Skymaster Arctic Circle Ditching.

[Diamond Service]

Originally Posted by tropical

I'm just curious about one thing, why did you choose that time of year to make the trip? It seems to me making the trip in the middle of summer would far outweigh making it in the winter.

I purchased the aircraft in June. I planned the crossing for the end of august.Unfortunately the work on the aircraft took much longer than expected. I know that it is serious business to perform this flight during the winter and that you can easily be on the ground waiting for a weather improvement. If you are planning a flight like this make sure that you got thé right gear.I hope this answers your question.

Troels.

[Roger]

Great story, and an absolutley great piece of survival flying and ditching. You should certainly write it up in either short story format, or talk to somebody about a book. Make up a couple Eskimo chicks and an igloo, and you could probably pay for the plane.

I would however not jump to any conclusion about oil loss being the cause of the engine failures. It is far to much of a coincidence to have both engines fail that close to each other from a oil problem, especially in a Skymaster. The whole dynamics of the engine compartment temperatures, and subsequent temperature variations encoutered by the oil systems is too diverse to have them both encounter the same error within minutes of each other.

It sounds like plain old fuel starvation which wound down the oil pressure , which cooled down the temps, which then caused some form of noise form the prop once there was no oil pressure in the system. Maybe the big noise was the blade kicking back to feather , and that was caused by it being frozen once the rpm's starting bleeding off.

Regardless, congratulations on getting through it.

[Ernie Martin]

Three times I have had an engine quit in mid-flight due to fuel starvation. Ignoring the first time, when I had zero experience with the aircraft*, the indications are immediately obvious as fuel starvation. Given Troels familiarity with this aircraft and his experience, I very much doubt that this was fuel starvation.


Ernie

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* It was my first Skymaster flight and, while climbing, the instructor turned the fuel selector valve to off without my knowledge to demonstrate the docile behavior after a lost engine.

[CO_Skymaster]

Does Cessna still sell the winterization kit or does anyone know where I can get an aftermarket version of it? I definatly need it flying around the Colorado Rockies in the winter.

Karl

[Diamond Service]

I never forget the sounds that my engines made before they stopped.Sounds of metal against metal and great friction followed by a loud bang. I saw the low oil pressure indication before they made these sounds.To me it is very clear why they stopped.

Troels.

[Roger]

I don't mean to be contentious giiven your extensive experience, personal observations, and expertiese, I am only concerned that because this is an "infomrmation sharing website" that we should all be cautious about what we profess to "know for sure" when it may affect other pilots safety.

I would think that because we don't "know" what happneded to your engines, that we should keep an open mind about other possibilities such as vapor lock and/or fuel stavation, gelling, fuel pumped outboard through the vents, frozen/cracked cork fuel tank seals, etc...

I didn't notice if you ever mentioned cross feeding the tanks, before or after the engine failure. For example when the rear failed, did it make the same loud noise, and/or did it just go out for an entirely different reason, and because the front failed from perhaps an oil problem, did you assume the rear had the same problem, and there was no reason or time to try a cross feed and restart?

Not picking on you : It must have been a nightmare. Just want to make sure nonone else encounters a like scenerio and has the wrong assumptions.

[Diamond Service]

Dear Roger.
I totally agree with you. For the same reason I try not to speculate or draw conclusions and just write exactly what happened and what I observed. I told my story in this forum because I was very thrilled about being a Skymaster owner and pilot. I am not trying to say that the Skymaster is a bad and unsafe aircraft. More than anybody I would like some answers to what happened to my engines,but unless the aircraft is salvaged I will probably never get any answers.I have been told that the Hudson Strait is 113 meters deep at the position we were picked up and since there is nobody in the plane it will not be raised.

Troels