That’ll get your attention!
Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 3:26 pm
This afternoon I was flying Karen to Copperhill, TN where we keep a car parked, so she could party with some girlie friends this evening.
Most of the way through the flight, I noticed something amiss:
Out of nowhere, it certainly focuses one’s attention. I pointed it out to Karen, and told her it was almost certainly a problem with the gauge, sender or wiring, but that I was keeping a close eye on the oil temperature. I was trying to picture a failure mode of the oil pressure regulator that could cause runaway oil pressure, and I couldn’t remember whether an open circuit to the sending unit would cause the gauge to go to max or zero*. As an aside, I think I would have been more nervous if the gauge had gone to 0 rather than max.
In any case, we were less than 15 miles from Copperhill, over marginal terrain but with some altitude to spare, so pressing on made the most sense. After taxiing in, the problem was obvious:
About the easiest possible fix, so...whew! And that fix will involve supporting that wiring a bit more securely.
Anyway, from the Cirrus world I knew the siren song of, “Its probably just a bad connector.” Which is a dangerous assumption, even if warranted most of the time. When I sent these pictures to a Cirrus friend, he immediately asked if Sky Arrow got their connectors from Cirrus!
Anyway, it’s always something!
*I would have thought an open circuit to or from the sender would have resulted in a 0 oil pressure indication, since that’s where the needle rests with the master off. But I apparently am missing something with the way it works.
Most of the way through the flight, I noticed something amiss:
Out of nowhere, it certainly focuses one’s attention. I pointed it out to Karen, and told her it was almost certainly a problem with the gauge, sender or wiring, but that I was keeping a close eye on the oil temperature. I was trying to picture a failure mode of the oil pressure regulator that could cause runaway oil pressure, and I couldn’t remember whether an open circuit to the sending unit would cause the gauge to go to max or zero*. As an aside, I think I would have been more nervous if the gauge had gone to 0 rather than max.
In any case, we were less than 15 miles from Copperhill, over marginal terrain but with some altitude to spare, so pressing on made the most sense. After taxiing in, the problem was obvious:
About the easiest possible fix, so...whew! And that fix will involve supporting that wiring a bit more securely.
Anyway, from the Cirrus world I knew the siren song of, “Its probably just a bad connector.” Which is a dangerous assumption, even if warranted most of the time. When I sent these pictures to a Cirrus friend, he immediately asked if Sky Arrow got their connectors from Cirrus!
Anyway, it’s always something!
*I would have thought an open circuit to or from the sender would have resulted in a 0 oil pressure indication, since that’s where the needle rests with the master off. But I apparently am missing something with the way it works.
