Ande Elkins
Filing Flight Plan
Here's the background;
Purchased a '73 C150L as my first plane about 7 months ago.
During the pre-buy, it was agreed an annula would be performed.
The A&P found the #4 cylinder with low compression (60)
A reconditioned cylinder was installed, and compression was noted at annual (78). I liked the plane, and the sell was processed.
I flew the plane appox 15 hours (no longer than 1 hour flights.. just around the local area) Virtually no oil usage until recently. I did note a strange smell (near the #4 cylinder) but, I recognized it as a hot breeak-in type smell (you know what I mean). I've kept a close eye on the oil temp/pressure since purchase and it all stayed it the green.
Now, today I 'planned' to take my son for a $100 hamburger about an hour away. We took off from my short grass strip and did the usual hard climb to clear the trees. It made it's normal 'prop chopping' sound like it's always done when I make a best rate-of-angle take off.
We climbed to 2500' and leveled to 65% cruise (2450ish rpm).. no rush, just sight-seeing.. Flew about 25 minutes and decided to change heading towards the $100 hamburger point.
All was well for about 10 minutes, then as we overflew a Paper mill, I noticed something smelled strange (no, not the paper mill)
My son said "Something smells weird, kinda like oil on a manifold"
I glanced at the gauges, oil pressure green, Oil temp green (both centered) but, the smell got stronger. I decided to trottle back to 2000, and I noticed a prop 'popping noise'.. Kinda like the chopping noise it makes at climb-out but, slightly different. (Sorry for the vague descriptions but, it's the best I can describe). I also thought I felt a slight vibration however, that might had been induced imagination (grin). My son said "something feels loose too".. So, I decided to head back to my air strip (15 minutes away) while keeping one eye on the pressure gauge and the other on potential landing points (in the event we were losing oil to a major leak)
In about 5 minutes, the smell 'lessened' but, was still noticable. And the noise/vibration seemed to fade out too. We landed as normal and I started to inspect the plane. There was one small leak that seemed to 'drip' a little more than normal after it was parked. (usually, I get about 5 drops or so, from the oil overflow after parking.. this time it was probably 30ish, still a small amount as to what I was expecting. Overall, the oil loss on that flight was very little (5 quart line on the stick when i preflighted, and it was less than the thickness of two quarters below the 5 mark when i returned). One last quirk.. the Battery overflow also has droplets for about an hour after parking.. ( I never noticed it before but, it might have been my oversight because it doesn't 'mark' my hanger like oil does)
Any ideas?
Many people told me in the past, that's C150s tend to settle oil loss around 4 1/2 quarts.. Filling it to the 6 quart line was simply feeding the breather. I buy that.. but, the smell kinda threw me off flying today..
Almost sounded like one of those NTSB stories.. "Pilot noted the smell of burnt oil just prior to total power loss"..
I plan to take it back up tomorrow and fly it for an hour to see if it reoccurs.. Glide distance to my airstrip, of course..
Chime in with any of your thoughts...
Have a great day..
Purchased a '73 C150L as my first plane about 7 months ago.
During the pre-buy, it was agreed an annula would be performed.
The A&P found the #4 cylinder with low compression (60)
A reconditioned cylinder was installed, and compression was noted at annual (78). I liked the plane, and the sell was processed.
I flew the plane appox 15 hours (no longer than 1 hour flights.. just around the local area) Virtually no oil usage until recently. I did note a strange smell (near the #4 cylinder) but, I recognized it as a hot breeak-in type smell (you know what I mean). I've kept a close eye on the oil temp/pressure since purchase and it all stayed it the green.
Now, today I 'planned' to take my son for a $100 hamburger about an hour away. We took off from my short grass strip and did the usual hard climb to clear the trees. It made it's normal 'prop chopping' sound like it's always done when I make a best rate-of-angle take off.
We climbed to 2500' and leveled to 65% cruise (2450ish rpm).. no rush, just sight-seeing.. Flew about 25 minutes and decided to change heading towards the $100 hamburger point.
All was well for about 10 minutes, then as we overflew a Paper mill, I noticed something smelled strange (no, not the paper mill)
My son said "Something smells weird, kinda like oil on a manifold"
I glanced at the gauges, oil pressure green, Oil temp green (both centered) but, the smell got stronger. I decided to trottle back to 2000, and I noticed a prop 'popping noise'.. Kinda like the chopping noise it makes at climb-out but, slightly different. (Sorry for the vague descriptions but, it's the best I can describe). I also thought I felt a slight vibration however, that might had been induced imagination (grin). My son said "something feels loose too".. So, I decided to head back to my air strip (15 minutes away) while keeping one eye on the pressure gauge and the other on potential landing points (in the event we were losing oil to a major leak)
In about 5 minutes, the smell 'lessened' but, was still noticable. And the noise/vibration seemed to fade out too. We landed as normal and I started to inspect the plane. There was one small leak that seemed to 'drip' a little more than normal after it was parked. (usually, I get about 5 drops or so, from the oil overflow after parking.. this time it was probably 30ish, still a small amount as to what I was expecting. Overall, the oil loss on that flight was very little (5 quart line on the stick when i preflighted, and it was less than the thickness of two quarters below the 5 mark when i returned). One last quirk.. the Battery overflow also has droplets for about an hour after parking.. ( I never noticed it before but, it might have been my oversight because it doesn't 'mark' my hanger like oil does)
Any ideas?
Many people told me in the past, that's C150s tend to settle oil loss around 4 1/2 quarts.. Filling it to the 6 quart line was simply feeding the breather. I buy that.. but, the smell kinda threw me off flying today..
Almost sounded like one of those NTSB stories.. "Pilot noted the smell of burnt oil just prior to total power loss"..
I plan to take it back up tomorrow and fly it for an hour to see if it reoccurs.. Glide distance to my airstrip, of course..
Chime in with any of your thoughts...
Have a great day..
