjacent to it. The airflow through the engine compartment pulled the flames down and towards the back of the aircraft. The flames burned through the turbo oil exit line, adding approximately 1 gal/min of oil to the fire.

Our plan is to remove the turbo, increase the engine compression ratio, go back to straight exhaust exiting the sides of the aircraft as before and use the new scimitar propeller. The new prop should produce 15-20% more thrust at 400 hp than the propeller that was installed which was only designed for 300 hp.

The repairs to the fuselage will take about 3 weeks, but it will take about 5-6 weeks to complete the test stand testing of the scimitar prop, reassemble the components in the aircraft, recalibrate and have the aircraft ready to fly.

Fuselage, Propeller & Spinner	Inside of Top Engine Cowl
Turbo Wrapped in Insulation	Propeller & Spinner

Photo 1. Flames first barely visible, close to stripes running down fuselage	Photo 2. Safely back on the ground, engine at idle
Photo 3. Mark Robinson puts out propeller fire	Photo 4. All fires extinguised, still smoldering