tag

I watched an A-3 (J57-P10) have a HUGE compressor stall (dicked up fuel control) about 15 seconds after take off.

They launched from Mugu and were heading out over the Pacific.
The starboard engine chugged a couple of times and then FWWOOOMP!! It spit out a flame from the intake about 20 feet in front of it (pretty impressive considering that they were going about 250 knots and still accelerating), then the flame went back down the intake and then a really big flame and a lot of smoke came out the tail pipe.

The pilot shut the engine down, dumped fuel and took a short field arrestment.

After it taxied back to the line and had been shut down I went out and took a look at the engine.
There were no rotor blades left on any of the visable hubs in the intake, and most of the stators behind the rotors were also gone.

There was hardened molten metal coming out of the two external bleed air valve ports, and the tail pipe had hardened molten metal sprayed all over it.

One time I was flying in a C-130 going to Antarctica from New Zealand.
About an hour into the flight the number 3 engine started to chug. The Flight Engineer told me to take a look at it, when I did I could see "sparks" flying out of the tail pipe.
I told him to shut it down and told the pilots to abort and go back to NZ.

The senior pilot wanted to press on, the co-pilot and the engineer (and me) wanted to go back to NZ.
The pilot had made up his mind to blow us off and continue to the ice when the power turbine let go. Big BOOM, scared the shit out of the 35 people we had on board.
I declared an emergency and let the front office know in no uncertain terms that we were going to go back or else I was going to kick "someone's" ass.

The FE shut down the engine and we cruised back to NZ with no further problems.
After we shut down I went out and loked at the engine.
Almost 2/3's of the tail pipe was gone and the power turbine blades were bent and broken.

We got lucky that it didn't send blades flying through the wing (wing tank) or the external tank.

Quoted: Hope I don't screw this one up -  a compressor stall is a disruption of compressor air flow similar to when a wing stalls or quits flying.  Each compressor or turbine blade is really a little "wing" and behaves in a similar fashion.  Disrupt the inflowing air can cause it as well as damaged blades or stators.  A compressor stall can do massive damage - or none.  All depends.  Sounds like a gun shot or loud "bang".

... Cool! Great thread

... Still never ceases to amaze me that these things actually work and are fairly robust.

Depends on the engine and the maintenance requirements.
Most engines we used TURCO 6783-10 or MIL-C-85704B,Type I, II or III.

For the Navy there is a small compressed air water and gas path cleaner sprayer cart.
Some aircraft had specific nozzles and/or attachments, some just use the spray wand.

I watched an Old Time Navy Chief toss buckets of gas path/water mix down the intake of an A-7E with a TF41 engine at high power.
It kept right on running.

Some engines had procedures to use crushed walnut hulls as a cleaning media.

The J52 of the EA-6B had to be the worst engine if you did an engine wash.
The mechs would have to remove all of the bleed air lines and blow them out to get all of the water out. That could take longer than the engine wash.

Quoted: KA3B, I am curious - how often and what method to do compressor wash on big engines?  We have a built in wash nozzle in the particle separator.  I connect a -4 line to it and a Pepsi syrup tank of wash compound.  Add about 3psi air to the tank while cranking the engine.  Repeat with distilled water.  Motor until dry.  Reconnect bleed air lines, remove wood block from compressor bleed valve and start to fully dry things out.