The other day I was flying my pipe plane when I noticed some burnt oil coming out the back of the cowl. A quick peek showed a leak where the coupler attached to the header. About 30° of the joint had some blowby coming out from under the coupler. What is interesting is to see how that small leak was able to erode the aluminium of the header, leaving flow patterns in the metal I could photograph. What else was interesting is how much pitting occurs on the header in areas exposed to hot exhaust, compared to the pristine metal where the coupler was cinched to the header. This header started out almost new and now has 500 flights on it to date.
The first picture is from the leak area, the second is from the side opposite the leak.
Topic: interesting Observation (Read 761 times)