Yep, the problem with old aeroplanes is that while they delight the pilot with their nostalgia and charm, every now and again they throw a problem at you out of the past and their nostalgic and charming parts suddenly become the bain of your life!

I wrote that last summer, when we were having an on-going problem with our electrical system and its sentiment is ringing true in my ears again, now, having been thrown another ‘interesting’ problem by JT yesterday.

The forecast was good and I had booked the Auster for the day, just to get airborne in the old thing again and go for an easy flight somewhere. I settled on the old favourite, Perth and drove out to the strip. I arrived to find the place deserted and as I was pulling the machines out the hangar to access JT, I paused to gaze up the stretch of grass that gives us access to wherever it is we might wish to fly to. ‘What a pleasure, it is!’ I was thinking. ‘To be able to do this!’ Everything about it is just so much of a pleasure – turning up to your own private idyll to go flying, floating along above wonderful scenery. How lucky am I?’

A private idyll

After this little moment of smug day dreaming, I got airborne in the usual slightly tense fashion off the wet grass, coaxing the bloody thing into the air before I ran out of options and then settled into a relaxed cruise down the coast. There were some big showers en-route, surprisingly, since none were forecast, but they were easily avoided and I thought them to be short lived down-pours.

The CBs built up behind me, however, after I landed at Perth at mid-day and checking the weather radar picture after a bite to eat, I could see that a wall of heavy showers had planted themselves firmly in my path for the route north. Worse still, they didn’t look to be clearing until about 8pm. Great! I was stuck  for the day. It didn’t bother me too much, though – I caught up with my old Pitts instructor and chatted to various club members at what was a busy day at the SAC. G – PARG was there, which did a great display over the race course, making me lament the sale of my Pitts again ( It had to go in 2009 if I was to ever own a house or drive a decent car, and by decent, I mean, consistently functional ).

Pitts S1-S and JT at Scone

I periodically checked the weather throughout the day and by 6pm I’d had enough and decided to just head home – the showers looked to be dying out on the radar picture and some nice gaps were opening up. I arranged an out of hours departure with the airport and took off at 18:20. Four miles out, the engine note suddenly changed, the vibration increased markedly and the engine began running very rough, making the thin cowls wobble about noticeably. My first thought was ‘prop!’ and my stomach did a little back flip as I instinctively reduced power. That seemed to ease the vibration but the engine was still running rough. I gingerly re-introduced power and the prop didn’t fall off, so I turned back for the field and called Perth radio that I was doing so, applying carb’ heat at the same time, thinking now, that it was probably carb’ icing – the 0-200 is renowned for it. On doing so, the revs dropped right off to around 2000 RPM and the engine seemed to run even more roughly, coughing and popping. I began eying up a field very closely and fully expected the engine to fail, completely. I really didn’t want to land in that small field I had selected and the runway was right in front of me, tantalisingly close, but I knew the pitfalls of ‘get-homeitus’ and there were trees between me and the airfield. I had realised by now that it couldn’t be carb’ icing, so shoved the heat selector back in and the power came back, still rough, but workable and I decided to head for the runway. I reasoned I was firing on three cylinders judging by the noise and routed for a straight in final approach on to the long, runway 21, keeping my height ( which had only been 1500 ft when the engine started playing up ) until I knew I was going to get in.

A few tense minutes was followed by a safe landing and I was amused ( and grateful ) to see the fire truck waiting for me and following me in to the parking area. Luckily, there had been a late King Air Departure and both the radio and the fire service were still manned, which was reassuring whilst I was limping back to the field. It occurred to me what a horrible experience it might have been if the problem had manifested itself whilst I was flying on the west coast last month, especially over the water or over some of the unforgiving rocky terrain that proliferates there. That, would not have been pleasant.

Safely back on Terra-Firma, ground running the engine revealed the same symptoms, so my guess is that it is either a bad plug, or loss of compression on one cylinder for some reason. Both Mags’ were functioning perfectly, so I’m not sure what else it could be. We’re hoping it’s just a bad plug, but these had been checked during the last permit renewal and they had all seemed fine, but you never know. If it is, it will be a simple fix, otherwise, it might prove expensive. I couldn’t locate any suitable tools to check the plugs as most people had headed home for the night.

So, JT is currently stranded in Perth until the engineers can take a look next week and it makes me think again, about that ratio of ground to air when it comes to old aeroplanes. There’s an awful lot of fickering for a small amount of flying. I’ve been lucky this year, being able to have had that fantastic west coast trip and a couple of great day trips, so I suppose I can’t complain and this sort of problem, in actuality, can happen to any engine, irrespective of age.

Still, JT has thrown its fair share of niggley problems at us over the last couple of years and she seems to make us all earn our flights in her. She’s certainly kept me on my toes, since starting to fly her, that’s for sure! Here’s hoping this latest problem will be a simple fix, indeed………

So innocent looking, isn’t she? JT at Perth.