UK Heli Log

Despite the poor weather lately Sunday turned out to be a great day for flying and for once all the fleet was serviceable.

I was about half way through my first flight on the Aurora when I noticed some leaning and then fuel gushing out. After landing it was clear that the fuel stopper had been ejected mid-flight. Once the heli was back on the bench I then noticed the fuel filter had changed color from red to orange? As it turns out that was the remains of my OMI Fuel Magnet. This is the first time I’ve had one completely disintegrate on me, previously they have become a bit tatted and I’ve just replaced them. This one lasted about 9 months… this clearly explains why the fuel stopper was ejected. All things considered I was pretty lucky, it could have been a low inverted flame-out and/or a toasted engine.

I’m not suggesting fuel magnets are no good because I happen to thing they function very well (when they don’t disintegrate). I would only highlight that they have a limited shelf life, somewhere in the order of 6-12 months is my guess. And that is with the correct preventative steps, such as: running off back-plate pressure and re-filling the tank for storage.

I might list this post under reviews, as you can clearly see the “Align 3 Way Fuel Filter” exceeding expectations, for that I’ll give the filter a score of 8/10.

10 Aug 09

….and here’s the new replacement fuel magnet with Hayes Medium Clunk Line (neoprene) and small sections of silicon tube used to tighten the coupling of fuel-magnet.