Not quite to plan

The following video tells the whole story.

As I hadn’t flown it for a while, I prepared my X-Air 24ZN yesterday evening ready for the flight I had planned for today, including running the engine up until it was hot. I did the same again this morning as per normal procedure and taxied down to Malbec’s runway to take off. Within a few seconds the engine suffered a large power loss, much as it had done in the UK while I was getting the aircraft ready to bring to France. But since then I’ve overhauled its fuel system including refurbing its fuel pump, replacing most of its fuel line and ensuring that there were no fuel or air leaks and its engine has run faultlessly as a result since that time.

But this was not the time to wonder what was going wrong as the gauge was showing ample fuel pressure and there was little that could immediately be done to rectify the problem. The aim was to keep flying the aircraft and what was evident was that despite the power loss, it was still able to climb, albeit very slowly. There’s no safe emergency landing area straight ahead out of Malbec but there are some suitable areas to the right which become more viable the higher you get, so as I was too low to turn back, I continued climbing with that in mind.

Eventually I decided that I was high enough to make the turn back and despite the engine still running rather erratically, managed to do so for a perfect precautionary landing. The problem was obviously fuel related. When I arrived this morning, despite having run the engine the night before, its fuel filter was half full of what looked like old, dark brown coloured fuel and I wish that I’d taken more notice because after I’d landed, it contained fresh, clean new fuel.

Afterwards I removed, checked and re-gapped the plugs and the engine ran smoothly. I chocked the wheels of the aircraft and ran the engine up to full power for nearly a minute and it didn’t miss a beat, so the problem may have cured itself if it was due to either some kind of blockage or a vapour lock. However, I’ll run a few more checks before having another try later this coming week, possibly on Tuesday morning which looks as though it could be much the way things were this morning.