Too Much Power Isn't Always a Good Thing
By ANN Reader Bud Granley
Bud Granley wrote us about a little problem he had at last
month's Reno Air Races, flying a 4000hp Sea Fury unlimited racer
with the throttle stuck open:
I thought I'd send this little report to you. It was a surprise
[Note: To just about anybody but a serious stick like Bud,
it's a 'surprise,' but to most of the rest of us it's a great
excuse for a coronary... grin.--E-I-C] to find myself with the
throttle disconnected at the carb. Better to be stuck power-on than
power-off though: lots more time and options.
I eased back on the throttle, a little on the prop, then a
little more on each as I eased the big 4360-powered Seafury up
several thousand feet from the Reno race course. When I checked the
manifold pressure gauge, I saw that the throttle wasn't having any
effect. It was loosy-goosy and unattached to anything that mattered
to me. The manifold pressure read 45 inches, much less than the 67
inches at 3000 RPM and 450 mph worth of ram air pressure a minute
or so earlier on the race course. The engine was still wide open,
but producing less power at slower speed with the prop pulled
back.
I had a problem, but with 120 gallons of gas left, had time to
think it over. An old memory of a similar event came to me: in
Sardinia during gunnery deployment with our Canadian F-86s, a US
Navy F-11 Grumman Tiger called in with his power stuck on at a high
level. He eventually landed and went off the end; the nose gear
collapsed and with the intake stuck in the sand, the Tiger became
the biggest sandblaster in the world for 20 minutes.
I didn't want to screw this up. I just had to get set up
properly, and then shut down when everything looked
comfortable.
I called the Furias pit crew, and let them know what
the problem was, and after several tries finally got the message
across. I then called CJ, the safety pilot in Art Vance's P-51,
told him the problem and asked him to join up with me. Brian
Sanders, another 4360 Seafury operator, offered advice on the no
limit flaps speeds to help slow the plane down.
With CJ locked on behind me, I began to pull some hard, vapor
trail producing, climbing turns to slow the plane down to gear and
flap speeds. As I dropped the gear and flaps to full, and with the
propeller full back, the manifold pressure had dropped to 30 inches
at 150 knots. I shut the mixture off to confirm my ability to kill
the power on final. The prop almost stopped before I yanked the
mixture back to an operating comfort level. The Seafury would now
come down like a Stuka dive bomber with full flaps and the
remaining power.
I set up a high
downwind and used the flaps as a throttle lever as you would the
spoilers in a glider. At around 700 feet on final, with 170 knots
and the runway made, I shut off the mixture.
I had enough speed for a gentle flare starting at 200 feet. I
pushed the propeller back to fine pitch to help slow down after the
flare. The touchdown was at normal speed and the plane came to a
stop before I could clear the runway and coast into the ramp ala
Bob Hoover. Alas!
ANN Notes:
- Furias finished 5th in the Gold race this year, with
regular pilot Gary Hubler at the controls.
- Bud ferried Furias to Reno, and re-qualified himself
to fly Unlimiteds in that machine. The trouble described above
happened on Tuesday of race week.
- On the airshow circuit, Bud astounds the crowds in a variety of
airplanes, from a Harvard (T-6) to a Fouga, to a Yak; and he's one
of the country's recognized top WWII warbird exhibition pilots,
too.
- Bud Granley is perhaps best-known at Reno as the 1980s pilot of
the P-51 Miss America, lately flown by Brent Hisey (who
won the Silver this year in that miraculously-reconstructed
plane).
Thanks, Bud -- and especially thanks for reminding us
amateurs that it's worth practicing airmanship, 'cuz every now and
then it really does matter!
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