Hello Net Well on the eve of our great gathering why would I write a subject like that? Today was a blessed day, but not a good day. I took the KR out this morning for a few hops to local airports. At the first stop, a narrow short runway I did a touch and go and pulled some good boost on the way out. At about 2500 AGL I felt a vibration. I killed the boost and pulled the throttle back and traded some airspeed for altitude. I did not feed the vibration again and turned for home port. I made another climb using available airspeed and came up to 3500 AGL.. Again I felt the vibration and pulled the throttle back this time to 2000 RPM. I continued to my home airport which was also the nearest, and landed without incident. The first thing that I did was to pull the spinner to see if it had cracked, and it had not. next I looked at the front of the prop and all seemed normal. Next at the inspection tape, (Designed to detect blade movement) and the nearest one on top looked good. However, the one on the bottom had a tear in one corner. I finally looked at the back of the blades near the hub and there it was, a long, long crack straight down the back of the blade. After removing the prop, I could see that I had been blessed. Both blades had extremely serious cracks. Each involved one of the two bolt holes. And, so ends the flying chapter of my relationship with IVO prop. What next you ask? and will I still attend the gathering? Well, sitting in a box on a shelf in my hanger was my tried and true Sturba 54X52 cut down to 52X52 and needing some TLC. I spent the rest of the afternoon and until one hour ago reinstalling the prop and cutting a new spinner. It just happens that the 52X52 was too much prop for the old engine and on a test run seems to run about the same speed as the IVO, and it even runs smoother. I will test fly in the morning to see if it feels OK and if so then I head to Mt Vernon
Orma Southfield, MI N110LR celebrating 20 years To the gathering or bust
