The weather was fine, all the new mods were working and the low drag revisions gave a cruise at 80 MPH with plenty of throttle in hand Temperatures fine..
Then the engine went off song. One pot stopped working and the whole thing started to splutter. I flew it to here.

The longerons survived, A chunk was broken out of one but not sheared however the floor is a mess between the gear legs. The floor board is sheared as well. The carb was full of fuel so it looks like ignition was at fault.
Damn. It was beautifully set up and I had just managed to get it to start easily which had eluded me for years.
Me, I'm all right. Tough little buggers, MiniMaxes.

Glad you landed safely.At this point that is all that matters.Considering the rough terrain looks like a good landing.

Landing onto that? Well done mate.

And it still looks plane-shaped.

Expect that sort of hassle is what we all think about before shoving the throttle forward.

Congratulations Tom you did well to not  end up bottom side up. I hope that you are not discouraged too much. Try not to think of the incident to much cause it will drive you nuts. Look for tomorrow and not yesterday ( easy to say but harder to do ).The heather is in bloom; thanks for sharing and you have my every sympathy.

The floor is mahogany ply. I can get oukume. Will that do?

Oh man! Very sorry for the misshapen.
What a great job you did putting the plane on the ground with out flipping over.
It really bothers me why this thing happens? when everything was working just fine.
Questions is: was this incident avoidable?
Let’s wait until you disassemble that engine.
Best

Off-airport landings seldom end well. Looks like you did everything right to get her down and stopped with as little damage as possible. Glad you are OK. How do you extract your plane from such a landing?
Paul Fiebich

Nice job getting her down and glad you are o.k.

Tom you made a great landing in the sticks. The terrain reminds me of my last dead stick landing except I flipped over and didn’t come out as good as you did. I’m glad you are ok. Im very curious why you lost a cylinder. Time to start the repairs and get back in the air. Forced landings are not if but when, everyone need one under their belt.

Monte

Glad you made it out okay!  I'm very curious how you go about inspecting for damage and going about repairs.. Keep us posted!

Quoted from fiebichpv

Off-airport landings seldom end well. Looks like you did everything right to get her down and stopped with as little damage as possible. Glad you are OK. How do you extract your plane from such a landing?
Paul Fiebich

I am glad a fellow Buzzard made it safely.It could have been a lot worse.On a lighter note you can see the rescue on the Dailyecho.co.uk ( Plane makes emergency landing at Godshill in the new forest).

The first response crew had a pilot in it so that aircraft was treated with respect and so was I. Once the area had been made safe,  I took the wings off and the fire crews carried the bits a quarter of a mile to the car park. My great friend and instructor, Mark,  came to get me and took me to Old Sarum, where I fly a lot and the boss man there very graciously lent me a Trailer. A good pal came out to help me with the recovery and as we got there there was an old guy loading a big boat with pairs of assorted animals. We were under time pressure to get the trailer back so we had to work through the biblical rain. We were saturated! Plane was unloaded to the Hangar and we returned the trailer, gassed up my Friend's car, called Mark and met up at the George, where I bought well deserved beers.  The investigation into the engine failure will take place another day.

Good training saved my neck.  The man who taught me, taught me very well and, as you all know, RULE#1 applied improves ones chances.

Sorry to see your Max is a bit bent. But congrats on walking away from a landing on such poor terrain. That is my personal nightmare round here - plenty of flat fields, but mostly covered with boulders.  Great job to prevent a noseover.  Hope inspection & repairs go well, and you can source the engine malfunction.

Bruce

Glad you are OK.
What was the last thing you did to the engine to get it start easily?

Wingtips okay.  Prop okay.  Pilot okay.  I'd say that counts as a darn good landing.  Hope I never need to duplicate it!!

Both ailerons are down so you have flaps, that also helped the safe landing. Something to think about.

No, not exactly. The carb slide was too high in the body so I turned the throttle stop out to lower it which fixed the starting.
Those are disconnected flaperons. Flaps would most definitely not have worked. I wouldn't have had time. The final turn needed 70 MPH to ensure that I had speed for sixty degrees of bank if I needed it to turn into wind.
The first thing I did was to pull the nappy pins and release the ailerons and prepare the lower strut mount  bolts for removal. I disconnected the asi tube and was pulling the wing pins when HFRS arrived. Removing the wings not only made the aircraft easier to move but it discouraged rubberneckers and touchers meaning that I had less space to guard and fewer damfool questions to field from well meaning people getting in the way.  People want to youtube, collect souvenirs, get a selfie near a plane crash and so on.
A polite  "excuse me," whilst going about my business tends to give them the idea that it is none of theirs.
Harsh, perhaps but not a time to become distracted.

I can only imagine what it would be like in terms of bystanders..  I hope I never have to go through that!  I only have single ignition and now suddenly I am wary lol..

I DID ALMOST THE SAME THING MONDAY. IT ENDED UP ON IT'S BACK. SPENT THE NIGHT IN THE HOSPITAL WITH A SMALL BRAIN BLEED (CONCUSSION). I'M GOING TO BE OK. NOT SURE OF THE DAMAGE TO MY MAX, BECAUSE I COULDN'T EXAMINE IT MONDAY EVENING. I'LL FIND OUT TOMORROW. LANDING IN A FULL GROWN WHEAT FIELD WILL FLIP YOU EVERY TIME. ENGINE QUIT ON TAKEOFF. DON'T KNOW THE EXPLANATION YET. WIFE IS READY FOR ME TO HANG IT UP! IT WAS A CLUSTER ---K. THERE WERE SHERIFF, FIRE, AMBULANCE, AND MORE. ABOUT 15 IN ALL. SOMEONE ON THE INTERSTATE CALLED 911. IT GOT ON A COUPLE OF RADIO, AND TV NEWS SHOWS, AS WELL AS THE INTERNET. Tom, with all that scrub grass it looks like you were lucky that it didn't flip.

DANG. I am glad you are okay!

Don't stress. Recover and be well. Aircraft can wait. If you must land in scrub, land uphill.

A sad day.Two Minimaxes down.Un believable.Ace tomshep and now flight leader Greg Doe.

  Flight leader GD pray for your speedy and early recovery back to health.

  

I'm glad both pilots are fine. It really bothers that both incident were engine related mishap.

Greg i'm really sorry to hear about your rough forced landing. hope you and your family heal from this. ever since i flipped over on a forced landing in a area with high brush i have been concerned about the straight axle on the max. it's a good design for strength
without excess weight but act like a trip wire in certain situations.

monte

Quoted from ITman496

I hope I never have to go through that!  I only have single ignition and now suddenly I am wary lol..

I can assure you that if you fly two stroke engines it's very likely you will have an engine failure.  I've dealt with 8 or 9 over the last twenty years.  There is a lot of truth in the adage, "it's not if your engine will quit, it's when will it quit".  The first rule of flying behind a two stroke is to always have a suitable landing area within reach.

Rotax engines are pretty reliable, but they still recommend a complete rebuild every 300 hours.

Quoted from texasbuzzard

.... i have been concerned about the straight axle on the max. it's a good design for strength
without excess weight but act like a trip wire in certain situations.

So fair it!

That's what I did and what Tomshep's aircraft has.

A long time ago it was explained to me that a round axle tube will be grabbed and 'whip-wrapped' around by grasses and similar vegetation. It was said that if there is a horizontal aspect to the axle that effect is less likely. Added to that you get free drag reduction.

I fitted cut-up scrap Airwave Magic IV hang-glider uprights to fair the axles on two Minimaxs. Lightweight and strong enough to take on the plains' grasses. Not sure what Tom did.

Fitted a balsa fairing from side to side.

I'll probably add that fairing to my tubing as well.

As for the ignition:  Is it a completely unreasonable idea to drill and tap a new hole on each head (they are very thick, I don't think strength will be a worry) and add another set of spark plugs and tie another CDI coil pack onto the system?  I already have redundant fuel pumps.