There is a bit of a flap going on over on the Thatcher forum at groups.io. There have now been three crankshaft failures in the last few weeks in CX4's. There was also one about a year ago. The first one is the broken crank in California that resulted in the loss of the airplane that was discussed in the "Crashes" thread. The other two had better outcomes. One was on takeoff where the prop departed the airplane and the pilot had enough runway left to set it back down. The other one happened on climbout and the pilot was close enough to make it back to the runway. All were apparently on 2180 cc engines with Force One prop hubs. There are some good pictures of the last one on this thread: [email protected] | Second crank failure. A cautionary tale.
Glen Bradley, who works with Dave Thatcher, called Scott Casler because Scott had built a couple of the engines. He said that in 2012-2013 some manufacturers used CB cranks because the Scat crank wasn't available. That statement leaves a lot unsaid. Scott built my engine, but it was delivered in 2011 so maybe I have the Scat crank. Anyway, I will keep looking for landing fields whenever I fly!
Glen Bradley, who works with Dave Thatcher, called Scott Casler because Scott had built a couple of the engines. He said that in 2012-2013 some manufacturers used CB cranks because the Scat crank wasn't available. That statement leaves a lot unsaid. Scott built my engine, but it was delivered in 2011 so maybe I have the Scat crank. Anyway, I will keep looking for landing fields whenever I fly!