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Mike Burkes ask me to give him more information concerning the engine
quitting while I was flying across the Atlantic in a Cessna 172. Since
I have already typed it up for him I figure I will bore you guys with
the story too.

"I was ferrying a new C-172H to the Cessna distributor in Brussels in
1978. That was the model that Cessna switched from using a Continental
engine to a Lycoming in the C-172. As in the past, the ferry company
equipped the plane with a fifty gallon ferry tank placed on the floor
where the co-pilots seat had been, that seat had been folded up and
placed in the baggage compartment. The ferry tank was plumbed into a
"T-fitting" in the fuel system downstream from the main fuel selector
valve and had its own on-off valve.

Departed at midnight, IFR out of Newfoundland for the Azores as there
was ice in the clouds all the way to Iceland on the northern route.
Climbed to FL 100 on the main tanks then turned the main fuel valve
off and the ferry valve on.

The first land you come to on that route is the island of Flores which
is at the northwest end of the Azores chain, 1050 NM from
Newfoundland. You can't land there but must continue to the airport on
Santa Maria island at the far southeast end of the chain, about 400 NM
further. I had flight planned 14 hours enroute with 16 hours of fuel
onboard.


Shot some fixes during the first few hours to check ground speed and
drift. About four or five hours into the flight (I don't have my notes
with me) the engine stopped cold. That gets your attention. I lowered
the nose to maintain flying speed and then the engine started running
again. So I leveled off and the engine quit again. I went through
several of these cycles and determined that the engine would run with
the nose down but not in level flight so I kept the nose down, DUH! I
thought this through and theorized that after the fuel had burned down
to a certain point in the ferry tank, sitting next to me on the floor,
that it did not supply enough fuel pressure to push the gas through
the carburetor in the Lycoming engine although there had never been a
problem with this ferry tank arrangement in earlier C-172s. So by
lowering the nose I was raising the ferry tank higher above the
carburetor supplying a greater head of fuel pressure and this got the
engine going again.
The only problem with keeping the nose down was that I was descending
towards the Atlantic. When I got down to 2,000 feet (actually FL 020
since the altimeter was set to 29.92, the standard practice over the
ocean), as low as I dared to go without a local altimeter setting, IFR
at night in the middle of the Atlantic,  I turned the ferry tank off
and the main tanks back on and climbed back up to FL 100. I repeated
this cycle three of four times (maybe it was five or six times, I
don't remember right now), each time the engine would quit again and I
would have to keep getting the nose lower and lower to get the engine
to run again. I had to do this to get all of the fuel out of the ferry
tank so I could make it to Santa Maria.  Finally the engine wouldn't
keep running no matter how low I pointed the nose so I went back on
the mains and completed the flight. I shot some sun lines as I
approached Flores and hit it right on ETA. Then continued  on and
landed at Santa Maria about fourteen and a half hours after departure.

There was no excitement on the 800 NM leg to Porto Portugal or on the
leg across the Bay of Biscay to Nantes or on the last leg into
Brussels.

After this they built a frame to hold the ferry tank about two feet
above the floor and no more problems on later flights.."
gl


On Jun 11, 8:21�am, Gary LaPook  wrote:
> I guess it all depends on your perspective. I have flown across the
> Atlantic in a plane as small as a �Cessna 172, single engine, four
> seats, (and had the engine quit a number of times in the middle of the
> ocean in the middle of the night, whew!) while using my trusty A-10A to
> shoot stars and the sun in order to find Flores in the Azores so as to
> be able to refuel.
>
> gl
>
> douglas.de...@btopenworld.com wrote:
> > Regarding �Sir Francis Chichester:
>
> > Dr. Kolbe has it right.
>
> > I was referring not his astonishing navigation for which I have the very 
highest regard indeed, but to the fact he was willing to put his life on the 
line with an aeroplane that he describes in his book already had various 
problems such as having fitting floats without checking if they leaked or 
not, and an engine that had already given him problems, and in the run-up 
check before leaving for Norfolk Island he says:-
>
> > "I could only get 1780 revs, forty less than I expected, and my spirits 
sank. I should never get off with a full load with a motor like that, but 
said nothing to the CO about it. �The seaplane was launched. I faced her into 
the wind, and opened the throttle; to my surprise she left the water as 
easily as a sea bird..... ".
>
> > The man must have been mad or very determined, or both.
>
> > To cross the Tasman Sea - a nasty stretch of water notorious for bad 
weather, two thirds the width of the Atlantic, in a single engined float 
plane with engine in dubious condition is more than reckless. � But got away 
with it.
>
> > My impression from reading his books is he was what we would call a "loose 
cannon" and contemptuous of any advice or authority. �From reading about him 
it seems he must have been a truly remarkable person but not very 'likeable'.
>
> > Douglas Denny.
>
> > Chichester. England.
>
>
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