Brake Failure!

Our first emergency n the RV10!  This weekend I flew the RV10 down and back to Portsmouth NH to pick up my daughter so she could spend a weekend at home without having to drive 4 hours each way.  The weather on Friday was clear but very high winds out of the west.  This made from the highest ground speeds we have ever seen, over 240 kts!.  But of course, the return trip was a bit slower😊.  The drop off trip on Sunday ended up being even more excited.  The winds had dropped but storms were moving in to the area with rain and ceiling in some areas down to 1500 feet.  Because of this we left a little early and were able to beat most to the weather for the flight to PSM. 

But while the winds had dropped, they were still from the south east meaning a long taxi in and then 2-mile taxi back to depart on runway 16 after dropping Margaret off at Port Air the FBO on the southern corner of this from SAC Base. 

While flying through the rain and picking my way through the clouds I noticed that the plastic lines on the co-pilots right brake were empty (clear).  This indicated to me that there was no brake fluid left in this side of the system.  I didn’t want test the brakes airborne in case I did have one application left – so I just left it and thought out a plan to land without brakes. 

The good part was that the winds were directly down runway 19 at FSO so cross wind wasn’t a concern.  I self-briefed the plan was for a min speed touch down at the approach end of the runway – brake check on the runway – then taxi clear of the runway using the rudder for a shut down on the ramp.

It actually went as briefed.  We touched down in the numbers – found we had no brakes, but were able to clear the runway using left rudder.  But once clear I found I couldn’t stop the turn and instead of adding power – which might have worked to put more wind across the tail – I chose to ground loop it and shut down in the grass.

While this did end up requiring a few hours of repair week to trouble shoot and replace the O-rings in the brake cylinders it was a great learning experience and ended well. If you haven’t already check out our YouTube Channel give it a look – I caught the whole incident on film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siuFPO1Vmo0