Voyager Pilots Get a Scare; Head for Tuesday Landing

The aircraft Voyager flew smoothly across the Atlantic Ocean Saturday after overcoming a frightening mechanical malfunction in the craft’s rear engine and an unexpected patch of turbulence.

The engine problem occurred early Saturday morning on the attempted around-the-world flight. As co-pilot Jeana Yeager was taking her place at the controls, she noticed a warning light indicating that oil pressure in the rear engine was falling. Other gauges indicated that internal temperatures in the engine were rising rapidly.

Such a condition could destroy the engine from excessive heat, and Yeager, along with co-pilot Dick Rutan, immediately began to add oil to the engine via a hand pump in the cockpit. However, temperatures continued to rise.

The Voyager’s throttle was then cut back and a ventilating scoop opened on the engine housing. As the plane descended from 11,000 to 10,000 feet, the engine cooled and a few minutes later oil pressure rose to normal levels.

The project’s engine specialist said the problem was caused by the pilot’s failure to make periodic checks of the oil pressure, a mistake that has probably been made by many an errant motorist. In the Voyager, such checks should be made every six hours and probably had not been made in a day and a half, engine specialist Glen Maben said.

Maben said the two pilots were concerned during the 4 a.m. (PST) episode but handled the problem smoothly. “They weren’t in any way in a flap,” he said.

Voyager spokesman Peter Riva said the pilots likely had neglected the checks because of fatigue after the plane’s rough crossing over Africa on Friday.

Late on Saturday, officials here said the rear engine, the only engine operating at this stage in the flight, was running well and apparently suffered no damage during the oil pressure episode.

Later in the day, the Voyager was skirting a weather system just north of the Equator when it found itself among violent clouds that closed around the craft. The plane was tossed about momentarily, even tipped into a 90-degree bank several times during the 15 minutes of turbulence. The craft headed out of the cloud formation, righted itself and resumed its stately pace.

As the Voyager made its way across the Atlantic at 120 m.p.h., flight planners began to revise both its route to the United States and its estimated time of arrival.

A developing storm in the Gulf of Mexico forced the plane into a more southerly route that will take it across Central America, somewhere between the Yucatan and Costa Rica, and up the western coast of Mexico before it enters this country. The original plan called for the plane to enter the United States along the Texas coast.

Tail winds also led planners to estimate that the spindly craft will arrive a day earlier than expected at its take-off point, Edwards Air Force Base. They estimated that the Voyager probably will reach Edwards on Tuesday afternoon.

By late Saturday, officials said, the craft had flown 18,918 miles and had about 6,437 miles left on its global circuit.

The pilots were described as being in high spirits. Flying over the Atlantic has been smooth, by and large, and Maben said both pilots were “very up.”

Another member of the ground crew revealed for the first time why fuel calculations have been the source of constant worry throughout the flight. Mike Melville, one of the craft’s builders, said the problem involves gauges aboard the craft that measure fuel as it flows into the engines.

Melville said the pilots have discovered that some fuel actually travels through the gauges twice before being burned, leaving the impression that fuel consumption was much higher than it was in reality.

Officials were running the new data through a computer to determine how much fuel actually remains in the craft. Whatever the outcome of those calculations, they said, the Voyager appears to have enough fuel for the complete nine-day journey.