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Engine preservation to prevent corrosion during extended non use (and ground running?)



He is a helicopter business owner, who “taxies” his Cabri because, as he shows, Guimbal helicopters sent to all operators an email advising to Lycoming SL180B.
I don’t know if a Service Letter is mandatory for commercial ops, probably not. But as a business owner he can write his own “attestation” to go to work and fly.

LFOU, France

Jujupilote wrote:

I don’t know if a Service Letter is mandatory for commercial ops, probably not. But as a business owner he can write his own “attestation” to go to work and fly.

Stretch that a bit, given that lot of private aircrafts are set-up as “company asset”, the “Chairman Letter” will makes life easier (those on N-reg trusts can get a paper letter from Southern Aircraft Consultancy )

Last Edited by Ibra at 23 Apr 09:08
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I think in countries where they have absolutely strict regs I would be tempted to use an obvious stunt like that

In the UK all the restrictions around this are “guidance” only so a prosecution would fail. You can still get the airport into “PR trouble” (or even into trouble with the CAA, if it is “recommending” a flight only once a month, and remember a CAA can refuse to license an airport without giving a reason) and obviously that’s a major consideration.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I went to the airfield today to exchange the dehydrator plugs for dry ones. The ones I took off have been in for two weeks, and were pale blue with almost no pink, which is good.

Quite a bit of oil has gone out via the turbos, which leaves the cylinder heads exposed partially. I took this picture of the one with the lowest level. To me the part of the cylinder head which is not submerged looks devoid of oil completely, no protective film here.

EGTF, LFTF

tmo wrote:

If nothing breaks I’ll be back with a humidity over time report in a couple of weeks.

So, I installed the 1300g of silica gel on Apr 15. With a fresh batch, even with outside humidity around 70% the output air was measured at 0%. Till Apr 22 the output air humidity was in the single percents, on Apr 23 it was around 20%, passing 30% on Apr 25 – after 10 days. It didn’t pass 40% till Apr 28. The next few days were quite humid and chilly, but the silica kept on absorbing the moisture, which was between 40% and 80%. Outgoing air RH passed 45% on May 2 and this is when the silica stopped being as effective – RH was decreased by about 10% (although high outside RH got dried a little better). As I shut the system down to replace the silica on May 4, RH of outgoing air was 48% and outside air was around 80%.

Of course this all is primarily driven by outside humidity and possibly by volume of air being pumped.

I’m wondering if a smaller pump might actually be better. The volume of air inside the engine is what, 20 liters?

Looks like my current setup is good for no more than two weeks. I will do the next batch with a slower pump.

As far as drying, after 2h30m at 120C 2550g of silica ended up weighing 2410g – so a little above 5% decrease. No further decrease after another 2h. This is not the silica that was producing the ~45% RH – I mixed it with silica in open containers that passively dried the inside of the plane.

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

Anybody tried a DIY project with a peltier element?

EBST

What would it do?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Remove humidity by condensation, the black max uses this technology I think.

EBST
tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

From the manufacturer:
https://flyingsafer.com/2065
The Black Max uses an electronic cooling device to cool the air passing through it, condense the water, and lower the humidity of the air in much the same way that an air conditioner works. A low pressure pump pushes a flow of air through a condensing unit that is cooled by a thermoelectric device. As the air passing through the condensing unit is cooled below its dew point temperature, water condenses and the dew point of the air is lowered. The condensed water is collected within the Black Max, and evaporated so that no moisture is deposited outside the unit. The lower humidity air is then inserted into the engine crankcase through the engine breather as in our other devices.

The Black Max is capable of cooling the air passing through it to temperatures below freezing. As the water condenses from the air, ice will form in the condenser passages. To prevent the ice from eventually blocking the air passages, it must be melted and drained. A microprocessor is used to control the units operation. On power up, the thermoelectric unit is turned on, and the unit enters a cool down mode. Once the condenser has cooled down, (about 4 min’s ) the pump is turned on and air flows through the condenser where it is cooled and its dew point is lowered. The dry air then passes through the engine breather tube and into the engine crankcase. After about 18 min’s of operation, the cooling unit and the pump are turned off and the system enters a defrost mode where the condenser is heated to melt any ice. The melted water is collected internally and evaporated. After the defrost mode is completed, (about 8 min’s ) the cycle repeats.

EBST
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